Fic: Complicated (CJ, Jordan/Woody)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Wow. Woody was jealous. He even admitted it.

Oh come on, Jordan. The kid was several sheets to the wind by the time you found him. To say the alcohol loosened his tongue a bit would probably be an understatement.

But alcohol lowers inhibitions. It doesn’t make you lie. They don’t say “in vino veritas” for nothing.

I…I never would’ve dreamed it. The last thing I expected to hear out of his mouth when I sat down at that bar was that I was “hot.” Or one tenth of the other things that came pouring out of him. I know Woody and I are starting to understand each other a bit, and geez, I mean I had to look in on him after today. I may not be a cop but I sure know that none of the good ones ever want to really have to pull that trigger. Especially not a wet-behind-the-ears kid from Wisconsin like him.

But I never dreamed he had a crush on me. For God’s sake, I could swear I saw him checking out Lily at the office earlier.

Or maybe I did. Maybe somewhere deep down I had a clue and just didn’t ever expect him to admit it, so I would never have to admit it to myself.

You know what the funny thing is? I kinda like it. Heaven knows he’s a lot closer to a normal, healthy, functional human being than some of the men I have dated recently. Almost disturbingly so. Okay, so he’s a little younger than me…but I know I could overlook that if I really wanted to.

Now that’s a crazy idea if I ever heard one. I’ve had some pretty extreme notions in my time, but me and Woody? That’s one I’d never even considered…until now.

Now I don’t know what to think.

“I can be complicated too,” he said.

I’m starting to realize that.

Posted in Crossing Jordan, Het, Jordan/Woody | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fic: Happily Ever After (Angel, Fred/Lorne)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Leaving LA was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Scarier even than Pylea, or letting go of my fairy tale fantasies of Angel as my white knight come to carry me away to his castle in the clouds. But I had to do it. I couldn’t stay around after finding out…finding out Charles had found somebody else. I knew Wesley still had feelings for me, but…

There was a time when Wesley and I understood each other better than anyone else in the group. But then Billy happened and then I fell in love with Charles and Wesley kidnapped Connor and fell in…whatever he fell into with Lilah Morgan. And suddenly we didn’t understand each other so good anymore.

I couldn’t stay. Everything was in so many little pieces, and none of us could touch each other without burning. Kinda like our group was an atom–once we started to split, the heat and the destructive force were just incalculable.

I know it’s chicken, running. But it’s hard to do anything else when the world just keeps falling out from under you all over again, y’know? But I couldn’t run home to Momma and Daddy because I knew that’s the first place they’d all look for me. I sent them a postcard of course, to let ’em know I hadn’t been sucked into another nasty hell dimension or somethin’, but I couldn’t go home.

I didn’t want to be found.

It was pure coincidence that I ran into Angel and Faith in New York. Well, okay, according to chaos theory nothing’s ever really coincidental so I guess you could say it was a pure iterating fractal that I ran into them…I’m babbling again. I’m sorry. I know I do that a lot but I just get so nervous and…

Yeah. Angel and Faith.

I don’t really know why I moved to New York–I guess after hell dimensions and demons and vampires and evil wormy-faced goddesses, Central Park muggers didn’t seem so scary anymore. ‘Sides, I can take care of myself a lot better than I used to. Maybe it was because New York City had faced an apocalypsish-type thing of its own, only at human hands, and survived. But whatever the reason, I took a job in the physics department at Columbia University, helping out with some of the professors. Screening carefully, of course, to make sure none of them were interested in inter-dimensional travel or magic or other demony stuff.

I live a couple of miles away from the University along one of the subway lines, so I usually take the train back and forth to work every day. And that’s where I saw them. I was just goin’ down the stairs when something came flying down right behind me–literally–and knocked me down. When I managed to pull myself up again, there’s Angel beatin’ the crap out of the thing with some help from a dark-haired blur of a girl.

I suppose if I’d just run back up the stairs right then and there, they never would’ve even seen me. But I guess I was in shock–things like that weren’t s’posed to happen here. It wasn’t fair–I came here to get away from it.

So anyway, I was still standing there staring like a dummy when they finally beat the thing, whatever it was. Just about everybody else’d run away, or crammed into the subway like they expected it to provide some sorta mystical protection. ‘Cept for silly old Fred.

‘Course what I did next was even stupider if I didn’t want to be noticed.

The girl that was fighting along with Angel gave the thing one last stab with this fancy-dancy knife and then turned around to talk to him slow enough that I could finally see her face instead of all that hair.

“Still don’t get how you knew a thing with wings like that would go underground, Babe.”

Angel probably would’ve answered ‘cept for my big mouth.

“Faith?” What was Faith doing in New York? Wasn’t she supposed to be in Sunnydale, helping out with whatever big fight was going on there?

I knew I’d been dumb, of course, when they turned to look at me in perfect synchronization.

“Fred?” Angel sounded even more surprised than I was to see Faith. Well, of course he was, silly. He had a lot more call to be surprised, since I was the one who up and ran away like a scared rabbit just when things were starting to maybe go back to normal.

Problem is, I was still scared. The minute he saw me, I turned back up those steps and ran. I guess since I’d only known Faith for ’bout a week, I forgot how fast Slayers are. I only got a few steps out into the open before she was in front of me.

“Fred–Fred, right? Hey, hang on for a minute…”

“It’s nice to see you, Faith, but I’ve really gotta go–“

She grabbed my arm. I guess I’d forgotten how strong Slayers are too. “Don’t–please, don’t–“

“What do you care? So you waltzed into our lives for a few days and put the make on every man within your eyesight, that doesn’t give you a say in my life.” Wow. I was angry, and I was angry with her. I didn’t know that before the words started pouring out. But I wasn’t surprised. I saw the way Charles looked at her, the admiring light in his eyes that he used to save for me. Before Faith. Before that other girl…

By this time Angel had caught up to us. That caught my attention. Shouldn’t he have been there before Faith? Aren’t vampires faster even than Slayers, if only by a little? And why did he look as if the fight had actually winded him?

“Fred–” he started.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out at just the sound of his voice saying my name. Guess I still felt guilty about that big old crush I’d had on him when I first came back from Pylea. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye but I didn’t think anybody’d really miss me. Wesley was all grieving over…and Charles had…and Cordy was still…and you were in Sunnydale and might not come back,” I finally managed to voice a whole thought.

“We didn’t come back,” Angel admitted. “We left the state pretty much as soon as Faith was well enough to travel.”

“I…oh.”

“We don’t have a whole lot of contact with the gang,” Faith put in, sounding almost rueful to my surprise. “But we hear enough to know they definitely miss you.”

“Last I heard, Lorne threw a karaoke party for pretty much every travel agent in town in hopes of picking up something from one of them,” Angel added.

I think I was so expecting him to say something about Wesley or Charles that what he did say didn’t register for a second or two. “…Lorne?”

