Chapter 25

"I have no desire to deal with today." Buffy downed another little bottle of OJ, trying to fight off her hangover. Perhaps the fifth miniature bottle of wine had been ill-advised.

William snorted. "Right there with you, luv. I could have lived another five, ten years not knowing Dawn'd had sex, let alone everything else."

Buffy groaned. "I was a lot more okay with it when she was eighteen, let me tell you." She tossed the empty OJ bottle into the nearly overflowing trash can, and shook her head. "I still don't get why we have two sets of memories, though. Or why Dawn thought getting her boyfriend to try to mystically de-age her was in any way a good idea. And if reality shifted to accommodate the changes to Dawn, why was Marco not effected at all? He still clearly remembers the 'Dawn was eighteen' timeline, full stop."

"I suppose because he did the mojo that altered reality, it protected him from the changes?" Will found himself skeptical of that theory, but he didn't have a better one. "Or that wanker's so old and separate from humanity that he didn't register as part of reality when things shifted?"

She threw out a half-hearted slap at the back of his head and grabbed her bag. "Okay, I think I have everything."

"Take the phone charger and your toothbrush, just in case. If you have another crazy day in Bath you may just want to stay with Rupes instead of coming back here tonight." William hated to suggest her sleeping somewhere else, but he also wanted to do what was best for her, and making sure she was safe and got plenty of rest was part of that.

Buffy snorted, but grabbed the charger. "Right, because I'll sleep there. I'll be too worried about what you're dealing with if I can't be here and see you."

He chuckled. "You can call me if you need to. Wanna take a binder an' keep furniture shopping?"

"I'd love to, but I don't think I'll have any time. Anyway I'd rather go over it with you and ask questions about stuff, make sure I don't decide I desperately love some table that you have bad memories of or something."

"I can't imagine what kind of bad memories you'd have about a table."

"I don't know, maybe it was in the library when you were studying for a class you failed, or it belonged to some relative you didn't get along with, or your governess used to bend you over it to spank you."

William smiled at her. "Never let anyone tell you you're not smart and creative."

Buffy rolled her eyes, but leaned over to kiss him anyway. "I'm sure I'll hear worse than that today, but I promised I'll try not to let it effect me."

There was a loud knock on the door, and Buffy straightened, going over to open it. Tommy, Penny and Amber waited on the other side.

"Hey, the gang's all here!" Will joked as they entered, then he frowned. "Wait, not all the gang. Where's Andrew?"

Amber rolled her eyes. "Not back yet. Instead of waking up early enough to come here, he called Penny this morning and asked her to meet at the Research Library. Which is damn annoying, since I still have the IT equipment in the van. Now, instead of Andrew taking the stuff from here, I have to drop all you lot and the computers before Buffy and I leave for Bath. So, get a move-on, I don't wanna get stuck in traffic on the A4 getting out of the city."

Buffy sighed and headed out the door, then doubled back towards the bathroom to get the toothbrush after all. "Just please tell me that before we go too far we're gonna be able to grab some type of very large take-out coffees and breakfast sandwiches. I'd kill for a McMuffin or two right now."

Wesley was hardly surprised that Tom was the one who'd been sent to meet him at Heathrow. While Penny and Spike had both texted during the nearly 28 hours it had taken him to arrive in London, all he'd really been told was to expect an airport pickup from someone he'd recognize as connected to Buffy, and if he was approached by a random Watcher to assume they were hostile. Tom being there to pick him up likely meant everyone else was wrapped up in Council business, and William's business didn't require his attention at the moment. Although, was Spike actually helping with Council business?

"So, how is everything going with the Council?" Wesley asked once they were in a limo headed for his parents' house.

Tommy shook his head. "I know they're fairly sure they've caught all of the chief conspirators. In addition to your mother they've also looked into the spouses of all the other leaders. It looks like they can only prove two were involved. As for other family members…"

"How many conspirators all together?" Wesley didn't really want to know if his mother was one of them. He supposed he'd know soon enough.

"Seventeen Watchers were behind the New Executive Committee…"

"Huh, perhaps unsurprisingly, that is the same number of Watchers who served on the old Executive Committee."

Tommy shrugged, because he didn't know and didn't really care, he just wanted to finish delivering the information he did have. "So, that's not including the two spouses I mentioned, and a few others who knew what was going on but aren't Council."

"And their children?"

"None involved, it turns out." Tommy chuckled. "A few nieces and nephews, and at least one guy who joined in because he had a bad relationship with his father and wanted to piss off the old man." Tommy's smile faded. "It didn't hurt that he hates both Buffy and Will."

Wesley considered that. "Other than my father, I can't think of anyone with strong feelings about Spike left alive at this point."

"His name's Duncan Travers."

"Oh, shit." Wes blanched, then shook his head. "That explains it, then. I'd almost forgotten that Duncan blamed Spike for Lark's death."

"Yeah, Penny said something like that, too, but I didn't get a real explanation. Can you explain to me why this guy blamed William for his sister's death, when it sounds like he actively refused to kill her?"

"Alright, well I assume you know that William the Bloody was called 'The Slayer of Slayers', right?"

Tommy snorted. "I'm not ignorant. I went along with my dad to clean up a crime scene once when I was in high school. Spike and Dru killed an entire family. Even the dog. I'm friends with him now, but trust me, I'm fully aware of who he used to be."

Wesley let that sink in for a minute, not really sure what to say. It's not like he hadn't heard his father's story about the orphanage more than once when he was young. Finally he decided to just continue his explanation. "The two Slayers Spike killed were at the top of their games. They were both considered to be exceptionally skilled. But he also fought other Slayers. Not just Buffy and Faith, either. As far as I know there were two he fought once and let go because they weren't skilled enough. Evidently he felt having a poor-quality opponent would detract from his reputation.

"Lark Travers was one of the ones he rejected. Jezebel was there that night, along with some other classmates of ours at the academy. They were supposed to be chaperoning Lark to a club for a night of dancing, and backing her up if she encountered any vampires. Lark had only been the Slayer for a few months. Evidently Spike fought her for five minutes in the alley outside the club, told her she wasn't good enough to bother with, and left. Lark was demoralized; she considered it a huge embarrassment. Duncan always thought she only lived another four months because he broke her confidence."

"Well, shit." Tommy shook his head. "If anyone treated my sister like that…I mean, yay she isn't dead, but telling her she's not good enough to bother fighting…" He trailed off, not knowing what to say. His relationship with his older sister had gotten tense since the mass calling of the Slayers.

"So, how are things going with Spike? With the estate and ID and everything. I assume you know more about that than what's going on with the Council." Wesley grabbed for the obvious subject change to dispel the lingering quiet.

Tommy blinked back into the conversation, putting darker thoughts out of his mind. "Ironically, the destruction of Sunnydale has made the whole thing easier. The US government made some kind of allowances for Sunnydale refugees to fill in the gaps from lost paperwork and destroyed servers. So, they let him on the plane out of the US without a passport based on him claiming to be a British citizen needing to go home and get a replacement for his lost documentation. I think the wheelchair helped sell the delay in leaving. Here in England, Willow magick-ed him a birth certificate, and with his Sunnydale ID and agreement from the US government; bam! We got the Passport office to put it down as a lost document and make him a new one. He should be able to pick it up early next week, since it was put through on an emergency basis."

"Huh. How did Willow conjure the birth certificate and get it into the records? I suppose we'll need to do something similar for Angel…Liam." Wesley colored, frustrated and somewhat embarrassed that he wasn't adjusting to the new name well.

Tommy shrugged. "You know I don't know how all the magic stuff works. From what I do understand it was half magic and half hacking, but I couldn't tell you what was what. I do know now that if you have a physical Sunnydale license, or some other proof that you lived in Sunnydale at the time it caved in and can pass a driver's test, the state of California will just give you a new license. I guess whatever server in Sunnydale had the license records took them all out of the statewide system when it was destroyed. Willow thinks it was set up so they could give demons ID and not have someone in Sacramento realizing there was anything off."

"Really?" Wesley murmured, still baffled after all these years at the way the Hellmouth had been run.

"Yeah, so now that the identity and passport is dealt with, we're working on the physical property in storage. Will's having some things shipped to LA, and I have an auction house to put the rest up for sale. The storage facility here had an item catalogue, so he got pictures of everything to look through. There are other storage units in other cities, though, and most of those I don't have inventories for, let alone catalogue books. One is in Spain, which we can visit while we're helping Buffy with her father's situation, but that's gonna be a huge pain since it's in a different part of the country and like I said, no inventory. I may hire someone to go ahead of us and start taking stock, to save some time. There's also a storage unit in Russia, the best bet there may be to send someone to empty it and ship everything to London, then come back and go through it on another trip. We still need to figure out how to get William a visa to get him back into the US, but that can come once the Council is straightened out."

Tommy sighed, sounding tired. "I'd say we should send Liam to Ireland with Willow to get his paperwork sorted, but since he hasn't committed to working with the Council or doing anything else, I don't know how easy it would be to get him back to LA or wherever else he may want to go. I have to think about how to deal with his situation some more."

"Sending him to Ireland may not be a bad idea." Wesley murmured thoughtfully. "Did we tell you he's being sued?"

"Jezzie told Penny, who told me. I don't know if anyone told Buffy and Will, I certainly didn't. And, if he moves to Ireland it won't necessarily stop him from being sued."

"No, but it increases the cost of bringing him to trial in Los Angeles, and if the goal of the legal case is to get him out of a position of power in LA, maybe having him move away will be enough to make it not worthwhile for them to pursue the case." Wesley shook his head. "That's assuming, of course, that the case is being driven by some supernatural ally of Wolfram & Hart's, rather than some less-than-savory but somewhat clueless businesses who got caught up with the firm unwittingly."

"Does Wolfram & Hart technically exist anymore?" Tommy'd never gotten the chance to ask anyone. The news media said the partners had elected to dissolve the firm due to a conflict between management, but of course he knew the Senior Partners had been supernatural and were banished from the dimension. He just didn't know what any of that meant to their employees or corporate property.

"No, they don't. There are some subsidiaries that hold property, like the land the LA building was on. There are still some bank accounts in the name of shell companies that hold cash for payroll and pension funds. Lorne and I are still drawing salaries, somehow, even though Gunn and An…Liam aren't. I assume Fred is still getting paid, since she was never declared dead. I don't know what Illyria will make of that, if anything…"

"Who's Fred? I met Illyria, but I don't get the connection."

Wesley took a deep breath, not wanting to talk about it, but unable not to respond. "Did anyone explain to you who or what Illyria is? I told Penny the whole story."

Tommy sighed. "Penny was weird about Illyria, she didn't really want to be around her, and all she'd say was that she was a demon in a human shell and it gave her the creeps. Then again, she was oddly happy when Elise insisted on bringing Illyria to Rio with her."

"Fred…Winifred Burkle…Was the human who became Illyria's shell."

"You knew her?"

Wesley couldn't bring himself to say 'I was in love with her', because that was never going to stop hurting his heart. What he said was, "Yes, she worked with us at Angel Investigations, and went to Wolfram & Hart with the team. And it killed her. Illyria looks somewhat like her, but her soul…Most of what made her Fred is just gone." He could hear himself choking up, and faked a cough.

"Shit." Tom winced. "I'm so sorry. You guys had one hell of a year, didn't you?"

"It was actually two of them back to back." Wesley chuckled dryly, trying to relax his tight throat. "Although, the prior few years weren't great for me, either."

Tommy reached across the car and grabbed Wes' shoulder with a squeeze. This old friend of his fiancee's, who he'd only met once before this April, was a man Tom had come to admire and want to be friends with himself. He really hated to see Wes so upset and beaten down. He didn't know whether Wes was in denial about his feelings, or he just didn't want to expose his emotions to someone he really barely knew, but Tom could sense that Wes' feelings for Fred were deeper than those for a coworker, or even a friend.

They lapsed into silence, and before long the drive ended, and they pulled up in front of the Wyndam-Pryce family townhouse in Westminster. They sat in silence for another moment, before Wesley finally unbuckled his seatbelt. "Alright." He took a deep breath, then let it out. "I'll go in on my own first, if you don't mind. My mother's a skilled practitioner of magic. I can defend myself if there's a need, but I don't want to have to worry about you. If I'm not out in ten minutes, go get Penny and tell her what happened, don't come looking for me."

Tommy wanted to argue, but he'd seen what magic could do and really didn't want to risk walking unarmed into that kind of battle. He nodded and watched Wesley open the car door. "Good luck." He called somewhat hesitantly, wondering what a 'good' outcome would be in this situation.