Wesley Wyndham-Price looked like hell.

*And for that brilliant insight into the human condition, Rupert old man, you should be knighted. *  Giles scolded himself mentally for his idiotically banal observation; of course the man looked like hell.  He’d lost the woman he loved, watched a being he didn’t understand take over her body and continue existence in her shell.  The man was living a waking nightmare.

It had been some years, but still Rupert Giles knew that in those dark days after Angelus had murdered Jenny Calendar, he himself had worn this same grotesque mask of grief tempered by emotional strength and British reserve.  Truth be told, there were days he was certain that the mask was still very much in place, no matter how much living he had attempted to put between the past and the present.  Sad to say that Angelus had killed much more than Jenny; in a very real way that Giles was only beginning to understand, Angelus had also killed his ability to love fully, to trust implicitly, to withhold judgment, and (in no small way) to believe in his slayer.  Some crucial part of Giles’ belief in Buffy had died that night along with Jenny, and he realized only far too late how bitterly unfair to her and others that had been.

But none of these morose ruminations would help the drained husk of a man standing before him, staring out the window onto the cold dark streets of residential Los Angeles in the early morning hours.  He very much doubted that Wesley would ever love or trust completely again, but that didn’t seem as much the issue; the man before him no longer wanted to even try.  It was obvious from every aspect of his person, from the way he held himself to the way he avoided physical and visual contact at all costs; Wesley Wyndham-Price was in the world, but no longer of it. 

Giles had no idea as to what this man’s personal voyage had been since he had left Sunnydale a priggish Watcher defrocked of his Council collar, but whatever it was had made him hard as steel.  Unfortunately for Wesley, the same fires that gave him his hard edges had apparently made him brittle, and the stress fractures of years of a life too fraught with strife had widened into full-blown chasms.  Only time could tell whether there was iron enough inside to allow Wesley to find his way back up from the depths, but as of this moment Giles’ gut instinct was, tragically, that there was not.

Willow, too, was appalled at Wesley’s condition, though for far different reasons.  She had seen him only last year, and although their conversation hadn’t forced her to put him at the top of the Willow Rosenberg Conversational Indicators of Craziness scale, he hadn’t exactly bottomed out on the ‘normal’ end of it, either.  He had been so hesitant and yet so hard-edged and rough, such a strange combination of the Wesley she had known and the Wes he had become.  She hadn’t been lying when she told him that he had been to a dark place, though he had thought she was only placating him, and she had hoped that perhaps he had managed to put it behind him.  She realized now what she must have seen; the dark hadn’t been left behind, not by a long shot.  It had still been there, lying in wait for an opportunity to be unleashed. 

Willow herself had existed for months in that same stasis, letting her friends believe that she had dodged the black magic bullet when all it took was one very real copper-jacketed projectile to bring it all ripping to the surface.  Her love had been taken by man, Wesley’s by the supernatural, and the loss had driven them both to near insanity.  Not for the first time she shuddered inwardly and said grateful prayers to the Powers for sending her Giles and the Coven; she had no doubt that had they not intervened, she would have ended up very much like Wes was now.  She felt that she had an obligation to both a fellow-sufferer and to a friend—take the good deed and pay it forward.  Heal Wesley as much as possible, show him that tomorrow was still there for him.

Wesley, for his part, was all too aware of the close attention being given him by Rupert and Willow and was infinitely grateful that all of the others had gone to bed, leaving just the three of them to their discussion.  He had a feeling that he was becoming a character study for Rupert and a project for Willow, and strangely it was only the first idea that truly disturbed him.  It chafed just under his skin, the feeling that he was constantly under observation and testing, being watched for his reactions to increasingly cruel stimuli.  That part of the analysis of his feelings didn’t extend to the two in the room with him, of course; even in his embittered state, he couldn’t be that uncharitable.  Nevertheless, the close attention was raising his hackles, and he had to force himself into slowing his breathing and calming himself. 

Staying silent, he stared out the window and allowed himself a moment to reflect on this virulent hatred of being a bloody spectacle.  The irony of being a Watcher who hated being observed was not lost on him, but he found it somehow impossible to laugh, the oppressiveness of the situation being enough to rein in his personality.  The feeling of being watched and being tormented had been there from the first day at Wolfram and Hart and had only intensified over time, and he had never felt more smothered by it than on the day Illyria had stripped Fred out of her own body.  That was the day that he had realized that not only had they not outrun or outplayed the devil, they had delivered themselves right to its door and allowed it to observe weaknesses, insecurities and personality glitches.  They had freely provided every possible bit of material the firm had needed to bring them to their knees, and up to that point only Fred, the most innocent of them all, had paid an eternal price.  It was impossible not to wonder when the bill would come due for the rest of them.  Small wonder he’d not slept since.

