Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Mercedes and Audrey.
CHAPTER 27-LIES IN TRUTH
"One of us is going to have to start Faith," Wesley said softly with a concerned and nervous look on his face as he shifted a bit in bed and winced at the pain in his chest.
"Don't know what you're talking about, I'm five by five over here," Faith started to mumble back with a somber frown on her face before she went silent as Wesley laid a hand on her arm.
"We both said some things that we're not proud of," Wesley started to say with an anxious expression on his face before Faith pulled away and stared off into space before speaking.
"I don't know about you but I," Faith started to say softly with an almost arrogant tone to her voice before Wesley angrily pushed himself up to a seated position on the bed to argue with her but in doing so pulled out a few of his stitches. His yelp of pain immediately snapped Faith out of her attitude. "Wes," Faith exclaimed with a very worried and scared look on her face as she whipped her head back around towards Wesley and then vaulted out of her chair and up onto the bed until she was kneeling beside him.
"I…I'm…okay," Wesley tried to say out through the pain as he squinted his eyes tightly shut before Faith cut in.
"Fuck that," Faith snapped with an angry look of fear on her face as she cradled Wesley in her arms, even though she knew that he hated it when she treated him like he was breakable. "Let me help you," Faith said with a very determined look on her face as she got herself better situated on the bed and gently laid Wesley back down onto the bed.
"I think, I think I popped a few of the stitches," Wesley choked out through labored breaths, as each and every breath was terribly painful.
"Because of me, if I wasn't so," Faith started to grumble with a look of self-loathing on her face as she closed her eyes and dropped her head.
"Recriminations can wait Faith, neither one of us is blameless, for this argument…or the other one, what if we agree to never speak of it again," Wesley groaned out with a frustrated tone to his voice as he rolled his eyes and then focused his gaze on Faith's eyelashes, relishing in their beauty.
"What good would that do, even if we never say another word about it the fact still remains that all of those months ago I tortured you, it's like in my dream, you're forgiving me when I don't deserve it," Faith replied with an exasperated sigh as she finally pushed her eyes back open and then carefully laid down on the bed beside Wesley until she laid her head on the pillow beside his.
"What dream," Wesley asked with a confused look on his face as he turned his head to the side and looked Faith squarely in the face.
"Huh, it was nothing…forget about it," Faith started to say softly with a very nervous look on her face after having realized that she spoke of the dream.
"No Faith, it obviously affected you enough to mention it to me, and from the fact that you yourself are not still in a hospital bed," Wesley interjected with a very serious and slightly worried look on his face before Faith sighed.
"Okay fine, after the surgery I had this weird ass dream where I bumped into you at a bar, we had some drinks…talked…and then I beat the shit out of you," Faith answered with a very calm and easy going tone of voice and expression on her face at first before at the end she fixed her gaze on Wesley's chin and tried not to tear up.
"What…sorry, but I missed that last bit," Wesley asked with a concerned look on his face as he leaned his head in closer to Faith's until their foreheads were touching. She reluctantly looked up into his eyes.
"I beat the shit out of you, I smashed your face in with my fists, you were trying to tell me that I wasn't a monster, that there was still some good left in me but I didn't want to listen," Faith finally replied with a very guilty look of revulsion on her face, appearing to Wesley almost as if she were about to throw up.
"Alright, and how did this dream end," Wesley wondered softly with a supportive tone to his voice as he bent his left arm at the elbow and tickled the underside of Faith's chin with the tips of his fingers.
"Well I…," Faith started to reply with her usual self-assured tone of voice and smile on her face before she broke. "Okay I threw up until I was dry heaving…then I curled up into a little ball, and wished that I was dead, next thing I knew I'm awake and trying to get to you," Faith continued with a very somber frown on her face as she slowly slid her left hand under Wesley's shirt and began to gently run her hand up his stomach.
"I've heard of things such as this, it's rare…but it's been known to happen," Wesley said back with a thoughtful look on his face as his mind went to work trying to remember how many times he had heard of something like this happening.
"So you think I'm going crazy then," Faith remarked with a joking smile on her face though Wesley could see the look of fear in her eyes, almost as if she wasn't completely sure that she wasn't going crazy herself.
"No Faith, you're not going crazy…at least no more so than usual," Wesley quipped with at first a serious look on his face, as his fingertips crawled up her chin until they tapped on her lips and then tugged on her lower lip, before his calm exterior broke out into a relieved grin and he leaned in close for a kiss.