“From what Wes told me the last time we talked to him, even after he and Gunn finally figured out you didn’t want to be found, Lorne never gave up. He’s probably still looking for you.”

Lorne did something like that? For me? Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan…never gave up looking for a cow who’d almost cut his throat trying to get away from Jasmine? Okay, so I knew better than anyone that cutting his head off wouldn’t kill him, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t have hurt a lot, and…

Babbling again.

What I mean though is I always knew he wasn’t like your normal Pylean, but still…that was awful nice of him. Warm-fuzzy-inducing kind of nice. It made me smile.

“Look,” Faith suggested then, “if you really don’t want to be found, we’re down with that. We’re skipping town again pretty soon ourselves.”

“But–” Angel interjected with a fond glare in her direction. “–I’m sure if you would just let us drop a hint that we saw you and you’re okay the next time we talk to everyone–“

I knew what that look meant. It was the same way he used to look at Cordy when he was exasperated with her–sort of a “but I wouldn’t have it any other way” kind of exasperation. Oh. So that was why Faith was so determined to bring Angel back alive instead of just killing Angelus.

It made my heart hurt. Why was it Charles got his electric-shock girl and Angel got his Slayer and Wesley got his…evil lawyer…and I just got left behind? Okay, so Wesley and the evil lawyer weren’t exactly happily ever after any more than me and Charles, but that still left the other two. And no matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t go back and undo the things that made everything go wrong with me and Charles, and me and Wesley too I guessed.

“Don’t tell Charles where I am. Or Wesley…or Connor or Cordy,” I pleaded.

I noticed that I didn’t include Lorne in that list. I think Angel and Faith noticed too, but were nice enough not to say anything.

“Look, I’ve, um…I gotta get home before it gets too late…”

“Great, we’ll take you–“

I took a step back, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“Hey. I understand, even if he doesn’t.” Nodding decisively, Faith gave me a slap on the back that seemed friendly even if it was a bit too Slayery for a little thing like me.

Angel didn’t look happy, but he nodded too. Aw, screw it. He had that puppy-dog look on his face like he needed a hug, so I screwed up my courage real quick and stepped in and gave him one. A short one.

He was warm. Human-being, not-among-the-undead warm. And his heart was beating.

“Wow. I guess I…um…is congratulations the right word?”

He chuckled. “It’ll do. You take care of yourself, okay Fred?”

“I will.”

I didn’t see them again. I wasn’t really surprised, except maybe that Faith actually managed to keep Angel from following me home to make sure I was okay. I guess living for two hundred years, having a soul for a hundred of them and being all championy for the past five would make anybody a bit protective.

I didn’t figure I’d see anyone from LA again. What I figured was that Angel and Faith would make their postcard or letter or phone call or whatever and tell everybody I was okay, then Lorne would stop worrying about me and settle down like Charles and Wesley had. I really didn’t figure on coming home from work one night to get a lecture from my doorman about telling my friends to save the Halloween costumes for Halloween. Or on spending all the way up in the elevator trying to figure out what he was talking about. Or on coming down the hall to find him sitting outside my door humming “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

Lorne. Not Charles or Wesley or even Cordelia, but Lorne.

Suddenly I felt shy. Guess that’s what happens when somebody never gives up on you. You feel kinda guilty for makin’ ’em try so hard.

“Hi.”

He looked up at me and just started to smile so big the whole state of Texas–never mind the yellow rose–could’ve fit. “Heya, Sweet-Cheeks. I know you told Angelcakes not to tell anybody where you were, but since you didn’t mention me specifically by name he figured I have an alibi, or at least an excuse.”

It’s funny but I wasn’t scared like I was when I saw Angel and Faith. I was so happy to see a familiar face I couldn’t wipe off the big dumb grin that seemed to have attached itself to my mouth.

“No–I’m glad you came. You wanna…?” I shrugged vaguely in the direction of my door with the arm holding my keys. “My apartment’s a little more comfortable than the floor out here, not a whole lot but I do have an old sofa I found at a thrift store, and I’ve been gradually stocking up on furniture as I could find it…”

I didn’t think his smile could get so much bigger than it already was. “Sounds heavenly, Peach Pie.”

He stood up and as soon as he was on his feet, I just had to hug him. I threw my arms around him and didn’t let go for what felt like forever…guess I didn’t realize until then how much I really missed him.

But it wasn’t really forever, ’cause I finally did let go and let him in and then we just sat on the couch and talked and talked and talked for hours about everything. He told me about Charles and Gwen–but only because I asked–and Cordelia and Wesley and Connor and what was going on with them since I left and since Angel left. We talked about Pylea and how much we’d both hated it there, and I realized I’d never really talked to anybody about it before. I didn’t think anybody would understand, except maybe Cordy but not really because she was only a slave for a little while before she had the vision and they made her all princessy…but Lorne did.

I mean, sure, he was never called a cow or made a slave with one of those fancy collars and he never lived in a cave and all, but he didn’t belong there any more than I did. All the things he loves–music and laughter and compassion and all that sort of stuff–don’t exist in Pylea. And he might as well have been a cow for all the respect and love he didn’t get from his family, which is kinda funny if you think about it because you’d think that empath demons would have compassion, being able to feel what other people are feeling and all, but then again since his power only works when people sing and nobody sings in Pylea I guess they never used their powers and…

I’m rambling again. I do have a point, honest, I’m just not very good at getting there.

But anyway, somewhere along in the conversation, I just blurted out what I’d been feeling ever since before I left LA. That those five years in Pylea left me wrong somehow, and not just how I was scared to come out of my room for so long when we first came back. But that there was something so wrong with me that no one could ever really love me, not forever anyway. Sooner or later, I’d scare ’em all away.

I’ll never forget the look on his face when I said that–I never knew red eyes could be so kind, or so beautiful.

“Hey, hey, hey, Yellow Rose, don’t you get it?” He touched my face so gently I couldn’t breathe for a second. “You weren’t the problem, Fred. Practically every man in that town was in love with you, except maybe the Familiaritas Angelus with their Greek Tragedy thing for Cordelia. They weren’t scared of you, they were scared of what they were willing to do for you.”

My voice squeaked a little. “Really?”

He nodded. “Take it from someone who can read people like a book of sheet music.”

“I just…I always thought…” I’ve always hated it when I stammer, but I just so wasn’t expecting him to say what he did and all.

“You thought you weren’t worthy, and believe me I get that.” He smiled. “There aren’t a whole lot of boys and girls in this dimension who find the red, green and horns combination attractive. But Sweetie, not only are you pretty drop-dead-gorgeous on the outside, but you’ve got a heart that could model for Victoria’s Secret. So don’t ever think you don’t deserve to be loved, okay?”