He started violently when he felt a hand on his shoulder; entranced by the empty street and the bleakness of his thoughts, he hadn’t even sensed anyone’s approach.  Turning quickly on his heels, he looked at Willow and took in the soft, sympathetic smile gracing her face.  *Dear girl.  She really is trying, * he thought, returning the smile with a hesitant one of his own, his cheeks almost aching from the effort.  He hadn’t been much inclined towards smiling lately; when Fred had died all desire to be happy had disappeared, and the very thought of joy anywhere in the world had been disgusting.  Somehow now the impulse was getting easier to see as acceptable, perhaps because he was beginning to believe that he might not be altogether abandoned to his grief and betrayal.

“Wes, do you wanna maybe talk to Giles and I about Illyria?  I mean, I know it’s not easy… and you only have to tell us what you think we need to know… I mean, we don’t have to get way personal…but… well… but if they need my help with whatever it is they’re doing, I need to know what I’m getting into… and I need to know who and… well, what she is,” Willow finished, wincing sympathetically at the pain that had again masked Wesley’s features.

Wes took a deep breath and walked to the tapestry-upholstered sofa in the corner of the study, seating himself across from Giles.  Looking about, he couldn’t help but think that everything the Council touched seemed to be as stuffy and rarified as the aura they had tried to create for themselves.  Heaving a deep inhale, he squashed the desire to flee that memories of the Council had provoked and turned his attention to Willow.  “What exactly would you like to know?”

“How did Illyria get to Wolfram and Hart from the Deeper Well, Wesley?  What of her guardian, of Drogyn?” Giles asked, unable to stop himself now that he was so close to getting the answers he had longed for since his aborted phone call with Angel weeks before.

“Apparently Illyria’s release from the Deeper Well was pre-ordained.  Angel and Spike traveled to the Cotswolds to discover what they could, and Drogyn told them that there was nothing he could have done to prevent the disappearance; he in fact hadn’t noticed that she was no longer there until such time as Angel and Spike appeared.  They tried…” Wesley broke off for a moment, trying to catch his breath.  “Drogyn was prepared to cast the retrieval spell, but to pull Illyria back to the well would have destroyed everyone she touched between Los Angeles and her tomb.  Fred’s life would perhaps have been spared, but at the cost of millions of others; there would have been chaos unleashed upon the world… she would never have wanted that in her name, for her sake,” he finished almost inaudibly, staring at his shaking hands before dropping them to his knees in an effort to keep them still.

“When Angel called me, Wesley,” Giles began gently, needing to explain to the younger man exactly why his conversation with Angel had been so rancorous, “he wouldn’t give me any sort of detail.  He demanded Willow, but would not tell me why he needed her or what he hoped she could accomplish.  Our trust of him… well, diminished severely when we learned he had taken over the very law firm he had been fighting for years.  I myself haven’t exactly felt any sort of affinity towards him since… well, quite honestly, since Angelus reawakened, really.  I was always able to overcome my mistrust, however, by telling myself that he was working towards redemption, righting wrongs and protecting the innocent.  His link to the Powers through the visions only seemed to confirm that.  His takeover of Wolfram & Hart, coupled with his loss of the guidance of the Powers, indicated strongly to all of us that something was deeply amiss, and it was decided that we would treat any request from him as highly suspect pending further inquiry.”

“We didn’t want to say no, Wes,” Willow added.  “I… I really liked Fred.  In a lot of ways she was a lot like me and we got along really well… not that I wouldn’t have wanted to help if it had been somebody else,” she hastened to add, hating that even now her tendency to ramble was running away with her.  “I don’t think any of us was really completely comfy with Angel after Angelus,” she resumed, “even Buffy, if she’s being really honest with herself.  But Giles is right—as long as he was fighting the good fight, it was easier to be all ‘go team go.’  But the visions went away when Cordy went into the coma, and you all took over the evil empire, and everything was all topsy-turvy.  And then he got all weird and demand-y with us, and I was a little scared.  All the black magic is still in me, Wes, and if he got ahold of it… it wasn’t something we could chance.  But I’m so sorry,” she finished softly.

Wesley sighed and leaned back against the couch, resting his head against the bare wood along the top of the frame.  The bit of discomfort kept him solidly anchored as he thought about what they had said.  He realized with no small amount of shame that he hadn’t even thought about what it meant that the visions had expired with Cordelia’s illness.  Doyle’s death hadn’t stopped them, and there were certainly candidates for transfer—he supposed that the Powers could have even used Spike or Lorne if it had been necessary, or simply sent someone altogether new—but the cold fact remained that they hadn’t.  Since their move to Wolfram & Hart, the Powers had been uncharacteristically silent.

“You were right,” Wesley answered finally, straightening and meeting Giles’ and Willow’s eyes in turn.  “Although I failed to see it, you were right.  And I can’t help but think…” Wesley paused, eyes widening as he realized the probability of his next statement, “I can’t help but think that perhaps their lack of assistance during Fred’s… passing and Illyria’s resurrection were the Powers’ opinion on what we have done.  Surely had we not fallen from their graces we would have been warned,” he continued, brain working overtime as he thought through the matter aloud.  “They could have interceded or warned, but they chose not to… or perhaps they feared to.  Perhaps we were meant to have Illyria—we need her for some coming conflict, and a warning would have endangered her.”

“In terms of coming conflicts… this plan of yours, Wesley,” Giles asked, academic mode firmly engaged and positively rabid for answers, “depends absolutely upon Illyria.  Are you certain that she can be trusted?”

“As certain as I am about anything these days,” Wesley replied, a ghost of a smile flickering across his lips.  “She attempted to raise her army and failed; they are long since dead, and her sole disciple is no longer an issue.”

“Can you be certain of this?”

“I put a bullet through him and watched his blood drain from his body, Rupert.  I’m quite certain he was effectively neutralized,” Wesley answered, an air of confidence he did not feel cloaking the words to mask the guilt.  If he had expected recriminations, however, he would not find them from the two in the room with him; each had taken human life, Giles with an eye to the future and the greater good and Willow for vengeance.  Neither was certain into which category Wesley’s actions fell, but they were both hesitant to make the judgment call.

“Illyria, being an Old One, has a certain relationship with time—she’s not bound by it, as we are.  So she will walk forward through time, following Angel’s path.  That is the plan, yes?” Giles asked, running down his mental checklist of questions.  At Wesley’s affirmative nod, he continued, “I’m assuming you asked after the matter of free will—how we might be certain that what Illyria sees is actually what will come to fruition.  Were you satisfied with her response?”

“Of course I asked, although the answer to that question involved some rather unflattering ruminations on mankind and our inability to see beyond our own noses, as it were.  As to the response, I’m not entirely certain I’m comfortable with taking definitive action based on what still seem to me to be mere possibilities; perhaps we should hold back until we’re certain that what she has seen is in fact coming to pass, that he is indeed following the path Illyria traveled.  There will most certainly be a moment beyond which we cannot wait, but perhaps holding action until that point would be more, well, sporting, for want of a better word.”

Willow rolled her eyes and suppressed a grin as she watched Giles nod seriously in agreement; honestly, the two of them were so Watchery.  Giles on his own was all Monarch of the Glen and Wesley was the rugged demon-hunting occult whiz, but put them together and there had to be at least a full can of starch in those stiff upper lips.  Shaking herself from her internal monologue, she raised her hand and interrupted.  “Um, guys… I might be able to help.  At least, I think there might be something… kind of a mystical tracking spell, really.  I mean, even holding off to see if Angel does what Illyria sees him do, we’re still not with him all the time to know what he’s up to… maybe the spell would help?  Kind of a progress report on what he’s doing versus what we’ve seen he’s going to do.”

“That would be most helpful, Willow,” Giles answered, smiling gratefully at her.  Really, she had come into her own as a witch of the highest order, and still the eager scholar in her survived and thrived on the challenges of this life they all led.  He was so proud of her.  “This would be something that you could cast…”

“Tomorrow, if we need it.  Stuff’s all here in my extra suitcase,” she finished, yawning sleepily and stretching.  “I really think I’m going on to bed, guys… jet lag and happy reunions and apocalyptic battles kinda conspire to wear a girl out.”  She smiled at them, waved quickly, and left them alone in the study.

Giles headed instantly for the bottle of scotch on the sideboard, pouring two glasses and bringing one to Wesley.  He took a slow sip before resuming his seat.

“Wesley, I know we’ve never been, well, anything but civil, really… but would you like to talk about… anything?”

Wesley looked up, touched and more than a little bit surprised, and gave another of his hesitant smiles in response to the kind look in the elder Watcher’s eyes.  “I’m afraid there’s really not much I can say, Rupert.  Winifred is gone, and Illyria is here.  It’s devastating in its very best moment, but at this point there is nothing I can do but accept it.  And as for Angel, this is not the first time I’ve felt the sting of his duplicity.  I wish that it hadn’t happened, and I wish that the fact that it did hurt less, but these are the facts before me.  It was facts we were trained to deal with, Rupert, not emotions; I suppose we both learned the hard way exactly why.”

Giles shared Wesley’s sad smile and nodded, and the two men returned to sipping their scotch in quiet contemplation.  Giles was again the first to break the silence.

“Wesley, if I might… what do you think about… well, how is Spike?”

Wesley didn’t try to hide the shock on his face.  “I was under the impression that the two of you didn’t exactly get on, Rupert.”

Giles sighed and stood, walking to the window.  “We didn’t.  There were moments of… well, comradeship, for lack of a better word, during the summer after Buffy’s passing.  Before that as well, really.  And then, after her return… she was so withdrawn from life, and I saw them drawing closer, saw him engage her… and I was almost… I was envious.  Spike was the first to know that she had been forced to dig herself out of her own grave, the first to know that she had been in heaven, the one she turned to with all of her problems or for assistance.  He was the only one of any of us who could involve her in life again.  I left before they began their relationship; by the time I came back when Willow lost herself in the magicks, he had gone to Africa for his soul.  Buffy has never said what caused him to seek the soul, only that it involved their relationship and was between the two of them.”

Giles emptied his scotch and poured another, leaning against the sideboard as he continued.  He looked lost in his reverie, and Wesley thought it best to let the man work through what he needed to say.  Everything he was hearing was information he had yet to receive, and he was more than a little intrigued by the blonde vampire who sometimes seemed to have Angel running scared.

“The guilt from the soul made him a perfect pawn for the First, and it attempted to use him in its plans.  He fought back every step of the way, I see that now… it tormented him, tortured him, preyed on his soul, and still he fought.  But when Buffy chose to remove his chip, all I could allow myself to believe was that now he was even more of a danger.  The First was still controlling him and he was loose in a house full of potential slayers with no deterrent from killing them, except his soul.  I should’ve known that to be enough, known to trust Buffy’s judgment, but after…”

“After Angelus you couldn’t trust in him.  It’s understandable, Rupert.”

“That it might be, but I didn’t just want him out of the house.  I conspired with Nikki Wood’s son to have him killed, and I did it all without Buffy’s knowledge.”

Wesley couldn’t contain his shock at this, and he looked at Giles with widened eyes.  He knew enough about what Spike had done in the hellmouth and the way he’d saved Fred to know that despite the rough edges he was far from the evil he had once been.  Wesley was only beginning to see just how much of a champion Spike had become; he deserved the title if for no other reason than that he’d sought the destiny for himself.

“I know, Wesley.  I was a fool, and I damn near lost Buffy because of it.  I did lose her trust and her confidence; she only just recently speaks to me without looking as though she’s trying to discern my plans.  I didn’t want to believe that she loved him because of the legacy of Angelus; I didn’t want to believe that he truly loved her, because that meant everything we knew about demons from the Council was wrong.  But I stood on the edge of that chasm with my Slayer still alive and I knew that it had to have been true; that he had loved her and that I’d nearly destroyed the world because I was a narrow-minded nit.  The look on her face when Andrew told her Spike was alive, Wesley—I haven’t seen that level of joy on her face at any point in my relationship with her.  I doubt she’s been that happy since she was called.  And so help me, if Spike makes her that ecstatic with his mere presence in the world, I want her with him.  I know at the very least that he’ll protect her with his life, and that’s…”

“More than you could say about Angel,” Wesley finished for him, knocking back the rest of his scotch.  “To answer your question, Spike seems to be well, Rupert.  Angel had told us none of the details of Spike’s last few years at Buffy’s side.  We didn’t know of the soul or of his relationship with Buffy, or for that matter of his role in closing the hellmouth; all of that information came to us from Spike himself.  He came back as a spectre, which I’m sure you heard from Andrew, and although we’re not quite certain how he was brought back to physical form, there seem to have been no ill side effects of the transformation for him.  After Fred… he decided to stay and fight alongside us, that he wanted to do what was right, because she had worked so tirelessly to help him before he became corporeal.  We haven’t exactly been welcoming on the whole, but he still seems to contribute with everything in him, and he’s carving out a place for himself.”

“He has a history of that,” Giles answered, mouth twisting in a sardonic grin.

“Quite.  He has been crucial in working with Illyria, and she responds to him in what, for her, are friendly terms.  He’s brash, rude, and tends to the annoying and abrasive; he’s also noble, brave, bright, and dedicated.  That he sought his soul indicates to me that he is perhaps the most extraordinary creature I’ve ever come in contact with.  If you truly want my opinion… All told, Rupert, I believe Buffy to be in very good hands; I would be hard-pressed to think of better.  Including Angel’s.”
“Thank you,” Giles answered, giving Wesley a smile that made it more than clear that he had just allayed the trepidations of a father more so than those of a Watcher.  “Considering the matter she was researching in my books on the plane,” continued Giles, rising from his position on the sideboard and moving back across the room towards the door, “I’m immensely glad to hear that.  Shall I show you to your room?  We are after all facing a rather stressful day tomorrow.”