"Cool," Faith mumbled softly, almost in a whisper, before she quickly kissed Wesley's fingertips and then moved on to his lips.
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"You're not going to stake me are you," Mercedes asked with a concerned look on her face as she looked up from her bottle of pop and saw Willow looking straight at her. After the talk with Kate and Gwen and the others Mercedes had retreated to the first empty waiting room that she could find. She had hoped to be alone there, but Willow had other plans.
"It depends," Willow softly replied with a very serious look on her face as she stayed where she was and kept staring at Mercedes.
"On what," Mercedes said back with a confused and scared look on her face as she brought the bottle up to her lips and took a drink.
"On the answers that I get from you," Willow answered with a slightly less serious look on her face before she stepped fully inside the room and shut the door behind her.
"Okay shoot…figuratively speaking," Mercedes replied at first with an at ease smile on her face before she nearly choked on the pop when the idea struck her that Willow might do just that.
"I only have one question…why," Willow asked softly after pacing back and forth silently for several moments. Her voice was without malice or anger.
"Honestly…he told me to, The Immortal, until that day I could have cared less about her," Mercedes started to answer with a timid look in her eyes as she knew how powerful Willow was because of more than just the little altercation earlier in the day. "I was supposed to split the two of you up, why…I'm not really sure, I have some ideas but until Kristine's death it really didn't matter," Mercedes continued with a somber frown that turned into a pout as her shoulders slouched and she dropped her gaze down to the threads on the bottle of pop that she was holding. The muscles of Willow's jaw clenched tightly before she restored calm within herself and spoke.
"Do you," Willow started to say with an anxious and nervous feeling in her stomach as she turned to fully face Mercedes and do her best to keep her word and not stake her on sight.
"Love her…no, sure the sex is great but, it's not what the two of you had…have, before we came back here when she found me at Kristine's apartment I told Kennedy that she had to make a choice, if she wants to try and work things out with you that's fine with me, I'll hit the road and not look back just as soon as The Immortal is dead," Mercedes let slip out at first with a surprised look sent Willow's way before she dropped the look and grew much more serious, making sure to Willow that she knew that it was the truth, and no game.
"And if she wants to be with you," Willow asked with a terrified feeling in her stomach as her whole body tensed up at the thought of it.
"Then she'd better figure that out in a hurry, because after he's dead and I leave Rome she lost her chance, so it's really not up to me is it, it's up to her," Mercedes calmly replied with an almost bored shrug of her shoulders before she took another drink, swallowing loudly.
"But what about what you want, I don't believe that all you want is just to kill The Immortal," Willow shot back with an unconvinced scowl on her face as she took a step back into the shadows so that her expressions would remain hidden to Mercedes.
"You wanna know what I don't believe, I find it funny that even after you know how much of a bastard The Immortal is you still go back there and act like everything's hunky dory, he killed Kristine, he's the one that kidnapped and then tortured Wesley and Faith, he doesn't love Buffy…he never did, I don't think he's capable of loving anything or anyone…other than himself," Mercedes snapped back with a tone of voice that seemed to suggest that Mercedes was not going to allow herself to be talked down to and be the only one feeling scared and nervous in the conversation.
"You may be right, but if we reveal what we know then he's likely to hurt someone…badly, is that what you want," Willow said back with a confidant look on her face before her tone grew more skeptical.
"You've asked me that twice now, all I want is to kill The Immortal and then split town, where I go after here is completely open to suggestion," Mercedes groaned back with a bored and frustrated scowl on her face as she rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"What about your soul, if you get that back everything will change, it changes you…trust me, I've seen it twice, Spike and Angel nearly couldn't handle it, what makes you so sure that it won't destroy you," Willow wondered with an accurate look of concern on her face as she posed a question that Mercedes really hadn't thought about much. She wasn't completely sure what she expected to happen afterwards if she were to regain her soul. She had heard stories of what happened to a vampire after they got their soul back but since it had only happened twice she hadn't really been sure who to believe.
"Well I…hadn't really thought about it, I've heard so many different stories about what it's like that I don't know what to believe," Mercedes answered softly with a dumb blonde look on her face as she tried not to let it show how short sighted her thoughts had been.
