The Road Not Taken
by WesleysGirlRating: R
Giles/Wesley
For the WatcherLove ficathon, and for Mireille, who wanted 'Set during S5 of AtS, mention of the cyborg from Lineage, an ending that does not have to be happy, but should not be thoroughly *un*happy. ' and didn't want 'extremely dark fic, Fred, overly-mushy romance.' Many thanks to ElyJan for the beta.
It takes Giles nearly an hour to get to him. L.A. -- or at least sections of it -- is in shambles, buildings little more than rubble, streets torn up. Giles slips and falls once, trying to navigate a pile of broken stones. He tears a hole in his slacks, but not his skin, which is possibly better luck than he deserves under the circumstances.
He worries the whole way, of course, that all their planning will have been for naught. If the building Wesley was in collapsed and Giles can't get to him within the required twenty-four hours, none of their preparation will do a bit of good.
"And you're sure you want me to cast the spell?" Giles asked, frowning. "Perhaps... one of the others...?"
"No," Wesley said decisively. He shook his head, fingertips stroking lightly over the page of scribbled translations he'd been carrying around with him for days. "If they know -- any of them -- they could give it away." He looked up at Giles, his eyes haunted. "And Illyria -- she won't understand the need."
"And from what you tell me, she'd be the most likely of all of them to let it slip," Giles agreed. He'd already made up his mind, of course.
The front section of the building is significantly damaged. A large crack runs from the ground upward, bisecting the eastern half of the building from the western half like lightning crackling across the sky. Giles steps through the front door cautiously, walking with care as if that might prevent an unstable building from coming down around him. Nothing shifts; the city is as silent as a graveyard in the aftermath. Anyone who was able to fled, and the rest are either dead or in hiding, waiting to see if and when it will be safe to come out.
Safety, Giles knows, is relative.
"Have you seen him recently?" Wesley asked.
Giles had been going back and forth from England to California for weeks, doing what he could in the wake of Fred's death, and the question was familiar enough now that he didn't need to ask for clarification. "Yes," he said. "He's fine." They exchanged a wry glance. "Annoying, of course." He and Roger Wyndam-Pryce had never got along.
"Of course," Wesley said. His breath was warm and sweet.
"You can't stop thinking about it, can you," Giles said. His hand was resting on Wesley's stomach, rising and falling gently as Wesley breathed.
Wesley didn't answer, not that Giles needed him to. They both knew that Wesley thought about it often, remembered the savage joy he'd felt unloading a gun clip into what he had believed was his father's chest, felt guilty and confused and frightened. Giles hadn't known about any of it until recently, when Wesley had woken from a nightmare and told him everything.
"I'm not going to lie to you," Giles said.
"I know," Wesley said. "That's one of the things I... like about you."
They didn't use the other word. There'd be no point to it, not with things the way they were.
Giles knows where to go. They've been over it a dozen times at least -- the layout of the building, where Wesley thinks he's most likely to end up.
He knows what to expect. Wesley's an intelligent man; he's known for months that this was coming. Prophecies are all well and good, of course, but knowing how to read the signs is equally important. It's better to be prepared, even when there's nothing that can be done to change the path the future is taking.
Especially when there's nothing that can be done.
It's dark in the room when Giles enters -- the electricity is out, the city full of dust that filters the sunshine until there's little left. It takes a long time for Giles' eyes to adjust; when they finally do, he sees two bodies on the floor.
The nearest one is Wesley's.
"You're sure you know what to do?" Wesley asked as they got up and began the process of putting their clothes back on.
"It's a bit late to begin quizzing me now," Giles said, doing his best not to let too much reproach creep into his voice.
The look Wesley gave him was apologetic, and Giles forgave him without another thought -- he certainly understood the pressure the other man was under. This wasn't Giles' fight, even if the war they were engaged in was the same war, and there was only so much he could do. The fact that he'd agreed to do as much as he could, as much as he would, meant something to Wesley that neither of them would put into words, but that didn't make it any less important.
They finished getting dressed, and Giles stepped over closer and put his hand on Wesley's jaw, turning his head slightly until they were looking at one another. "Does it hurt?" he asked, brushing his thumb over Wesley's swollen lower lip.
"No," Wesley said.
They both knew it was a lie.
"Wesley," Giles breathes. Wesley is too still to be anything but a body -- there's no movement of his chest as Giles kneels down beside him, only the utter silence that comes with death. Because he can, Giles touches Wesley's face, his arms, even running a hand down along one thigh. The dark jumper he's wearing is stiff with drying blood. Giles' heart is beating too quickly, and his throat is tight with anxiety as, with shaking hands, he takes out the paper with the words of the spell written on it, the small pinch of powdered Rose of Jericho twisted into wax paper.