I smiled back, suddenly feeling very shy as he pulled me into his arms and gave me an even better, even snugglier hug than the one I gave him in the hallway. “Okay.”

It was so nice to be held again that I probably could’ve dozed off right then and there, but Lorne let me go and got up from the couch. “All right, as much as I hate to break up the party, but you and I both need our beauty sleep, and I’ve still got to find a place to have it.”

I sat up straighter. “You don’t have a place to sleep?”

“I didn’t really think that far ahead–when Angel and Faith said they’d found you, I hopped the first train out of LA. Spent most of today offering voice lessons to every landlord and doorman within ten blocks of that subway station, with an on-the-spot audition. Did I mention that the man downstairs has a lovely baritone? Even if was almost like pulling teeth to get him to use it.”

That made me giggle. I’d wondered how he found me, since I didn’t let Angel walk me home and didn’t exactly give them my address–

“You can stay here,” I blurted out, surprising even myself just a little bit. “You can sleep on the couch and…well…” My voice dropped a little in embarrassment. “It’d be nice not to be alone for a little while.”

For a minute he just sorta studied me, which made me all sorts of nervous for no reason I could figure out. Then he smiled again and sat back down. “I’d love to.”

I bounced up so fast I probably looked like a skinny rubber ball. “Great! I know I’ve got an extra blanket around here somewhere, I just have to–“

I met his eyes just for a second and that’s when it hit me. To say I was shocked would be sort of an understatement seeing as how if you’d asked me a moment ago, after Lorne said that thing about not many people in this dimension being attracted to red-and-green demons with horns, I would’ve probably said I was one of them. Not to mention I’ve never been exactly good at knowing what I wanted, except maybe back in high school when all I wanted was another joint–boy am I glad I got through that phase, especially after reliving it because of that spell. And on top of all that, it was just plain crazy because if you think about it, technically we weren’t even the same species…

But after our talk and him being so nice and understanding, and knowing he came all this way to find me without even booking a place to stay…

All of a sudden I wanted him to kiss me.

Funny thing is, for all my chatter and rambling and babbling earlier, I couldn’t say it. I just stood there, looking like a big dumb goldfish with my mouth hanging open. Silly Fred, with all those big scientific words and fancy equations in my head, and I couldn’t even remember what a kiss was called long enough to ask for one.

“Fred?” Poor Lorne must’ve been worried about me, the way I just sorta stopped functioning like a normal human being mid-sentence. “Sweetie? Is something wrong?”

Of course that didn’t help–I knew he nicknamed everybody, but still, with this new variable floating around up there in my brain I couldn’t help but melt just a little to hear him call me “Sweetie.”

When I was little, Momma always used to say if you were having trouble remembering something, find a song that made you think of it, ’cause memorizing is always easier set to music.

“Fred? Okay, now you’re starting to worry me, Babe.”

Right. Music. Here went nothing. I started to sing. “People are talking…talking ’bout people…I hear them whisper…you won’t believe it…”

Lorne was off the couch by the time my voice faltered on the line, “they think we’re lovers.” He pulled me into his arms again, only differently this time, and looked me in the eyes as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. I swallowed hard. Then he kissed me and…wow. I kinda feel sorry now for all those people who don’t find green Pylean demons attractive, ’cause mine is an awfully good kisser.

And there’s something they don’t tell you in books about empath demons: when they’re kissing you…you feel everything they’re feeling. All of a sudden I knew why he never stopped looking for me; he’d been in love with me for a long, long time. Ever since Pylea. He just never thought I’d ever see him that way ’cause of the green skin and horns thing, so he stepped aside and let Wesley and Charles fight it out.

Funny–I wonder if he knows that it was all the fighting that finally made me stop wanting either one of them. Well…that and the Gwen and Lilah things, of course.

Now I wanted Lorne, and it didn’t matter even a little bit if we weren’t technically the same species. Neither were Aragorn and Arwen, or Sarek and Amanda, or Shrek and Fiona, or Beauty and the Beast, or…well, you get the idea.

When we let go of each other, he rested his head against mine, and even though I could feel the roughness of his horns against my forehead, it didn’t scare me or disgust me. To tell the truth, it was kinda exciting. Because I didn’t have to open my eyes to know he was there, that he was real. I could just…feel it. We stayed like that for a long time, just holding onto each other.

“Are you gonna be in New York long?” I finally forced myself to ask.

I could feel his smile against my cheek. “As long as you want me, Texas Rose.”

Now it was my turn to smile. A big, silly, stupid grin. “How about Happily Ever After?”

His arms tightened around me. “Sounds perfect to me.”

It’s funny, isn’t it? How life works out sometimes. After all that running away I did every time one of my fairy tale dreams came crashing down on me, all that looking for a happily ever after, my Beast…my Prince Charming…

My happy ending found me.

Posted in Angel: the Series, Fred/Lorne, Het | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fic: Once Upon a Time (Angel, Faith/Angel)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Author’s Note: Written for angelsgracie for her birthday a few years back.

Once upon a time. That’s how all the good stories start, so I’ve been told, or at least all the fairy tales.

Of course, if you’d told me six months ago that I’d be describing my life as a good story or a fairy tale, I would’ve laughed in your face and told you to go to hell. I’m no damsel in distress, and I’m sure as hell no Cinderella, even if we did both start out with nothing.

Once upon a time there was a girl who had nothing–okay, so maybe that does sound like the start of a fairy tale. So does the next part, where the girl who has nothing and no one and desperately wants be be somebody meets this weird-ass stranger who informs her that she’s been called to be the Slayer, the Chosen One destined to rid the world of evil.

Make that one of the Chosen Two.

Yeah. That’s where the fairy tale starts to go wrong. When the girl who spent her whole life desperately wanting to be special finds out she can’t even be Chosen by herself. And then she meets the girl who fucked that up for her, and discovers that other Slayer has everything she’s always wanted. Family. Friends. A brooding vampire lover who is seriously easy on the eyes, even if he did have that little problem of orgasm making him go evil.

Some Cinderella story, huh?

Cinderella wasn’t so desperate to get out of her bitch stepsister’s shadow that she turned assassin-for-hire. Cinderella didn’t get to hate herself so much for what she’d done that she tortured a man in some sort of weird-ass suicide-by-vampire-champion attempt. Cinderella isn’t going to spend the rest of her fucking life trying to make up for the blood on her hands. I am definitely *not* Cinderella.

So then how the hell did I end up with B’s Prince Charming?

I look over at him now, sitting in the driver’s seat of the Plymouth. For a minute, the wind from the open top whips my hair across my face so I can’t see him, and I find myself irrationally wondering if he’ll still be there when it blows away again.

Angel. I’ve wanted Angel almost from the first moment I saw him, because he was hers. But I didn’t start to really fall in love with him until B followed me to LA, pretty much ready to kill me, and he stuck by me and believed in me even after she told him what I’d done to her. That I fucked Riley and tried to steal her perfect life. Even knowing how much I hurt his precious Buffy, he still took my side.

No one had ever done that for me before.

That’s why, when Wes told me Angelus was back, I knew I couldn’t kill him.

Still…I never thought he could feel the same about me. He loved B. He loved Cor. Angel was a champion; he belonged with a champion. Not with a fucked up shoulda-been champion.

Guess it’s no wonder I sometimes feel like I must be in that coma still; happy endings just don’t happen to me, so I must be dreaming.

But y’know what? I’ve pinched myself black and blue, but every time I wake up in another hotel room on this gypsy life we’ve carved out for ourselves, he’s still there with his arms around me. Every vamp or demon ass I kick, he’s right there beside me, watching my back. And hard as it is to believe, he really was waiting there at my bedside when I woke up, like some warped Sleeping Beauty story.

He didn’t wake me with a kiss, but in some ways I came to life for the first time when he told me that he loved me. That his curse was broken for good, that he was human and could be as goddamned perfectly happy as he goddamned pleased…and he wanted to be perfectly happy with me. Not B. Not Cor. Me.

Jesus, that has to be the sappiest goddamn thing that has ever come out of my mouth. But it’s true.

I sneak my hand across the seat and run it lightly up the inside of my knight in shining armor’s thigh, grinning when I feel him harden in response.

“Faith…”

The sun is shining, the top is down, and Angel’s giving me that look, the one that tries to scold but fails miserably. According to the sign we just passed, we’re 57 miles from New York City, where we’ll be able to crash for a few days. Maybe do a little supernatural ass-kicking. And we’re happy. For the first time in my goddamned life, I’m genuinely happy.

“Problem, Lover?” I tease in response, and my slowly-defrosting heart warms a little more at the smile he gives me.

“Not if you want me to pull over to the side of the road and take you right here, no.”

Hey, now there’s an idea. I shift a little closer. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty can go screw themselves, for all I care. This time, the bad girl got the happy ending. And she’s not giving it back.

Posted in Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Faith/Angel, Het | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fic: A Sorta Fairytale (Angel, Gunn/Gwen)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Author’s Note: Written for angelsgracie to cheer her up after a bad day a couple of years ago. Spoilers up to and including “Players,” Jossed AU after that.

It wasn’t the happy ending any of us expected. If somebody’d asked me before that year went down how Happily Ever After would play out, I would’ve said me and Fred, Angel finding a way to get around that curse of his and getting with Cordy, and when I was being honest with myself–instead of being all crazy jealous–I wanted Wes to be happy too. I just didn’t have a face in mind there–so long as it wasn’t the face of my girl, it was all good.

In real life, Fred took off right after finding out about me and Gwen. We’d been over for a while by then, but I guess that was the final straw. We looked for her, of course, me and Wes, but she’d just up and vanished like you can only do in a city of several million. I never saw her again, but I hope she’s happy wherever she is.

But me and Gwen…I’ve never had so much fun being in love as I do with her. We make a great team, and we make each other happy as hell. She’s a lot more upbeat and a lot less bitter than she was when we met, and she says it’s cause of me. Half the time, she even introduces me to folks as “the man who turns her off and turns her on.”

Damn, I love that girl.

(And I gotta admit, I also love knowing I was wrong when I thought the Hyperion was the ritziest crib I’d ever bunk in.)

As for Angel and Cordy…that was pretty much over by the time we got Cordy back from Beyond and kicked to the curb that high-power bad guy that’d been posing as her.

Not because of the whole evil thing–Angel got that wasn’t really her, and if anybody’d understand about not blaming a body for the misdeeds of their evil alter ego, it’d be him.

It was the fact that he’d still be shagging Connor’s ex, so to speak, that Angel couldn’t deal with. Especially since he knew how hard Connor took finding out how bad he’d been played. It took the kid a long time to stop crushing on her, and no matter how much Angel loved Cordy, he loved his son a hell of a lot more.

So I guess nobody was too surprised about that not working out.

What did surprise was what happened after we took care of the Big Bad on our end and Angel took off for Sunnydale. Turns out that destiny he had to fulfill in order to get his Shanshu? It was to help defeat this really Big-Time Bad called “The First.” (Yeah, as in the First Evil. Ever.) Once that fight was over–BAM!–dude’s heart just up and started beating again like it never stopped.

Course the bigger surprise was what didn’t happen. When we heard about the Shanshu, Wes thought maybe Angel’d hook back up with that Slayer chick again, Buffy, after all. Well, he hooked up with a Slayer, but it wasn’t Buffy.

See, turns out Faith got herself hurt pretty bad in that final battle, and Angel never left her side the whole time she was recovering. By the time that accelerated healing thing of hers woke her up, guess they’d both figured out they were a lot more than kindred spirits. So, one day before the cops could figure out where she was, they skipped town.

Guess they figured they could do a lot more good with her on the outside.

We still hear from them, sometimes. Usually a postcard, never with the same postmark twice.

Okay, I hear you–so me and Angel got our happy endings, what about the others? What about Wes and Cordy and Connor and Lorne?

Well, I guess all there is to say is their stories ain’t ended yet.

Connor and Cordy, once they got past that whole freaky Freudian relationship thing, got agreeable and decided just cause Angel was gone didn’t mean LA didn’t still need a champion or two. She still gets the visions, so we’re still fighting the good fight. The two of them, Wes, me, even Gwen.

Except for me and my hotwire honey, the crew out here’s flying solo in the romance department these days. But that’s okay–if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that things happen when they’re supposed to.

The future…who knows what it holds? Not even Cordy, most of the time. We might even find Fred one of these days–Lorne never gave up trying, even after me and Wes figured she didn’t want to be found. I think he feels responsible for her, seeing as how it was five years in his home dimension that left her a little on the crazy side.

So…yeah. I guess that’s about the size of it. The story’s not over. And speaking from experience, even the happy endings don’t always last. But that don’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy ’em while we got ’em. And I’m holding on to mine as long as I possibly can.

That’s all the fairytale I need.

Posted in Angel: the Series, Faith/Angel, Gunn/Gwen, Het | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fic: Art Imitates Life (Angel, gen)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Author’s Note: Written for the sunday100 movie challenge.

“You’re kidding, right?” Angel stared skeptically at the man they’d just saved.

“Hell, no! I’m going to make a movie about you–starring the lovely Ms. Chase as herself, of course. My way of saying thanks.”

Cordelia beamed. The rest of the gang exchanged uncomfortable looks. “Who’d want to watch a movie about little old us?” Fred finally asked.

“A vampire with a soul and his team of loyal sidekicks, fighting the forces of evil on the road to redemption? Audiences love that kind of thing.”

Angel shifted uneasily. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Josh. Josh Wheaton.”

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Fic: A Friend in Need (Angel/SG-1, gen)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Jonas looked up at the sound of a tentative knock on the door of the VIP suite where he’d been awkwardly dumped by a pair of soldiers who obviously weren’t quite sure what to do with him. His gut tightened instinctively, but he swallowed hard and called out, “Come in,” as confidently as he could manage.

He was surprised when the door opened to reveal the sheepish but smiling face of a young woman he didn’t recognize, a slender, almost waifish girl with enormous brown eyes and long brown hair that fell over her shoulders like a curtain. She wore glasses like Dr. Jackson–a thought which made the knot in his stomach tighten even more–but with a slightly different shape, and they were sliding down her nose in a fashion that was, quite simply, charming. “Hey,” she announced herself with a shy little half-wave. Half because her hands were rather full–she was carrying a tray loaded down with food the likes of which he’d never seen before. “Thought you might be hungry.”

He realized he was–very hungry. Come to think of it, he hadn’t had a bite to eat since he’d set foot on this planet several hours ago.

Grateful, he nodded. Her smile beamed even brighter as she kicked the door shut behind her and carried the tray over to the little table next to the bed, setting it down with a flourish and then sticking out her hand. “I’m Fred. Doctor Winifred Burkle, actually, but everybody calls me Fred. Dr. Burkle just seems to hoity-toity for me, y’know?”

He didn’t know. For some reason, whatever translation mechanism the Stargate incorporated utterly failed to convey to him what “hoity-toity” was.

At his confused look, Dr. Burkle flushed a bright shade of scarlet. “Oh, that’s right. They probably don’t say ‘hoity-toity’ on your planet, do they? I forget–I don’t go off-world much, and around here even if people think I sound like a hick, at least they know what I’m talking about.”

Hick?

“‘Hoity-toity’ means like high ‘n mighty, like you’re puttin’ on airs…and that doesn’t help one little bit, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jonas admitted with a sheepish smile of his own. “But since I guess I’m here for a long time, I have plenty of time to learn.”

His smile faded at that, his own words an unpleasant reminder of everything that had happened today. He had all the time in the universe to learn about this world, if they would let him after what he’d done. Or rather…what he’d failed to do.

He almost voiced that thought, but stopped himself before the words could leave his mouth. The young woman…Fred…Dr. Burkle…was the first friendly face he’d seen since the accident, and he didn’t want to ruin that by reminding her of all the reasons she should hate him. “I’ve been learning everything I could about your world from this device,” he changed the subject, pointing to the strange, squat box on the table, with pictures moving across its glass screen. As he did so, he leaned over and plucked a piece of food from the top of the pile, a long slender yellow thing with a smooth skin that looked intriguing. “It’s remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it on Kelowna. I have to ask, though, are we part of the vast government conspiracy to hide the existence of aliens from the people of Earth?”

Fred giggled and Jonas just looked at her, bewildered.

“I guess you could say so, but not like on The X-Files. That’s what you’re watching,” she explained with twinkling eyes when he frowned in confusion. “It’s a TV show…like a book or a play, only made for television. Those are actors–their real names are Gillian Anderson and Robert Patrick.” The last was said with a breathy little sigh. “I always wanted to meet Robert Patrick, all the way back when he was the T-1000 in Terminator 2.”

She was speaking a foreign language again. But books and actors, those were things he was familiar with. He’d briefly entertained ambitions of going into the theatre before he met Dr. Kieran. But he’d never seen theatre that looked so real before!

Nodding absently, Jonas turned the strange food over in his hands, trying to figure out exactly how he was supposed to eat it. Fred noticed, and blushed again cutely, all the way from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. “Oh…lemme help you with that.”

“What is it?” he asked as she took the object from him and began to peel it.

“It’s a banana, a kind of fruit. I hope I didn’t bring too much, but I thought you might like to try some new things.” There was the shy smile again, and this time he couldn’t help but return it.

Following her direction, he bit into the exposed end of the fruit and instantly smiled as the mushy sweetness seemed to melt on his tongue. “I do,” he agreed eagerly around the mouthful. “Thank you.”

She shrugged. “It sorta seemed the least I could do, what with everybody else acting all…you know…”

Her voice trailed off and Jonas swallowed hard, the sweet fruit suddenly seeming to lose its flavor. So she did know. Well, he should’ve known he couldn’t avoid it forever. “How is he?” he forced himself to ask in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Dr. Jackson?” Fred shrugged. “I don’t know. Honestly, I didn’t ask. Kinda felt like it wasn’t my place…me being kinda new here too and all…”

It wasn’t ‘her place.’ That was another expression he’d never heard before, but in context it wasn’t nearly as hard to figure out what she meant.

“…I just thought…everybody’s all worried about Dr. Jackson and SG-1, but nobody seems to be worrying much about you or how you were doing, so I figured I would.”

“Did they tell you why?” Jonas asked, a regretful frown crossing his face.

“Well, Major Carter said direct contact exposure equivalent to approximately eight to nine grades of neutron radiation, with full body exposure of over seven,” Fred acknowledged with a little grimace, her tongue tripping lightly enough over the words to hint at some level of expertise. “So, yeah, I figure that’s why everybody’s so worried about him. And the base grapevine says SG-1 are awfully close, so I can see why they’d be worried ’bout them too.”

“No, I meant…” Jonas dropped his eyes and sighed. “It should’ve been me,” he admitted.

That elicited a snort from his new acquaintance, which brought his eyes back up to hers with a look of surprise.

“Daddy always said ‘should’ve never was, so why fret about it?'” she told him with another smile. “Even if what happened was your fault, which I don’t think it was or you wouldn’t be so broken up about it–seems to me that when people do stuff that’s wrong, they’re a lot more concerned with convincin’ everybody that they didn’t do it. You’re just feeling guilty because you’re gonna be okay and he’s not–I think they call that ‘survivor’s guilt’ or something, and everbody else isn’t helping because they’re upset about Dr. Jackson and looking for somebody to blame. But they’ll come around. ‘Sides, what’s really important is what you do now.”

Her upbeat ramble and inexplicable faith in him buoyed Jonas’ spirits almost in spite of himself. He wasn’t entirely convinced of his own innocence…but like she said–or like he thought she said, rather, since he still wasn’t completely sure he was fluent in Fred-speak just yet–he couldn’t change what had happened, but he could control what he did from this point on. Maybe there was something he could do to…not to make up for Dr. Jackson’s death, nothing could do that…but to somehow, somewhat make amends.

He took a determined second bite of the banana, once again allowing himself to enjoy the sweet softness.

“So,” Fred asked cheerfully, changing the subject herself this time, “what else have you learned about Earth so far?”

“I’ve learned I like bananas,” he answered earnestly with an almost cheeky smile, a smile he wouldn’t have dared with anyone else on the base.

A mischievous gleam came into her eyes. “Just wait–I’ve got something even better.” She pointed to something else on the tray, what looked like some sort of meat and vegetables wrapped up in a kind of flatbread. “Tacos!”

If she was that enthusiastic, it must be good, Jonas decided. He was torn between hurrying so he could get to the wonderful ‘tacos’ and savoring the delightful treat he’d already discovered, but finally settled on the former after gaining her promise that yes, there were many more bananas where that one had come from.

She was right; the taco was delicious. His people never would have thought of such a combination of foods, but the first taste made his mouth water. “Do you think they make tacos with bananas on them?” Jonas asked between bites. It seemed logical–bananas were delicious and tacos were delicious, so wouldn’t they be even more delicious together?

Fred giggled again, and he beamed at her in response. He was quickly discovering that he loved her laugh, and especially loved making her laugh.

“Y’know, I think maybe they do. Like some sortof dessert taco or something. If not, maybe we should try it sometime,” she suggested. “Invent it ourselves.”

“I’d like that,” Jonas agreed enthusiastically. It was almost jarring, but in a good way–for the first time since he’d stepped through the Stargate, there was something in his future, however small, that he was actually looking forward to. “So…” he asked, switching topics again. “…how did you start working here?”

“They recruited me straight out of grad school,” Fred confessed shyly. “Funny thing is, I almost didn’t take the job. Guess I watched too much X-Files when I was in college, figured ‘Deep Space Radar Telemetry’ must be a cover for somethin’ big and shady, ‘specially workin’ outta the same base as NORAD. But I had this one professor who would’ve killed to work with wormhole technology or interdimensional travel or the like in practice instead of just in theory, so I would’ve been stupid not to take the chance, even if I didn’t know just how big a chance it was until after I got cleared.”

“I’m glad you took the chance,” the Kelownan echoed with a shy smile of his own, grasping on to the one part of her explanation that made any sense. “Otherwise I would never have gotten a chance to meet you.”

Fred blushed cutely again and ducked her eyes. “I’m glad too.”

Posted in Angel/Stargate SG-1, Angel: the Series, Crossovers, Gen, Stargate SG-1 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fic: One Lifetime (Angel/HL, Wes/Fred)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Author’s Note: Written between “Sleep Tight” and “Forgiving”…so long ago Jossed. *g*

Oh, my darling Fred…

Perhaps if I wasn’t so keenly aware of how desperately I’ve failed you all, I would show myself. Perhaps even explain why there is a scar across my throat that wasn’t there the last time you saw me, a scar that seems to be long-healed. Or why my voice is broken now, though the rest of me remains whole…at least in body.

I hear you calling me, you and Gunn. Ah, Fred, if you only knew how that sound was a cut even deeper than the one which brought me to this point. Because I cannot answer it.

You’ll never understand what I have done. In truth, even I didn’t understand it, though I thought I did. All I know is I have made a grievous error–Holtz has Connor and I dare not imagine what horrors he has planned for the child of his enemy. I deserve to be damned for how easily he played me.

The prophecy…perhaps I have prevented the prophecy but to what purpose? And at what cost?

I did not lie when I told Holtz you all are my family. Or rather were–I disinherited myself when I tried to take fate into my own hands. A choice I made unwisely in a moment of despair compounded by fear. Despair that I had lost you, Fred, my love, and fear of what my own hand revealed to me concerning Angel’s child.

Had my eyes but been opened sooner, I would have known there was no reason to despair. That I had lost you for one lifetime, but…now I see that one lifetime is all of your heart that Gunn could hope to possess. For he is mortal and we, beloved, are not. I sense that potential in you now, just as a stranger once sensed it in me. That man, hoping to weaken me with the knowledge, gave it to me premature. I will not commit the same sin, keeping instead to the code of honor that most Immortals live by, to grant those who will one day fight among us a few precious years of ignorance lest they seek death or grow careless and find it too soon.

I suppose it is just as well that I followed my father’s path in hopes of finally finding a way to please him–to have become a Watcher of Immortals, like my mother was, would have made this transition all the more difficult. It was sufficiently burdensome that I knew enough to truly understand the meaning of the secret spilled to me.

Perhaps it is just punishment, though, for the crime I committed against you all that the death I always knew would resurrect me Immortal was given to me in the one fashion that would always leave a scar.

Oh, to hell with irony–why did it have to be the throat?

Angel will never forgive what I have done, and I can ask no more of the rest of you. Someday, no doubt many lifetimes from now, I will have to face him and account for it. But I have cut myself off from my family forever.

I have lost you forever.

I only wish…perhaps none of this would have come to pass if I had only realized…

I could have waited one lifetime.

Posted in Angel/Highlander, Angel: the Series, Crossovers, Het, Highlander, Wes/Fred | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fic: Pretty Lies (Angel, gen)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

The first time he saw the man, he almost didn’t see him. Kevin and Paul walked right by the stranger without appearing to notice, and he would have too if he hadn’t felt a weird shiver pass through him. A shiver of warning, but not of danger. Frowning, he’d slowed his steps to look around for the source, and seen a man dressed all in black, with hair bleached white-blond, watching him from several feet away with an unreadable expression on his face.

That first time, Connor merely frowned and continued on his way across the campus, but the solitary, intent figure didn’t leave his thoughts for the rest of the day. His thoughts even wandered during the day’s lecture in one of his favorite classes, meaning he would be forced to ask Paul for the notes for the first time in his entire academic career. He didn’t know why he couldn’t get the strange man out of his mind, but his instincts were telling him there was something…unnatural about him. Or supernatural, rather.

Supernatural…the thought made him laugh. College was making him superstitious.

The second time was about a month later. The man wore the same clothes, and the same intent, almost hungry expression. And again came the shiver of something not quite right with the natural world, with his enigmatic watcher the source of the blot.

“I wish he’d go away,” he muttered under his breath.

Paul lifted his head from contemplation of the sidewalk to look around, then frown. “You wish who would go away?”

“That guy over…” he started to point in the stranger’s direction, then noticed the confused look on his friend’s face. “You don’t see anyone?”

The other freshman shook his head with a sidelong glance. “Why, do you?”

Taking a deep breath, Connor looked deliberately in the direction of his black-clad watcher. He was gone, and so was the strange chill he felt every time the man was around.

Not sure whether he was lying or not, he shook his head. “I thought I saw someone…out of the corner of my eye. Guess I was wrong.”

The third time, he didn’t even bother to try to draw anyone else’s attention to the problem. Instead, he dismissed himself with a suddenly-remembered errand, and crossed the wide lawn of the quad to confront his Billy-Idol-wannabe stalker.

“What do you want?” he demanded. “Money, is that it?” he dug in his pockets to pull out a much-crumpled twenty-dollar bill and held it out. “‘Cause I can get my dad to pay you off a lot more than that if you’ll just go away.”

The stranger looked at him, at the money, then back at him, amused. “I can’t accept that.” His accent was English, specifically a London gutter drawl.

“Then what the hell do you want from me?”

“You’re not hearing me,” the blonde man corrected. “Even if I wanted your money, I can’t take it.” To illustrate his point, he made a sudden grab for the twenty…

His hand passed right through it, and through the fist it was clasped in, leaving nothing but that same cold chill only stronger and localized in the tips of his fingers.

Connor fell back a step in horror. “You’re a ghost.” Since when was he able to see–and worse, feel–ghosts?

Shrugging black-leather shoulders, he continued. “Bloody amulet’s got me tied with some sort of metaphysical cord to the Poof. I took a chance I might be able to visit you too, seein’ as how you’re his kid. Blood ties and all. Guess I was right.”

Connor blinked at him, still bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

The stranger studied him for a long moment before letting out a long-suffering sigh. “Right. Should’ve known he did the forgettin’ thing on you too. Did it to the rest of his mates. Fortunately for me, I didn’t come around until after all the voodoo was worked, so’s all it took me to figure out the truth was a well-timed eavesdrop on him ‘n Eve.”

“If that’s supposed to clear things up, it’s failing. Miserably.”

The ghost smirked broadly. “Never said I was here to clear anything up.”

Before Connor could ask any other questions, he vanished.

Months passed with no sign of the troublesome spirit, months in which reality seemed to fluctuate like rippling light. Months in which he called his father time and again to ask him if and why he was being haunted by a ghost who looked like a failed relic of the eighties, but always lost his nerve and made up some other excuse before the words actually came out. Months in which he started to notice things about himself. Things about what he perceived, and what he could do, that didn’t fit with anything he knew or believed.

Like the look his Phys Ed professor gave him when he was both the first to finish the mile and the best performer in the weight-training unit, despite a build that still couldn’t be described more favorably than ‘lanky.’

Sometimes he thought the strange encounter had been a waking dream, and the world around him settled back into its comfortable normality. But sometimes he would feel like he was looking through other eyes, perceiving a not-so-normal world that lurked just beyond the veil.

On those days, despite himself he wanted to see the man again. Just to know that he was gaining something, not losing his mind.

The fourth time was just before school let out for Christmas, just after sunset on the last day of finals with a flight home to warm Southern California in the morning hanging like a carrot on a stick before him. He felt him before saw the man, standing in the snow in the same thin leather coat, but it was a different feeling. Not the frozen-fingered chill of a ghost, but something even less–and at the same time more–familiar…

The snow was settling on the shoulders of the coat and on the stranger’s bright yellow hair and he made no move to shake it off, earning him odd looks from passers by.

“Okay, now that’s what I call a freak,” Kevin remarked, pulling his own winter coat tighter around him. “Stand there like that letting it snow on you? Crazy, man.”

Connor shivered, but less with cold than with realization. His ghost had somehow come back to life.

“Look, I still have a lot of packing to do before I fly out tomorrow. See you next semester?”

Kevin nodded. “K. Have a great one, man.”

The snow-covered ex-ghost didn’t move as he approached him, just quirked one lip upwards into a devilish smirk. “If you’re waitin’ for me to wish you Happy Christmas, save your breath.”

The younger man just shook his head. “You’re alive.”

“Not alive. Corporeal–there’s a difference.”

For a hesitant moment, he considered breaking the eerie silence to ask what he meant by that, but realized any answer would probably be as cryptic as what the man had given him before. But he had to say something–the quiet that always hung around this stranger like his black coat was unnerving.

The quiet…

“Your heart’s not beating,” Connor realized in a moment of terrifying, mystifying epiphany. It had taken the absence of the sound to realize the nature of the low, rhythmic thrum of sound that had always surrounded him.

It was the sound of beating hearts.

“Who the hell are you? What the hell are you? And why are you here? You implied you know my father…”

“It’s not about Angel. Well, okay, it was, but it’s not now,” he corrected himself. “Though I admit it’d still be damn funny to see the look on his face when I spill his precious secret. Let Percy and the rest know he got in and messed with their heads.”

Angel? Percy?

Suddenly the dead man looked Connor straight in the eyes. “I made the mistake of deciding I wanted to see for myself what a son of Darla and the Ponce would look like. So now, like it or not, I’m here for you. Call it a Christmas gift if you like.”

“A gift of what?” Connor felt even more confused than ever. The stranger seemed to be talking about a life he’d never lived, and yet the names…Angel, Darla…especially Darla…he knew them somehow. Deep in a part of his soul he hadn’t known existed, he knew them.

“Advice,” the blond shot back. “Don’t believe your eyes. Trust your heart. Deep down, you know this isn’t your life.”

The younger man shivered again. “Why are you telling me this?”

“‘Cause I’ve been watchin’ you for a while,” he reminded him. “Even before you know–it took you some time to see me, don’t know if you knew that. And I know you’d rather have the ugly truth than a whole mess of pretty lies.”

Dumbfounded, Connor just stared at him, a horrible conviction of the truth of his words growing in him.

The dead man grinned. “Now, I best get me back ‘fore the Poof figures out it was me as ran off with the company jet. But when you find your way home…look me up. Name’s Spike.”

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Fic: Spiced Rum (Angel, gen)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Author’s note: This was inspired by someone’s comment on LiveJournal that Cordy seemed to have been surreptitiously aged between BtVS season 3 and Angel season 1…with one of the proofs being that she was drinking long before she should’ve been legal. Call this my explanation for why no one calls her on it. *g* To my wonderful beta reader, Christina–she knows Angel so much better than I do and really helped make sure I got him right.

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Cordy–“

“No! Angel, this is ridiculous.” Cordelia glared from Angel to Wesley and back over her glass of Captain Morgan. “Both of you are being ridiculous. I am perfectly capable of handling this.”

“Angel is correct, however capable you may consider yourself,” Wesley admonished. “In California, one can’t legally consume alcohol until the age of twenty-one, which you are not.”

“So?” As usual, she was unbowed. “How am I supposed to get some rich, gorgeous young, single man who just happens to own a major television network to ask me to be the national spokesperson for their fall line-up if I can’t let him take me out for a couple of drinks? I mean, duh, this is LA–everybody lies about their age.”

“Yeah, but usually they say they’re younger than they are,” Angel retorted.

“Like you, Mr. Baby-faced-should-be-somebody’s-great-grandfather-times-ten?”

The vampire looked offended. “That’s different–“

“Besides, it’s not like I’m going to get caught–” Cordy persisted. “No one here knows how old I am, except for you two. And it’s not exactly as if you’re going to go turn me in, Mr. Sorry-I-can’t-go-to-court-and-testify-because-if-I-should-happen-to-step-outside-this-nice-sunny-courtroom-I’ll-burst-into-flames.” That, obviously, was directed to Angel. She turned next on Wesley. “Or you, Mr. Wetback.”

“Cordelia.” The ex-Watcher thought he sounded patient. It came out patronizing. “A ‘wetback’ is an individual who enters this country illegally across the Rio Grande–“

“And you entered this country illegally across the Atlantic Ocean. Which makes your back even wetter,” she shot back with a triumphant smile.

“One can hardly swim the Atlantic–“

“Oh, like Immigration is so going to care.”

Wesley blinked, cleared his throat, and folded his hands in his lap. “Ah, yes. As you yourself pointed out, you are remarkably mature for your age, and perfectly capable of behaving in a responsible manner regarding the consumption of alcohol.”

“Wesley!” Angel just looked at him. “If she were capable of behaving responsibly we wouldn’t even be having this conversation! I don’t believe this–you are such a wimp!”

The ex-Watcher stuck his chin out defiantly. Cordelia just fixed the vampire with a skeptical stare and an eyebrow that was doing its best to climb into her hair.

Angel wilted. “Okay, so I’m a wimp too.”

She beamed, jumping up to give them both a quick, benevolent kiss on the cheek. “I knew I could count on my boys.”

Humming happily off-key, Cordy bounced out of the room and up the stairs to the office. Angel and Wesley watched her go.

“We are such wimps,” the vampire repeated with a sigh.

“Surely you cannot lay the fault entirely upon our shoulders, Angel,” Wesley protested with a thoughtful glance in the direction their friend had gone. “I hardly think there is a man in this world brave enough to venture the wrath of Cordelia Chase.”

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Fic: Unforgiven (Angel, gen)

by Azar Posted on August 23, 2012

Acknowledgments: It’s all Misty’s fault, even though she probably had no idea who I was when I wrote this. *g* Thanks to Deb, Christina and Medie for encouraging me.

She’d needed the release, just as he anticipated. It was a more confident and even more driven Faith who climbed back into the car beside him. One who was beginning to learn how to be the Slayer without being a killer. And to his surprise, he was as proud of her in that moment as Giles must’ve been long ago of Buffy. Even though his brief tenure as her Watcher had little, if anything, to do with who she was today. It was rather more likely that he had contributed to her undoing instead of her redemption.

He certainly hadn’t taken the high road when she’d had him at her mercy three years ago. Anger, hate, guilt and shame had got the better of him, as they so often did. And the bitterness had lingered long after the knife fell from his hands, long after he told Angel he knew he’d done the right thing by giving Faith the chance for redemption she so desperately craved.

Sometimes he thought he’d never truly been rid of it until he’d realized she was their only chance to save Angel.

Mind-reading was not one of the Slayer’s powers, but it might as well have been with the next shaky words out of Faith’s mouth:

“I never did get around to apologizing to you, did I, Wes?”

It wasn’t the words themselves that surprised him so much he almost lost control of the car. It was the hesitant, nervous tone of them. Faith, afraid. Of him. Or rather, of the cosmic debt he supposed she thought she owed him.

His silence made her discomfort seem to grow. Now she was almost babbling, again something he never thought to hear from Faith.

“I won’t make excuses because there is no excuse for what I did to you–I mean, hell, if I’d been a normal sicko I would’ve made my desperate plea for attention or help or whatever by cutting myself up, not someone else. But…God…I really am sorry, Wes. I’m so, so sorry.”

“I know.” Maybe he hadn’t before that moment, but as the words passed his lips they became true. “And I’m sorry too.”

The look on Faith’s face was as surprised as he had been just a moment ago. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been expecting an apology. “For what?”

He struggled for a moment, fixing his eyes on the road in vain hope of avoiding the truth of what he really was apologizing for. The reason he usually didn’t apologize–because he feared if he started, he’d never stop. But truth was a hard thing to avoid these days, with Angelus loose and eager to twist the knife of failure in the belly of his alter ego’s friends.

“For failing you. As your Watcher. If I had just–“

“You didn’t fail me. I failed me.” Her look was frank, self-aware in a way most people weren’t–himself included. “By the time you came along, you could’ve been Winston fucking Churchill and I wouldn’t have heard a word you said.”

“Then for being one of the people in your life who did give up on you.” Because he had. He, her Watcher, who should’ve been the last person in the world to ever leave her side or lose hope, had betrayed her by doing just that.

The smile that touched her lips was weak, self-deprecating, and far less self-aware. “Hey, you’re here now and that’s all that matters, right?”

A very big part of him wanted to grab hold of the loophole she’d offered him but a bigger part needed to be the Watcher–the man–he’d failed to be before.

“No, it isn’t. I had no right to lose faith in you–if you’ll forgive the pun–as your Watcher…I owed you better than that.”

“Forgiven.” This smile was genuine, and for a moment he almost thought he saw the sparkle of held back tears in her dark eyes. But no–this was Faith. She didn’t cry that easily. “The pun, all of it. Thanks.”

A blessedly sweet silence descended on the car, an absence of sound that wasn’t heavy with words unsaid.

Faith watched him with more than her eyes. “Wow. You look like you needed that as much as I did.”

The thought surprised him, but testing his heart he found everything weighing it down felt just a little lighter. Even Lilah and Connor. And the wonder of that crept into his voice too.

“Yes…I suppose I did.”

“Hey, are you okay? ‘Cause I meant what I said about you looking good, but you don’t seem happy.”

That earned her a short, bitter laugh. He’d almost forgotten the meaning of that word, happy, if he ever knew it. “I’ve made some…bad decisions recently. Some merely unwise…others unforgiveable.”

“Hey.” She touched his arm, forcing him to look at her as they slowed down for a light. “You and me…the fact that we’re sitting here right now having this conversation is proof positive that nothing is unforgivable. But you’ll never know if you never ask.”

Was it the time in prison that had made her this wise, or was it Angel’s faith in her?

“You’re right. Thank you.”

“Hey, what are friends for?” she quipped. Then her eyes turned serious again and the look she turned on him was once again tentative, almost fearful. “We are…gonna be friends now, right?”

Looking at her, at the hope in her eyes, Wes felt several things fall into place, not all of them pleasant. He understood now, maybe for the first time, what it really meant to be a Watcher. He understood that he would retract the forgiveness he’d just given her if it meant her survival. That he would use the only real weapon he had against her–the hurtful power of words–to drive her back into the shell she was breaking, transform her back into the creature she was trying so hard to leave behind, if it would make her hard enough for the task that lay before her. And he knew that he wouldn’t feel the least regret for doing so. That he would rather lose the tenuous bond they were building than fail her again, fatally this time.

But for now…for this moment, it hadn’t come to that. And if Fate was kind, perhaps for once it wouldn’t.

So, were they going to be friends, as they should have been all along?

He smiled wistfully. “I certainly hope so.”

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