"Then shut up and listen, because I'm only going to tell you this once," Willow said with an awkward sigh, as if to say that she didn't know why she was doing this but something inside of her was saying that it was the right thing to do. All of that before she sat down in the chair straight across from Mercedes and began to tell her everything that she knew about what happened to Angel and Spike after their souls were returned to them.
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"So what now oh glorious leader," Spike asked with a mocking smirk on his face as he turned away from half listening to Willow and Mercedes' conversation to look past Connor and at his grandsire.
"Stop calling me that," Angel snapped with an upset pout on his face as he angrily ran his hands through his hair and then turned away, receiving a concerned look from Nina.
"What else am I supposed to call you, Peaches," Spike quipped back with a less than enthusiastic frown on his face as the tension of the moment was beginning to get to him.
"I'm staying here, I'm not going back to the hotel," Dawn suddenly announced with a very calm and serious look on her face as she sat up in her seat beside Connor on the small couch in the lobby before both Angel and Spike focused their gazes on her.
"What do you mean, you have to go back, you can't stay here, it's not safe," Kate asked with a pointed look of disbelief on her face as she pushed off of the wall and stepped up beside Angel.
"I can't do it, I can't go back there and continue to lie through my teeth to everyone and say that I don't have a clue where Angel is or what he's doing, I won't lie to Buffy anymore, she deserves to know who The Immortal really is, she's not in love with him…she's in love with you," Dawn answered softly with a very serious and thought out edge to her voice as she slowly looked around at every starting with Angel and ending up with Spike, making sure that he was looking at no one but her when she finished speaking.
"From your mouth to," Spike started to mumble out very softly with a suddenly very depressed and somber pout on his face before Gwen butted in.
"Look girlie, I really don't care if you stay or not, but the truth is that this Immortal guy has found you twice and he's almost killed a couple of you, I have a few penthouses scattered around Rome that would at least provide a bit of safety, besides which that they all have a private security force that answers only to me," Gwen interjected with a very frustrated and bored scowl on her face as she leaned up against Angel just right enough that Nina looked ready to slap her silly before Angel shrugged Gwen off and began pacing around the room.
"That could work, but Wesley will probably still need some help getting around," Angel started to say with a very deep in thought look on his face before he was interrupted from the doorway.
"Got it covered Angel," Faith interjected from the door with her arms crossed as she slowly set foot inside the room, looking a bit ragged.
"Are you sure," Kate asked with a concerned and not completely agreeable look on her face as she looked over at Faith.
"I can have one of the nurses tell me everything that I'll need to know, so far all they've done is fix his stitches and give him some medicine, I'm not a doctor but even I can do that," Faith replied with a very serious and determined look on her face as she glared sharply back at Kate, before looking over towards Angel. The room stayed silent for a few moments before Gwen shrugged her shoulders.
"Looks like Wesley's covered, so…what do you think," Gwen asked with a bored smirk on her face as she turned back to Angel, ignoring the glare that Nina was sending her way.
"Seems okay to me," Spike offered with a relaxed shrug of his shoulders as he met Angel's gaze before sitting up fully in his seat and looking over at Dawn.
"I don't know, it all sounds kind of," Dawn started to say with a concerned look on her face as she looked to Spike before she was interrupted by Gwen.
"It has a hot tub the size of a Volvo in every suite, big screen televisions as well," Gwen stated with a sly smirk on her face as she looked down at Dawn and slid a hand into her pocket to pull out her cell phone.
"Cool…let's go," Dawn announced with a tired but eager smile on her face as she started to get up out of her seat but stopped halfway up when Angel spoke.
"No one's going anywhere until I say so, we've already tried the safe house route and look where it got us, right back in the hospital with Wesley and Faith being lucky to be alive, we might not be so lucky next time," Angel interjected with a very stern and grim scowl on his face as he turned back around to face everyone.
"What if we divided our forces," Groo asked with a curious look on his face as his mind was already strategizing out possible attack patterns.
"Division of power is not a wise strategy, we would be severely weakened," Illyria stated with an almost bored look on her face as if she found the whole idea of deciding what to do tedious.
"Thank you Illyria…do I even want to know where you've been all this time," Angel replied with a somber look of exhaustion on his face as he let out a sigh and wiped a hand over his face in frustration.
"I was experiencing humanity, you are very weak," Illyria answered with a less than pleased pout on her face before she noticed that everyone was in the room and not guarding Wesley and Faith's room and silently left to fill that duty.
