Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Audrey.
CHAPTER 2-A FEW QUESTIONS AND FEWER ANSWERS
Immediately upon opening her eyes she knew that she was no longer detained. She found herself lying on a comfortable couch with a warm blanket wrapped tightly around her. The first scent that she caught was an overwhelming stench of alcohol. Normally she wouldn't have a problem with this but the fact that she hadn't actually drank any of the beer herself and that her stomach was still a little off made the scent not to inviting. Licking her lips she pushed herself up to get a good look at her surroundings. She was surprised and secretly a bit relieved to see Wesley passed out in a nearby chair, looking like he was in the middle of a nightmare. She still wasn't completely convinced that the events of the previous night had truly transpired as she had remembered them and so she slowly and carefully crept over to him and very carefully tapped him on the knee. When her hand didn't immediately pass through him but instead hit solid flesh and bone she let out a breath that she had been holding the entire way. She was about to shake him away when he repositioned himself and his shirt fell open. Her eyes started off on their own, drinking in the sights, before she managed to regain control.
When she did she was about to look away when she noticed two scars that she hadn't remembered giving him during her night of torturing him. The scars looked to have been big enough deals that she would have thought that he would have told her about them when he broke her out of prison, but he had remained silent about them and now Faith was left to wonder why. She recognized one of them instantly; she'd seen enough bullet scars during her time to figure out that Wesley had been shot some time ago. In the back of her mind a fear emerged in wondering how close he had come to death, robbing her of the chance to do something that she never thought that she'd ever do to him, apologize. The other scar however sent a cold shiver down her spine. She had a very similar one herself, right in the place that Buffy had stabbed her. Almost instinctively she touched the spot of her similar scar as if an attempt to calm herself down and quell the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Immediately she wondered who had stabbed him and why, and had he really been dead or had the newspaper been wrong. She started to inch closer to him before she noticed a well-hidden scar on his neck. Her heart very nearly dropped into her stomach at the sight of it. With a shaking hand she lightly traced the length of it with her finger before she felt her eyes water up. Moments later the after effects of all of the drugs that she had been on caught up with her and she rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and only barely managing to lift the lid before it all came out. She wretched for what felt like an eternity before her stomach finally quieted down. Even though she was in southern California the floor was cold enough for Faith to get the chills and for her teeth to come close to chattering.
"You finished," Wesley asked softly from the doorway with an almost dead look on his face as he stood there, making no motion to either fully enter or fully exit the room.
"I think so," Faith mumbled back with a slightly sickly feeling in her stomach before Wesley stepped forward and offered her a hand up. She cast a quick look into his eyes before reaching out and accepting his hand.
"Good, because we have a lot of work to do and I can't find them without your help," Wesley replied with a genuinely relieved half smile on his face as he directed her out of the bathroom and back into the main room of Wesley's apartment.
"What work…find who," Faith mumbled out softly with a confused look on her face as she allowed Wesley to sit her down on the couch before he walked over to his wet bar.
"Angel, Spike, and Nina, they survived the fight in the alley and are now hiding out from Wolfram and Hart and the Senior Partners, it won't be easy but we have to find them before anyone else does, otherwise nothing that we do will matter, want a drink," Wesley replied with a calm expression on his face as he opened up the doors and took out a flask of brandy.
"Spike…thought he was dead, never heard of the girl," Faith said back with a contemplative look on her face as she turned in her seat and looked back at Wesley.
"He was, for a few weeks at least, but then he showed up in Angel's office, his essence came out of the amulet that Angel gave to Buffy, Spike was for lack of a better word a ghost for several weeks before he mysteriously was reconstituted into flesh and bone, after that he came on board and worked with us until the night that we tried to defy the Senior Partners, they didn't take it very well I'm afraid…Nina is Angel's girlfriend, though I would advise you to be cautious, she's a werewolf, Angel couldn't save her in time," Wesley answered with a matter of fact look on his face and a tone of voice that was one that one would usually use to denote boredom.
"Can't anyone stay dead anymore, first B dies and comes back and now Spike…gotta get on their health plan," Faith mumbled back with a deep in thought frown on her face as she shook her head and turned back around to face the television.
"Trust me when I say that you'd rather stay alive and not go through the process, from the way that Spike so eloquently described it there was an insane amount of pain involved, and coming back can be quite disorienting, but that's a talk for another time, how do you feel," Wesley said with a crooked grin on his face as he filled two glasses and then walked back over towards the couch.
"Five by five…more or less," Faith replied with a weak smile of confidence on her face before her stomach made a noise and she shifted in her seat a bit to try and cover up the noise.
"Well perhaps this will help to settle your stomach a little," Wesley said with a slight smirk on his face as he handed Faith one of the glasses.
"Thanks, look thanks for springing me and all…again, but the newspaper said that you and the others died, you telling me that they got it wrong or are you some kind of," Faith started to say with a confused and unsure look on her face before Wesley looked up from his glass and stopped her.
"The newspaper wasn't wrong Faith, I did die, though being dead didn't last as long as I had expected," Wesley replied with a calm and quiet tone to his voice as he looked straight at Faith while speaking before he took a big sip of his drink. Faith went rigid at his words, stopping the glass halfway in between her lap and her mouth as she snapped her head around to look straight at him, eyes wide. "My mission was to kill a very powerful warlock on that night, I almost succeeded, but in the end he got the better of me and stabbed me in almost the same place that Buffy stabbed you back in Sunnydale, needless to say I didn't last very long after that," Wesley explained with a serious and somewhat sad look on his face as he recounted his own death, trying not to leave anything out and pausing every so often to make sure that Faith got it all.
"What's it like…dying, I've come close but," Faith asked with a genuinely scared look in her eyes as she looked over at Wesley.
"Surprisingly it's not that bad, the worst part of it was that I failed to accomplish my mission, I didn't kill Vail, thankfully though Illyria took care of that problem," Wesley replied softly as he couldn't look at Faith as he felt his emotions welling up within him and his eyes threatened to tear up.
"Who's Illyria," Faith asked with a confused look on her face, as she seemed to have regained some of her fire and energy.
"That is a long story, one that is better left for another," Wesley started to reply with a hesitant and distant look on his face before Faith surprised even herself by leaning forward and laying one of her small hands on the back of one of his larges ones, her eyes silently begging him to go on and tell the story. He tried to stand firm for several moments but in the end she won out.
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"Thought you weren't well enough to be up and around, been playing possum have you, nurse Nina is not going to be happy with you, no…not at all," Spike quipped with a sly grin on his face as he stayed staring out at the night sky while sitting on the edge of the rooftop.
"I might look like shit but that doesn't mean that I have to stay glued to the couch," Angel said back with a sarcastic grin on his face as he slowly and carefully walked the rest of the way and leaned forward onto the built up edge of the building.
"True, you never were one to do what you were told, always having to go off on your own," Spike joked back with an amused smirk on his face as he half turned his head back towards Angel.
"Look who's talking, you've never done a single thing that I ever told you to do, guess we're more alike than…nah," Angel started to verbally jab back with a sly grin on his face before Spike furrowed his brows like he always did when someone said something that both surprised him and made him think that they had gone starkers all at the exact same time, and the two spoke the last word in perfect harmony.
"You know what I think it is, honestly, you're a bad influence on me," Spike shot back with his best scholarly and matter of fact look on his face as he turned back around to stare out at the night sky before the strong scent of liquor came to his attention.
"You have no idea," Another voice said with a thickly sarcastic tone to it as Spike and Angel whirled around to see Wesley and Faith standing several feet away, both looking a little worse for wear but all in all not to bad.
"Wes," Angel whispered out under his breath with a total look of disbelief on his face as Wesley and Faith began to walk towards him. Faith felt a little left out when Angel's eyes never left Wesley but in that moment she guessed that Angel didn't know that he was back either.
"You're looking…like a bloody travesty," Wesley said with a slightly smug grin on his face before Angel did something that certainly surprised Faith. Looking as if he were about to tear up Angel pushed aside the pain that his various injuries were causing him and pulled Wesley into an almost to tight bear hug, with Wesley cautiously returning the gesture.
"Quite the Kodak moment isn't it," Spike joked with an impish grin on his face as he slid off of the edge of the building and walked past Wesley and Angel until he stood beside Faith, doing his best to hide how happy he was to see Wesley.
"Thought you were dead, B," Faith started to say with a surprised and confused look on her face as she turned away from Wesley and Angel and to Spike before he replied.
"The in flight movie sucked so I had them push my flight to hell back a little while, and Buffy's got her own worries to contend with without me buggering things up, besides she's got her new beau to keep her company, I'd just be getting in the way," Spike interjected with an unhappy and nervous look on his face as he lowered his head a bit and then awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.
"If you believe that then," Faith started to say with a very sarcastic, and even slightly angry, expression on her face before Wesley and Angel ended the hug and turned to face them.
"Spike, good to see that you made it through," Wesley said with a relieved look on his face as he slowly extended his hand towards Spike.
"How is this possible," Angel asked with an overwhelmed and confused expression on his face as he turned away from Wesley and towards Faith before he did the unexpected and pulled her into a tight bear hug, one that she wasn't ready for but didn't fight.
"Fred and Cordelia, they brought me back," Wesley answered with an eerily calm tone to his voice as he slid his hands into his pockets and tried to not get emotional.
"They were here, where are they," Angel asked with a stunned look on his face as he let go of Faith and turned back around to face Wesley.
"I'm afraid that they're gone Angel, they brought me back and gave me a task to complete, then they vanished, I don't know when or if they'll ever come back," Wesley replied with a somber frown on his face as he turned and walked over to the edge of the building, sadly staring out into the night sky as the wind picked up a bit.
"Still doesn't explain how you knew where I was and why you rescued me," Faith wondered with a confused and uneasy look on her face as she felt a pang of sympathy for her old watcher.
"They told me where you were and that I needed to free you, they didn't tell me everything but whatever is going to happen you're going to play a big part in it Faith, all I'm supposed to do is keep you alive, as far as I know anyway," Wesley said back with an uncertain look on his face as he turned and looked back at Faith, the two silently sharing a concerned look.
"This is all well and dandy folks but I'm still not seeing the big picture here, you free her…yay for our side, but what now," Spike interjected with a sobering expression on his face as he stepped in between Faith and Wesley and looked at them each in turn.
"I'm not sure, the only clue that Fred gave me was that we would find our enemy in Europe somewhere, whoever or whatever it is it is supposed to present itself to us at the right time, until then I believe that all we can do is go there and wait," Wesley said with an unsure frown on his face as he shrugged his shoulders and then turned back to look out over the city.
"Buffy's in Europe, you don't think," Angel said softly with a confused tone to his voice before he turned and looked over at Spike.
"It's possible, she did turn her back on you just when you needed her the most, could have been a sign of things to come," Spike reluctantly said with a nervous and unhappy look on his face as he took in and then let out a useless breath.
"She turned her back on all of us Spike, not just me," Angel said with a sad and bitter look on his face as he turned away from the small group and slowly walked back to the edge of the building to stand beside Wesley.
"She didn't know Angel, she couldn't have…if she had known what was really going on B would have been right there at your side, fighting the good fight," Faith interjected with a nervous and unsure look on her face as she said the first thing that came to her mind.
"But that's just it Faith, she didn't trust me, after everything that we've been through she didn't trust me…she let Giles and her own fears about us taking over Wolfram and Hart sway her judgment to the point where she didn't even have the decency to send someone to check out what was really going on, she's given up on us…so why shouldn't we do the same to her, with this new threat that Wesley's describing I'll be damned if I go running to her with my tail between my legs asking for help, she had her chance, she had it and she wasted it, we're on our own here folks, better get used to it," Angel shot back with a very firm but calm tone to his voice as he clenched his fists so tightly that his already white skin became almost transparent. After he stopped talking an eerie silence filled the rooftop as each of them took it all in.
"I'm with you Angel, Lord knows I've got nothin else better to do, and who knows maybe we'll get a chance to pay ole Rupert a little visit," Spike said with a curious smile on his face as he nodded his head while looking over at Angel.
"Count me in to, I was brought back for a reason and I'm going to see it through, you're the leader Angel, I will follow you," Wesley added with a sincere and almost honored look on his face as he pulled his hands back out of his pockets and turned to Angel.
"Thanks, Nina's a given…so that just leaves you Faith, whose side are you on in this," Angel replied with a slightly relieved look on his face before he, Spike, and Wesley turned to face Faith, with almost accusing looks on their faces.
"You're joking right, what do you mean whose side am I on, I'm with you," Faith said back with a defiant and somewhat angry scowl on her face as she stepped forward and looked straight at Angel.
"Are you sure, can you honestly swear to me that you're not just going to tell Buffy and Giles about all of this once we get back to Europe, that you'd help us however and whenever you could, even if it meant betraying Buffy and the others," Angel asked with a very serious and questioning look on his face as he took a step forward ahead of Spike and Wesley.
"Buffy didn't want me in Sunnydale to help fight the First, I fell into her lap after Wesley got me out of prison, he cared enough to get me to stop you when no one else did, you helped me turn the corner and salvage what's left of my life, and now Wes has rescued me again I'm not going to betray him…or you, by telling B anything, whatever you need me to do I'll do it, just say the word," Faith replied with a very firm and clear tone to her voice though as she was speaking the parts about Wesley Spike and Angel glanced briefly at each other as they sensed an underlying feeling in her words that surprised them.
"Okay then, we leave for Europe as soon as possible, and heaven help anyone that gets in our way," Angel said with a very determined look on his face before he adjusted his coat and walked down off of the roof in search of Nina.
END OF CHAPTER 2