He doesn't realize until right then how much this means to him on a personal level.
The words are read, the bit of powder blown across Wesley's mouth with air from Giles' own lungs, and Wesley inhales in a sharp gasp, death tension melting through pain and then into relief in seconds. His eyes are wild, his hand grabbing onto the sleeve of Giles' jacket. "Fred," he says, half sitting up, and Giles moves to support him.
"No," he says gently. "Just me."
Wesley nods, shudders, getting his bearings. He pulls his clothing out of the way and runs a hand across his abdomen; his skin is smeared with dark, dried blood, but otherwise unbroken, as smooth and perfect as it had been the day before. "It worked," he says.
The sound Giles makes is more like a sob than laughter. "Yes," he says. "It did. You're all right."
"The others?" Wesley asks.
Giles shakes his head. "I don't know. The city -- or this part of it, at any rate -- is in ruins. I did try to contact them, but..." The fact that he wasn't able to doesn't mean much, and they both know it.
"I need to look for them," Wesley says. He leans forward, coughs, and a strange look comes into his eyes. "Fred," he says again. "She was here, she -- " He stops himself, and Giles wonders if what he's remembering is real or imagined. When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse and small. "She wasn't here."
"Come on, then," Giles says roughly, helping Wesley to his feet. "Let's get you out of here."
The other body nearby, Giles realizes as they walk over to look at it, must be Cyvus Vail. The demon's face is nearly obliterated, little more than a bloodied hole, and Wesley stands and stares at it for a few long moments before he bends to pick up a knife from the floor. "Could come in handy," he murmurs.
They find Angel and Spike late that afternoon, holed up in the basement of a building not far from where they find Charles Gunn's body. Illyria, Spike thinks, survived the battle, but he doesn't know where she is. Both vampires are torn up, damaged far past the point where anyone human would still be living, and neither of them expresses any surprise to see Giles despite how out of place he is. He does his best to patch them up, setting Angel's broken leg so that it will heal properly while Wesley goes out to find blood. There are police cars and emergency vehicles everywhere by then, and no sign of the demons and other creatures from the night before. The city is putting itself back together as best it can. Still, Giles can't help but be worried when Wesley is gone for hours, much longer than anticipated, and finally comes back looking, if possible, paler and shakier than he did earlier.
"Are you all right?" Giles asks, going to him and taking the bag he's holding.
"Yes. Sorry." Wesley apologizes easily in cases like this. "I had to look for her."
Giles isn't fooling himself about Wesley's feelings for Illyria, and it doesn't surprise him to hear that Wesley went in search of her. He concentrates on getting the blood Wesley's brought into the two vampires, then the four of them make their way to Spike's flat, which is apparently closest, and Spike and Angel fall almost at once into a deep sleep on Spike's bed with no complaints about the fact that they're sharing. The sofa folds out into a rather uncomfortable bed, but Giles and Wesley are both weary enough that it's a relief to lie down.
"I should go out again," Wesley whispers into the darkness.
"I'm sure she's all right," Giles says. "You're exhausted." Tentatively, he reaches out and touches Wesley, who stinks of sweat and blood. "Get some sleep, and I'll help you look in the morning."
Wesley sighs and moves closer until they're pressed together. "It's not what you think," he says.
"No?" Giles asks.
"She said... goodbye," Wesley says. "She thought... I shouldn't have put her through that. It mattered to her."
"You didn't think it would." Giles touches Wesley's cheek, traces his ear.
"Not like that," Wesley admits. "I didn't realize."
"What about me?" Giles asks, because they're almost at the end of this and there's little point in being taciturn about it now. "When you phoned me to tell me what had happened, what you thought was happening, and asked for my help... did you realize I'd develop feelings for you?" He's more caught up in the emotion of it than he wants to be, but that's probably to be expected under the circumstances.
Wesley doesn't answer immediately. "No," he says finally. "Not then."
"And now?"
He can feel Wesley's smile. "I can be a bit slow on the uptake sometimes," Wesley admits.
"I'm more than willing to convince you, when we're both a bit less shattered," Giles says, meaning it. He settles Wesley's head on his shoulder, flooded with gratitude that the spell worked, that they're both here and alive and well.
"I think I'd like that," Wesley says, and after that they're quiet until morning.
End
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