"Are you sure that it's safe to let her guard the door, I kept quiet about it earlier but," Kate started to softly whisper to Angel as she walked up beside him and leaned in close so that he would be the only one that would hear her.
"I may not like it but Wesley and Faith are safest with her protecting the door, she would have to cease to be before she'd let anyone hurt them," Angel whispered back softly under his breath before Gwen whirled back around on him and stared straight through him.
"Well…we don't have much time, if we're going to do this then we'd better do it now before word gets out that you're here, once that happens The Immortal and his men will be here quickly and this whole save the world mission that you're on will all blow up in your face," Gwen stated with a very clear and serious look on her face as she kept staring straight ahead at Angel before she finished and checked her watch.
"It would be better than slumming around in rundown homes and warehouses," Spike said with a somberly hopeful expression on his face as he bumped elbows with Dawn and then looked up to Angel.
"Groo and I could draw his men out into a fight, we wouldn't have to do very much," Connor offered with an interested smirk on his face as he and Groo made a short bit of eye contact and the Pylean seemed interested in the idea as well.
"What good would that do," Nina asked with a confused and unsure look on her face as she sat up in her seat and turned to Connor.
"Give us the time that we'd need to move everyone to Gwen's suite's," Angel answered with a very deep in thought look on his face as he started to pace along the far wall of the room.
"Though it would also show our hand, they'd know that we had some help, it might be smarter to let someone else do it, like Blue, at least they know about her, if we're lucky she might even draw Buffy and the council into the fray, keep them busy," Spike replied with a calm and relaxed body posture as he slowly stood up and gestured back towards where Illyria had left the room.
"I think it's a good bet that they already know that we're here, if the Immortal and his men do then it's a good bet that Wolfram and Hart does as well," Nina said with a very concerned look on her face as she stood up and walked over to Angel, finally laying a hand on his arm and getting him to stop pacing and look at her.
"We're going, Spike…go get Willow and Mercedes while I get them to release Wesley and Faith," Angel started to say with a very commanding tone to his voice as he looped an arm around Nina and drew her close.
"Good, I'll make all the arrangement, I hope you like riding in a limo," Gwen replied with a pleased expression on her face as she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and started to dial.
"Better tell them to find a shady spot to pick us up in, we have three vamps that need their shade, and we can't do this fast, I won't rush Wesley," Faith said to Gwen with a very clear and serious look on her face as she walked up and leaned forward on the back of the couch with her hands supporting her up so that she could stay on Gwen's eye level.
"Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot, I'm a thief…secrecy is my forte," Gwen snapped back with an impatient frown on her face before she glared at Faith and turned away, already making the plans.
END OF CHAPTER 27
Author's Notes: The talk between Willow and Mercedes was needed to me as Willow needed to know a few things about why Kennedy would cheat on her, and why with Mercedes. Kind of a confronting the other woman moment. Willow still isn't completely comfortable around Mercedes or Illyria, though she knows what's important and is doing her best to put the mission ahead of her own feelings. Mercedes didn't know the exact details of what had happened to Angel and Spike. She knew that they had their souls but that's about it. I could see the demon community being rife with stories of how it happened, some honest ones and others being as far fetched as a story can get, with many of them being outright lies. So Mercedes wouldn't know who to believe. Wesley and Faith had to have a talk about the fight that ended up putting them both in the hospital. I tried to keep Faith a bit distant as she truly wanted to make up with Wesley but her fears started to creep in. Then he pushed himself to hard and she kicked herself for causing him to and got all protective of him. Basically I'm trying to show that Faith is changing and growing up, being able to put someone else's needs ahead of her own. Sure Wesley was surprised by her story about the dream but I could see the dream thing happening before, not to often but the Buffy and Angel universe is strange enough that it's possible to have happened, and if it had then chances are Wesley would have read about it somewhere. The last part is Gwen trying to get Angel to bring everyone to her group of apartments that she uses when she's in Rome. It takes some persistence on her part but in the end Angel agrees because he really doesn't have another choice, Wesley needs the time and safety to heal up and he needs time to regroup and plan ahead. Though Buffy and the council and all weren't in this chapter much at all they'll be back next chapter, maybe even with a little bit of romance, though not from the Immortal as the sooner I can kill him off the better, though knowing him he probably won't go down alone. So in closing I'm open to thoughts from readers and reviewers alike, anything that you'd like to see, character pairings. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing.