Faithfully Dangerous

Author: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG-15

Disclaimer: These aren’t my characters, as you all know. If they were, they’d all be living happily ever after by now.

Summary: Set during my story Latter Days. Faith is sent to L.A. to get information out of Angel and recruit Wesley—if she can. What she discovers is a scheme by persons unknown to take advantage of the imbalance, and an unlikely friendship.

A/N: Although this takes place during Latter Days, there isn’t a direct 1-1 relationship between the chapters. So, you could say that time is moving at a slightly different pace, although they will intersect.

Chapter 14

Faith was staring at the computer screen, trying to decide how to respond to Buffy’s questions. The other Slayer wanted to know how things were going in L.A., how Faith was dealing with Robin’s death, and how she was handling working with Wesley. It was that last question that was giving her some trouble, because she had no idea how much Buffy knew, or how much to tell her.

Faith could honestly say that her relationship with Wesley was the most stable one she’d ever had. He was good to her, and good for her, and he took care of her when he could without smothering her.

There were moments when she wondered how the hell she’d ended up here, happy.

In the end, she sent back an email saying only that she and Wesley worked well together, and that things were good. She wasn’t prepared to say more than that.

“Are you ready?”

She looked up at Wesley standing on the other side of the hotel’s front desk. “It’s done?”

He nodded. “I believe so, although it’s impossible to say whether it will work until we try it.”

“Have you called the others?”

“Not yet. I wanted to check with you first.”

Faith raised her eyebrows. “Seriously?”

“Of course.”

She snorted. “You’re sounding like we’re married or something.”

“Not married, partners,” Wesley replied. “Which some might argue is the same thing.” His raised eyebrow dared her to argue with him.

She shrugged. “We are sleeping together, and some might argue that married couples don’t do that.”

His lips turned up in a smile. “So, shall I call?”

“Go for it. Might as well get this over with.” Faith wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for this, but she wanted the information missing from her brain.

He nodded. “As soon as everyone is here, we’ll do it.”

Faith wondered briefly if they were doing the right thing. What if they’d missed something, and they needed another Orlon Window? She had no idea how easy it was to make one, or if was even possible to do it again.

She decided there was no point in that sort of speculation, because there wasn’t anything she could do about it, nor was there any way to know ahead of time whether that would be an issue. Faith couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive, however.

What was it that they couldn’t remember? And how would it change things?

It seemed like a long time before the others showed up, one by one, even though it was only a couple of hours. Fred came almost immediately, although she didn’t really speak to anyone, instead sitting silently on the lobby couch, staring at the floor in apparent fascination.

Gunn was the next to arrive, followed by an apologetic Lorne nearly an hour later. “I’m sorry,” the green skinned demon said as he entered. “I was in the middle of a meeting that I couldn’t leave. Where are we doing this?”

“Here, I think,” Wesley replied, picking up the shrouded device and carrying it to the middle of the lobby. “We simply need to be present when it’s broken. It’s not complicated.”

“What about the rest of us?” Caridad asked from the sidelines. She was standing with the other three Slayers near the garden doors; Ellen and Dana were upstairs, as Dana tended to get a little upset when there were strangers around.

Wesley glanced at Faith, and she shrugged. “Perhaps you’d best stay close,” he suggested. “It won’t have any affect on you, but it’s hard to say what will happen to us.”

“I thought you said this wasn’t dangerous,” Gunn inserted, sounding alarmed.

“It’s not, but memories have different impacts upon different people.” Wesley sounded calm, but Faith could see the tightness in his shoulders and jaw, in the way he was carrying himself. He was as anxious as she was to get this over with, and so she took a step closer to him.

“Let’s get this done.”

He met her eyes. “Very well.”

The Slayers stayed where they were, but the others moved closer. Wesley pulled the cloth away, revealing a device that looked like a lantern that was brightly burning. She heard him take a deep breath, and then he threw it to the floor.

There was a crash and a flash of light, and suddenly Faith remembered. Snippets that had had no context before suddenly made sense. She could remember the teenage Connor with an attitude the size of Texas, remember how he’d been so anxious to kill his father—and yet he’d been curiously vulnerable as well.

She’d left as soon as Willow had stuffed Angel’s soul back into him, and she didn’t know why Angel had gone to Wolfram & Hart to save his son.

But from the expressions on the others’ faces, they did.

~~~~~

Lorne gasped as the memories slammed into him with all the force of a freight train, and he could hear the others do the same. He could suddenly remember that he’d met Faith before—when she’d been in L.A., trying to capture Angelus so they could restore his soul.

More importantly, he remembered Connor as a baby and as a young man—as victim and aggressor. The boy had been so filled with hate and confusion, and whatever had taken over Cordelia’s body had fed on that.

The poor kid had been lost, and Angel had done the only thing he could to save him, even erasing every memory of Holtz and of his father.

What Lorne didn’t understand was why Angel had decided to erase their memories, too.

Lorne heard the office door slam, and he glanced up to see that Wesley had disappeared. “You okay?”

One of the Slayers was by his side, offering him an arm. “I’ll be fine just as soon as I catch my breath,” he assured her. “Someone might want to check on Wes, though.” Lorne met Gunn and Fred’s eyes in turn, and they both looked shaken.

“What the hell happened?” Faith demanded. “I remember the kid now, but I don’t know why Angel did what he did.”

“None of us do,” Lorne replied, getting confirmation from Gunn and Fred’s nods. “We know he was in trouble, but—”

“It must have been after Jasmine was killed, or destroyed, or whatever you want to call it,” Fred said slowly. “I know Connor was a part of that, but…”

“She was his kid—sort of,” Gunn added. “I remember what it was like when…” He rubbed his forehead. “Does anybody else feel like it just happened all over again?”

“Damn Angel!” Fred burst out. “We would have helped. We all would have helped, and he—”

Gunn sat down on the couch heavily. “He took our choices from us.”

“Are you going to stay there?” Faith asked him.

He shook his head. “I still don’t think I have a choice. Not only do I have this knowledge, but you guys are going to need someone on the inside who isn’t Angel.”

Lorne nodded his agreement. “I’ll be doing the same. Just ask if you kids need anything.” He watched as Faith looked at the closed door to the office. “We should go.”

“Yeah.” She blinked, as though coming out of a trance. “Caridad, get everybody rounded up, including Ellen and Dana. We’ve still got training today.”

As Faith marched towards the office, the Slayers drifted downstairs to the basement, calling out goodbyes as they went. Caridad headed upstairs, leaving Lorne with Gunn and Fred.

“How are you doing, Fred?” he asked seriously.

She shook her head. “I’ll be okay. Now that I know—” Like Faith, she looked towards the closed office door, but she stayed put. “I think I’m going to go to the beach,” she announced. “I need to take a walk.”

Fred walked out of the hotel without a backwards glance, and Lorne watched as Gunn winced. “What was that all about?”

He shook his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s remembering that they almost had something. I don’t think she knew that before.”

Lorne didn’t reply, instead thinking of all that had become clear in the last few minutes. It was startling to realize how jumbled everything had been and that things were worse in a way.

They had been building relationships based on false information and false pretenses, on false memories and false assumptions—all of which had been dashed now. It was going to take time to know one another again, time to trust.

And it was possible that they never would.

~~~~~

“Let’s go.”

Wes ignored her. “Leave me alone, Faith.” He continued rummaging in his desk drawer for the bottle of alcohol he knew he’d stashed there. If there was ever a time that called for a drink, it was now.

“We’ve got training to take care of.”

“I think it can wait.”

“Well, I don’t.” She stood there, implacable, arms crossed over her chest. “Who was it always lecturing me about duty?”

“Fuck duty.”

“It would be nice sometimes,” she said. “But today isn’t the day. Let’s go.”

His eyes blazing, he faced her full on for the first time. “Get out of here, Faith,” Wesley said, keeping his cool with some effort. “I’m not good company right now.”

He never saw her move; she had him flat on his back on the floor with a bone-jarring thud in a second, her pelvis grinding into his. Wesley felt himself responding in spite of himself. “Don’t be a dick, Wes.”

“You don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about,” he snapped, flipping them over so that he was on top, then trying to rise.

Faith gripped him like a vice, keeping them both on the floor. “You think I don’t?” she asked, her eyes intense. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to fuck things up so bad you don’t ever think they’ll be fixed? To feel like you might as well go all the way, because it’s never going to get better, and they’re never going to forgive you anyway?”

He froze, staring at her. This was probably the most honest she’d ever been with him, and Wesley thought that he might be able to see right down into her soul. “Faith…”

“We’ve got Slayers,” she said, her voice soft. “That’s what we need to focus on right now. There’s a whole list of things we’re going to have to deal with, but none of that is going to matter if we don’t have the womanpower to take care of it.”

Wesley ran a hand down her arm as soon as she freed him. “Thank you.”

She ignored his gratitude, scrambling to her feet along with him. “I told Ellen to bring Dana, too, since she probably should know how to fight. I don’t know which of us is better to work with her, but I figure she could be an asset.”

“I think you’re right,” he replied, realizing that they weren’t going to talk about the matter further. Wesley spared a moment to wonder about Angel and Connor. Would anyone tell the vampire about what they had done here today? Would their recovered memories have any impact on the boy?

He shook his head, knowing that there was no way of knowing, and he had no way of seeing Angel apart from going back to the law firm. Wesley didn’t think that would be a good idea.

“We’ll ask her, or Ellen, who she’d prefer,” Wesley finally said.

Faith was right. He had Slayers to see to; there was no point dwelling on the past.

~~~~~

Angel picked up the phone on the second ring, wishing there was some way of escaping from his duties here, but he knew there wasn’t. He didn’t have a choice in the matter now; it was in his contract.

“What is it?”

The message from the person on the other end had him slamming down the receiver and jogging to the hospital wing, needing to see it to believe. Cordelia was sitting up in bed, watching the doorway, when he entered.

He didn’t even pause to think about what he was doing; Angel pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. “Oh, God. Cordy.”

She didn’t reply immediately, but she returned his embrace with enthusiasm. “Hey, do you have some clothes for me?” she asked after she finally pulled back. “I’d like to get out of this hospital gown.”

“Yeah,” Angel replied, running a hand over her hair and trying to figure out how to get what she needed without having to leave her side. “I can call Harmony. She might be able to find something.”

“Harmony?”

“She’s working for me now,” Angel replied. “It’s a long story.”

Cordelia glanced around the room. “I’ll say. Did I hear the nurse right? Are you really working for Wolfram and Hart?”

“I took over the L.A. branch,” he confirmed. “I’m not really working for them, though.”

She snorted. “Uh huh.”

Angel knew that sound. She wasn’t buying it. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you just as soon as we can get out of here.”

Harmony quickly sent over some clothes after he called, and Angel ushered her upstairs to his apartment. He’d had the place swept for bugs, or other listening devices, including those that might be magical in nature, but that didn’t mean he was home-free. They couldn’t talk candidly inside the building, but they could at least have some privacy.

“Where are the others?” Cordelia asked when the door was closed behind them.

Angel wouldn’t meet her eyes, knowing what he’d see there. “Wes quit before I had to fire him. He was getting too close to information they didn’t want him to have.” He didn’t think he had to specify who “they” were. “Fred quit after—”

“After she found out about Connor?”

He turned to face her. “You knew?”

“You talked to me.”

“I didn’t think you could hear any of that.”

“That didn’t stop you from talking.”

“There wasn’t anyone else I could trust,” he admitted. Sitting down on the couch next to her with a heavy sigh, Angel said, “I don’t know what to do now, Cordy.”

She covered his hand with hers where it rested on the couch cushion. “I know. We’ll get it figured out.”

Something about the way she said it bothered him, and he searched her face. “No…” he murmured, when he saw the answer to his unspoken question in her eyes.

“You need me right now, and I was your link,” she whispered in his ear. “It won’t be forever.”

Angel felt her arms go around him, and he closed his eyes tightly, holding her close. When she was gone, he’d be more alone than ever, and he didn’t think he could deal with that.

~~~~~

Wesley focused on the Slayers; it was the only thing that was keeping him from abandoning all of this and finding the bottle he knew he’d stashed away somewhere.

His duty—and Faith. She might be a Slayer, but her partnership, perhaps he could even call it friendship, was more important than anything else. It felt more real than anything else, because she had known him after he’d betrayed Angel, and she hadn’t treated him any differently then.

What they had now felt organic, as though it was always going to happen, stolen memories or not.

Still, what he’d done, the hurt he’d caused—Wesley understood why Angel hadn’t argued about firing him. He was lucky to still be alive.

“Dana, you’re dropping your shoulder,” he said. She’d indicated that she wanted to work with him, although he’d paired her off with Leslie, who was probably the most sensitive of the girls. He held his hand out for the stake Dana held, but she refused to release it, staring at him with wary eyes.

Leslie handed hers to Wesley, and he demonstrated the stance he wanted her to take. “This way.” She mimicked his movements perfectly, and he nodded. “Good. Now, let’s try again.”

The two girls began sparring again, and he nodded in satisfaction at the improvement Dana had made, even in a couple of hours. Turning his attention to the other side of the room, where the others were drilling with swords, he couldn’t help but watch the way Faith moved—gracefully, with a restrained power that he could just see.

She’d changed so much since his days in Sunnydale. They both had.

“Wes!” He came back to himself with a start, staring at Ellen who held out the cordless receiver. “Giles is on the other end for you,” she said with an amused smile.

He took the phone, nodding his thanks. “Hello?”

“Ah, good. Wesley. There’s a Slayer I need you to find.”

He blinked. “Haven’t you already found her?”

“The coven knows her name, and a rough estimate of where she might be, but it seems as though she’s dropped out of the system,” Giles explained. “When we tried to contact her parents to ease the way for you, we learned that she’d left home some time ago, and no one has seen her recently.”

“Where is she?”

“In the Atlanta area, although I believe that her parents live in a small town nearby,” Giles replied. “I’d like for you to find her, but also to discover why she’s not at home. We know that she’s around thirteen, so she ought to still be living with her parents.”

Wesley could think of a number of reasons that she wouldn’t be, but he remained quiet. There was no point in speculating before they knew more. “I can leave whenever you’d like.”

“Tonight, if possible,” Giles said. “If she is on her own, she’ll be in danger.”

“Of course. I’ll pack immediately.”

“How did the memory spell go?”

Wesley had decided to tell the head Watcher, just in case something went horribly wrong. Although Giles hadn’t been thrilled by the idea, he’d agreed, saying that they needed all the knowledge they could find, and that included what was locked away inside their own heads.

“We recovered our memories,” Wesley said cautiously. “It was—difficult.”

“Do you need more time for recovery?” Giles asked, sounding sincerely concerned.

“No, I’ll be fine,” he assured the older man. “As I said, I’ll leave tonight.”

Wesley met Faith’s eyes across the room, and he could see understanding there. Duty would, indeed, provide an admirable distraction.