As Flies To Wanton Boys 
 

They had been....what was the word? Kind, yes, that was it, kind to her, she supposed. The Imugi - Mr Pak she corrected herself, because she was not allowed to say the other aloud - had taken her to his bathhouse, and given her clothes, and a bed. Not a bed. A...mattress. And a pillow roll that was perhaps made of rocks, though it seemed foolish and unnecessary to mention this. And a quilt. 
 
The quilt was old - Illyria recognised some of the patterns in it - and smelt of the cedar box in which it had been stored. 
 
The room was pleasant, and uncluttered, and filled with light. It had many plants, but they did not speak. 
 
And the bathhouse was...lonely. Illyria remembered them, memories that were hers, not this shell's, places that were full of people (mortals, some, yes, but the others, too) and laughter and....jokes? It should have been full of voices, sly remarks that admired and yet somehow mocked this shell. 
 
Wrong, I look wrong for this world... 
 
It was too silent. This world was too silent, the things she remembered about it all transported into hardness and corruption. They should have been her slaves, these ones, and yet - they were not. 
 
Her Guide had taken much of her strength, and saved her by doing so, even though he must have known she would be trapped forever, now, no chance of his little mortal  
 
beloved one 
 
grieve-for 
 
friend 
 
shell 
 
being brought back now. There had not been before, but - 
 
He could have chosen to let her die, and had his time to mourn. He had not. Yet he did not worship her, he did not admire her, he...perhaps...hated her. 
 
She did not understand him. She understood the others even less, for she had little store of memory to draw on for them - none for the wolf, who fought for control over what should have been his strength, and who was strange to her in all ways. 
 
The half-breed - vampire, they called them now - changed and corrupted by something that made his demon...trapped? Angry? Both, perhaps. She did not know the word for what he was. 
 
Her Guide, her - Wesley, she was supposed to call him that, was that what he was, as she was Illyria? No matter - had claimed love for him in words, in the room that was not a room. Were things so different, now, that this should be permitted? Her warriors would never have been allowed such a union, never of demon with man. Never. 
 
She should tell him that. They were strangely ignorant, these ones, perhaps it would be her duty to educate him, as much as it was his to guide her. 
 
The one who had saved her...Xander? She searched Fred's memory for that name, and smiled, the feeling odd on this face that was not hers. Named for the one who had come after her banishment to the Deeper Well, the one who had overturned the worship of the Great God in the place they called Babylonia. 
 
It was a good name. 
 
That she had needed saving was - distracting. Unnerving. 
 
Wrong. 
 
Like this world, this powerless, unbearable world, where the stench of mortality reigned. She wondered how the Imugi had borne it for so long....yet he had chosen to remain, biding his time to serve them. She had not chosen so. She had hated the Deeper Well, but... 
 
This was not how she had imagined her return. 
 
She had asked...Mr. Pak...questions, but he had not changed. The replies were of no use to her, and the drinks he gave her, though they smelt good, had fuddled her thoughts after a while, and made her wish to sleep. 
 
She resented that. Sleep had been a choice, once, and now - it could master her. 
 
Another error in this incarnation. 
 
Now that she wished to sleep, to take time in silence to reassemble her thoughts, it evaded her. This shell did not need it, and therefore she could not command it. 
 
Illyria got dressed in the clothes she had been given the night before, and went out into the garden, moving through the patterns of water and path that Mr Pak had laid, until she reached the ironwork gate at the end. 
 
This was where they were, the baffling mortals who had condemned her to this tiny plane of existence. 
 
She had been told that this part was...private, that she must not enter without permission, and, at some level, she had understood what she was being told. 
 
On every other, however, she rejected such a concept. She was Illyria, the warrior god, and as such -  
 
- why should she need permission? 
 
She pushed open the gate, and went through into their garden, noting with disgust that the linen trousers he had given her were too long, and already stained at their hems. 
 
At least he had given her appropriate colours for her status…though perhaps to have while clothing that got stood on by her own feet was not so sensible as she had first thought. 
 
Perhaps it was good that the top was green, even if it betokened a peaceful intent that she was astonishingly far from feeling, right at that moment. 
 
* 
 
Some time later, she vowed that she would always, always, heed Mr Pak when he told her things for a certainty.  
 
She had lifted bags. She had stood still and held a measuring tape. She had listened to this infuriating mortal babble at her until she truly wished for the strength of mind to destroy him, and only the knowledge that this would be disastrous stopped her. 
 
She was now sitting in the shade, because for some reason he thought she should, and had found out that the reason he was placing string along the ground was because he was going to put a pipe in it. 
 
This world was not making any more sense. 
 
"So... um..." He paused for a moment in what he was doing - why should it matter whether pipe was 'bendy', in any case? - and turned to look at her. It was extremely annoying how little deference he showed, when he did that. "What do I call you anyway?" 
 
Oddly enough, that made Illyria pause. It did not seem very likely that any of these mortals were going to address her as was considered right in her own day. "I am Illyria," she said eventually, and left it at that. What this human chose to call her was, she supposed, another symptom of this cloistered world that she would have to endure. 
 
"Pretty... " The mortal - Xander - grinned at that and picked up his shovel, and she could read his thoughts as clearly as if they were her own. Sometimes, she could not, and other times - it was akin to being shouted at. Never hurt to flatter a girl.... or Demon King or... well, whatever the combination of the two makes her…. 
 
Illyria tilted her head to the side, examining him. "That is what you wish to call me?" she asked, confused. 
 
And his thoughts were closed from her again. Irritating. "Uh... no. I meant the name is pretty." 
 
"Oh." Well. Perhaps it would not be necessary to crush this one's skull, after all. "The Im - Mr Pak - has informed me that I may be of use. What will be required?" 
 
"Uh.... " His lone eye blinked, as he paused in his digging. To think? At least he was giving her due consideration. "I have no idea. What was he talking about at the time? " 
 
"He was not. I was talking to him. I am...trapped here. Like this. One world. I asked him how he bore it." 
 
How do you endure…this? How can you? You live among them…how can it be borne? 
 
"He informed me that it was best to find a way to be of use." 
 
Xander did not seem to find this surprising. "Well... at the moment. It's very useful for you to keep me company. Digging is kind of boring and you're giving my brain something to occupy it." He grinned at her again and continued with the trench. 
 
"This world is very, very small," said Illyria in disgust, and turned her attention to the grass. "And your plants are silent." 
 
Xander glanced up at her. "I'm thinking that's probably a good thing... because if my salad started talking to me...well... I'd probably die of scurvy." 
 
Illyria blinked. That truly made...no sense. "Why would your salad talk to you?" she asked eventually. 
 
"Never mind. Bad joke." He smirked. "I'm just saying that I'd be surprised by talking plants. Do the plants in your home world/dimension talk?" 
 
"To me, yes. They have...souls?" She frowned. "No. Spirits. They are...conscious. Yours are silent. They grow, but - there is nothing." 
 
"Yeah... I can see how that would seem strange. Probably feels like you've suddenly gone tone deaf." He nodded, looking at her with…what was that? Sympathy? How strange that she should not resent such intrusion. "But for us? We find it enough that they do grow. They can be beautiful or strong or tasty. All of that is enough." 
 
She thought about that for a moment, then plucked a few blades of grass and nibbled on them, tentatively. "Well, this is not tasty," she announced. "Nor is it very strong. So then it is...beautiful?" She frowned down. "Strange definition." 
 
"Well, maybe not beautiful... but nice... and it tickles your toes when you walk on it barefoot. " Xander finished his trench, then looked it over, checking the width. 
 
Illyria kicked off the embroidered slippers that Mr Pak had found for her, and poked at the grass with her big toe expectantly. It did nothing. She poked it again. 
 
The grass, being grass, continued to do nothing. Illyria scowled at it. "I think it is broken." 
 
Xander chuckled and walked over to her, "You have to relax and let things happen. It's not... like a command performance."  
 
He plucked a long broad leaf of the grass, slit it and held it up to his mouth, blowing through it and making it buzz. 
 
* 
 
She was a warrior god. She could crush her enemies with one blow. She could also make a piece of grass make a silly noise. 
 
It had only taken her quarter of an hour to learn....but at least she was no longer bored. Mostly. Apparently, there was skill required in choosing the perfect leaf - although the mortal - Xander - did not seem to hold to the specifications he had listed. 
 
The grass blade bent upwards and tickled her nose, and she squeaked in surprise. 
 
The mortal beside her only laughed. "Well... maybe I was wrong and it's your nose that grass tickles....not your toes." He leaned forward and rubbed her nose for her, "I'm about ready to call this a morning. Gets to hot out here after this time of day. I'll do some more later on in the afternoon." 
 
She should have found such familiarity unacceptable, but it was without malice, and therefore could be borne. "So you do....what? Now?"  
 
"Now? Now I take a shower because... sweat and stinkiness. Then... probably lunch." He stopped and looked at her. "Uh... do you eat? I mean, regular people type food?" 
 
"I drank tea." Illyria made a face. "I drank a lot of tea. And wine with rice. Or rice from wine? The wolf made charcoal. I did not like it." 
 
"Rice wine... wine made from rice." Ah, that explained a great deal. This shell was not designed, perhaps, to withstand as much as she had consumed. "And...charcoal? For what?"  
 
"It was bread. Then it was charcoal." Illyria shrugged. "It had...an odd texture. And he said most people do not eat the plate." He had looked a little startled, too, when she had, and somewhere inside her, that had given her some pleasure. It was not right that they should all be so…accepting of her. 
 
"Oh... Oz burned toast. " This apparently made sense to him, and Illyria noted toast for the future, and to be avoided. He chuckled, presumably at the toast, and not her. "Most people also don't like their toast to be black... Oz is... well... Oz...." 
 
"Yes...?" Oh. That was the explanation. This world was odd. "Is that regular people type food?" 
 
"Yes... well, regular Oz-type people food." He was smiling with affection now, so - no, not at her. At the wolf. "Oz tends to be a bit.... different. "  
 
Illyria concentrated, holding up her thumb and forefinger so that the faint lines of electrical memory could trigger associations in her mind. The shell provided a great many of them, but only one truly stood out for her. "Demon tacos?" she asked at last, bewildered. 
 
He looked confused, "Well, I know what a taco is... Not sure what demons have to do with them though. Would you like tacos for lunch? Place around the corner will deliver them." 
 
"I....do not know." For the first time, she really didn't. She thought that the shell she was inhabiting might require whatever tacos were, but that was really as far as she could go. "Yes?" 
 
"Alrighty then... " He tugged off his sweaty shirt and mopped it over his face. "Give me 15 minutes to get a shower and get changed and I'll have the tacos delivered right here. We can have a picnic." 
 
He was insane. He made no sense. He was also the only person who had bothered speaking to her other than to tell her not to do things since they got out of the prison-place. Illyria wriggled her toes into the grass, which wasn't tickling, but was cool and at least vaguely familiar, and just nodded. 
 
After he had gone, she picked another of the large leaves, and made it buzz. 

*

Xander's Journal- 
 
Things are moving so quickly around here. Wes offered me a job, and, with the fact that my former hometown, let alone my former home, has been sucked into a giant pit… I think I'm going to take him up on it for the time being. Of course, my job description is a bit vague. I'm going to be the all around guy, I guess. Help with answering the phone and making appointments…help with research ((Hopefully not too much of that. *cringe*))… help with the gardening… help when we get called out to fight the latest "Big Bad". Yeah, I'm going to be the "Helper" with a capital "H". 
 
In return, I get paid and have someplace to live. And, right now, something that seems more important considering my whole life has been turned upside down… I get to have the company of people I know. Well, yeah, I know that I could go to Giles and Buffy and Willow, and help with the new Slayers and the Council… but somehow? This is more appealing. I feel like I fit in here, somehow, better than I would there. I mean, I'm still in a group of people who all have skills that surpass mine… but somehow, it's not so…obvious. Even with a vampire, and a werewolf, and a Hell God, there is still Wes, who although really smart is just a fairly normal, if angsty, guy. And, really? I kind of like hanging with Nguyen and his extended family. Even if I'm still sure that his Uncle Shin is a demon. 
 
Also, being here, means I'm away from Anya. We're over and done, I know that…but, a part of me still loves her. Still, I don't need the pain, and the regrets, and the not-so-subtle put downs that she deals out like most people breathe. Maybe after she and Andrew have got their business going she'll be distracted enough to give me a break… or maybe not. 
 
Of course, it's not like I'm going to be able to avoid them all together. They're only going to be on the other side of town, staying with Angel at the Hyperion. Doesn't that sound cozy? 
 
I give them a week before I get a phone call from Willow… demanding my presence. 
 
Damn. I'm living with 2 other guys… 3 if you count Oz, who at the moment is crashed out on the Demon couch…. And my life is still full of demanding women. 
 
Well, one damn demanding woman at least. From the moment, I knocked her flat at Wolfram & Hart… Illyria seems to have decided that I am her go-fer or something.  
 
"You will assist me with rising." 
 
"You will bring my armor." 
 
"You will take me to a suitable resting place... this shell grows fatigued." 
 
And that was all before we even managed to get out of the building. 
 
Mr. Pak's been having little "talks" with her, though. And she is getting a little better. Now, she at least calls me by name, before demanding my services. 

* 

Life with Illyria was far from dull, but after a week, Wesley, at the end of any patience he had once had, was forced to concede that it was remarkably like living with a two year old with an extensive vocabulary. 
 
"Why is...?" 
 
"What have...?" 
 
"Why do you not...?" 
 
"I want..." 
 
"I need..." 
 
"I require..." 
 
And, with increasing frequency, "I do not like..." 
 
Toast. (They just stopped offering it to her). 
 
Her pillow. (Xander gave her his, but it soon suffered the fate of anything near Illyria, her first dream, and more-than-mortal strength. It was another item on the shopping list, somewhere after 'china' and 'rebars reinforcement for the walls') 
 
Silent plants. (They were all getting bored to death with the subject). 
 
Xander snoring (they were all very carefully not thinking about how she knew that). 
 
Oz on the couch. Oz training with Mr. Pak. Oz making toast. Oz meditating. 
 
Oz, basically. Spike had suggested she spend some time in the cage with him, next full moon, but Oz had made what, for him, amounted to a protest, so that had to be rejected. 
 
Training with Spike. 
 
Not training with Spike. 
 
Spike's clipboard (which was yet another thing Wesley tried not to think about). The notes on Spike's clipboard (she had eaten three sets and ripped up the others - along with the clipboard). 
 
Being made to focus. 
 
Being asked to do something. 
 
Being asked to do anything. 
 
Showers. Showers, apparently, were evil. Even Wesley was beginning to concede that yes, they did seem to have a vendetta against her. And he was getting very tired of dealing with varying degrees of scald, hypothermia, and dripping wet and naked warrior gods who were blue for more reasons than one. 
 
He wondered, vaguely, when the naked part had stopped being anything other than an additional irritation factor. 
 
They were getting no work done, up to and including his translations. Xander was spending his time coming up with designs for how the top floor should look - so far they had decided on an office, bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen (they forgot about the bathroom the first time around until Oz pointed out, with surprising mildness, that if he was going to take Wesley's old apartment, he was not dealing with a queue every morning), a training room - before Mr. Pak killed someone - and bookshelves, Wesley's one contribution to the list of essentials. 
 
He was trying very hard not to think about the chaos that would undoubtedly result once they got onto more specific requests and preferences, and spending as much time as was humanly possible in the garden. 
 
Unfortunately, from there, he could hear whatever was going on in Mr. Pak's dojo with horrible clarity. How Mr Pak had not yet killed anyone was quite beyond him, but he could only assume that either the old man had selective deafness, or superhuman patience. Since he had neither, he chose to stay as far away as he could for most of the time, only to be assaulted after the training 'sessions' with Illyria's own bizarre form of Twenty Questions. 
 
If this was what being a Guide meant, Wesley wondered if he could resign. 
 
The other factor - which had been even less enjoyable than day-to-day life was becoming - had been telling the group at the Hyperion exactly why Fred would not be returning. 
 
The fact that it had been over the phone - nothing to do with natural reluctance to introduce Illyria to anyone, or the specialised form of cowardice known as 'Wes can phone Angel, and sort it out that way' , or simply not wanting to be involved, they had all assured him, without seeming to realise that simply by mentioning those possibilities, they had confirmed them - had added to the hour of hell. 
 
Especially given the fact that Illyria's on-going battle with the shower had escalated into full-out war in the middle of it. 
 
"Does anyone there wear clothes?" Angel had demanded after Wesley finally extricated himself from the problem ('No, Xander, the shower is not possessed. She just keeps removing the temperature settings') and got back to the phone. 
 
"No," Wesley had responded. "Actually, it's a nudist colony. I was going to tell you, but other things seemed more important..." 
 
Angel, it seemed, could accept what had happened, even if he wanted Illyria to stay away, and had issued the blanket warning that if she did anything which he saw as a threat, then he would feel obliged to remove her. Wesley had restrained himself from saying 'Good bloody luck,' and made a sound that he hoped would pass for agreement. 
 
Gunn - understandably, for once - had been another matter. He had called Wesley back, in a raging mixture of guilt and grief and anger, demanding to know why they couldn't do anything, why they hadn't done anything, why this had to happen to the one person who, surely, was innocent of any wrong. 
 
Wesley had laid the blame firmly and squarely at Lilah's door, and found, to his surprise, that he meant it. A great deal of his own confusion had vanished as he sorted through Gunn's, and what passed now between them for civility, if not their old friendship, had been restored by the end of the conversation. 
 
Oddly, it was Gunn who had worked out that Spike must have got rid of the chip, and even more oddly, he had agreed to let Angel work that out for himself, over time. Beyond mentioning that he 'owed that bleached fanged fucker a drink, then,' that had been the end of the subject. 
 
Every day, people surprised Wesley more. 
 
And every day, that surprise became more welcome in the forms it took. 

* 

"Yo listen up: here's a story 
About a little gal 
That lives in a blue world 
And all day and all night and everything she sees is 
Just blue like her inside and outside 
Blue her house with a blue little window 
And a blue Corvette and everything is blue for her 
And herself and everybody around 
'Cause she ain't got nobody to listen: ... 
 
I'm blue (da ba dee da ba di) 
I'm blue (da ba dee da ba di) 
 
I have a blue house with a blue window 
Blue is the color of all that I wear 
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too 
I have a boyfriend and he is so blue 
Blue are the people here that walk around 
Blue like my Corvette it's standing outside 
Blue are the words I say and what I think 
Blue are the feeling that live inside me…." 
 
Oz sang softly, watching Illyria and Xander off to the side of the dojo. The "just a guy" and the Demon God seemed to be striking some kind of odd bonding over a strange game of Twenty Questions.  
 
It was kind of an interesting dance… Xander tossing his brand of colloquialisms at Illyria… her catching them… mangling them and then asking blunt literal questions about their meaning. Xander was in his milieu though… Anya had been good practice for him, obviously. He took most of what she said in stride and tried to answer as honestly and calmly as he could.  
 
And there was the touching. 
 
Oz was sure that Xander wasn't even aware of doing it - all the casual touches he bestowed on a daily basis. Granted, his actions weren't restricted to Illyria, Xander was just a touchy person, rather like Oz, himself. Neither one of them gave much thought about touching those that they considered family. That Xander considered Illyria part of his non-related and sometimes strange family was…. Actually it was typical of Xander.  
 
Oz quirked his head to the side, resting against his guitar. It was almost sundown and Spike would come bouncing out the door at any moment, all keyed up from his day trapped inside and ready to spar with Illyria. At least they called it sparring. Oz was tempted to call it "controlled pyrotechnics" with a side of "wanton destruction". But still… it held an odd fascination for all of them… rather like a train wreck. 
 
"I have a blue house with a blue window 
Blue is the color of all that I wear 
Blue are the streets and all the trees are too 
I have a boyfriend and he is so blue 
Blue are the people here that walk around 
Blue like my Corvette it's standing outside 
Blue are the words I say and what I think 
Blue are the feeling that live inside me…." 
 
A shadow fell over Oz and a voice spoke, "The Wolf mocks me…" 
 
Oz looked up to see Illyria standing a few paces away, scowling at him. 
 
"No, 'Llyria. Oz wouldn't do that." Xander interrupted, quickly looking to Oz for confirmation. "You wouldn't do that, would you, Oz?" 
 
"No."  
 
"See? Oz wouldn't do that. He's just….. Uh… what are you doing, Oz?" 
 
"Singing." 
 
Xander pushed onward, "See, Oz is singing. Singing a song about blueness and… well, I never really understood that song myself so I can't really explain it to you." 
 
Oz stood up, gathering his guitar and notebook, "It's about trying to fit in and losing yourself in the attempt." 
 
Illyria scowled again, "And you think I will allow this, Wolf? I think you underestimate me." 
 
Oz gave Illyria one of his half-smiles, "I hope so. It would be a shame for it to happen." 
 
"Oi! Blue! Ready to spar, then?" Spike bounced out of the building right on cue as the sun set, dispelling any further serious conversation. 

* 

Illyria decided to forego the daily battle with the shower after her workout with Spike, and headed off for the privacy of Mr Pak's bathhouse. Not that it was any more pleasant in its emptiness, but she was beginning to learn that some customs were so different here as to be made forcibly acceptable, if no more comfortable to her. Even if the customs of bathing her had been the same, of course, she would not have been sharing a bath with anyone in this form. 
 
While she did not feel the need for female company in many respects, she did, at times, wish that she had those with whom she could relax. But these men were neither her equals nor her contemporaries, and they seemed to see the form she now inhabited before they looked at her true persona, with only her Guide appearing to be wearily impervious to this new body that had been foisted upon her unwilling spirit. 
 
He had not been at first, of course, but then it had also taken him some time of considerable explanation to make her understand why she should always make sure she appeared in clothing. She had not understood all the explanation, particularly since some of it seemed to afford him a private amusement that he either could not, or refused to share. 
 
She was beginning to learn that this inner amusement was something that very few people understood in him in any case, and was learning to tolerate its seemingly random appearance, as the others did. What made Wesley's mouth twitch upwards at the corners in what they referred to as a smile was certainly not what Xander had been classifying as 'humour' earlier. Nor was it a 'pun' or a straightforward 'joke' (though she was still uncertain as to what was so straightforward about that form of humour) nor indeed anything she had been told about to date. He certainly was not mocking her, which Spike frequently did. 
 
Impossible to tell, and better to ignore, in both his case and Wesley's. 
 
Illyria sank into the scented water, and contemplated the things she had learnt. 
 
That locks were on doors as a signal that people did not want to be disturbed, as well as to capture those who did not want to be kept in. 
 
That people did not like to be awoken from a deep sleep, and that most people slept at different times to the ones she was meeting. That much she had learnt from the box called a television. 
 
That Spike was to be called a vampire, but if she ever met the one called Angel Angelus, too, something very old whispered inside her, she was to call him a half-breed. She suspected this was not entirely true, as when Xander had explained this to her, Wesley's mouth had twitched more than usual before he turned away to the window rather quickly. 
 
That she was never, ever, ever to break the door to the top apartment down again, even if it meant she had to wait five hours before the meaning of raspberries was explained to her. (Both sorts. She preferred the red ones). 
 
That there were times when she could ask anything she wanted, and times when people were abstracted and did not wish to pay attention to her, and then someone usually decided she should learn about something that was somewhere else. 
 
She was learning that there were things that caused those emotions she had always wanted her people to be spared, for it spared her vicarious knowledge of them, things that caused pain and sorrow and regret, all complicated and confused together, that when she could sense those things in the air, she must not ask or question. 
 
The world was not as unpleasant as she had thought, though, even with all this newness to it. She was learning to care about these people - her people - as well, perhaps the faint remnants of her subsumed host's memories giving that to her, perhaps a side effect of the energy gun that had saved and weakened her at once. 
 
She was learning gratitude and patience. She was learning things about them that she suspected they did not know were felt - that more might be given to her in explanation that would ever be said aloud one to the other. That Xander might call himself 'ordinary', and mean it as some kind of curse, but when she asked Wesley about him, he said that Xander was one of the bravest men he knew. Illyria knew that to be brave was not to be ordinary. Was this lying, then? And if so, on whose part? Neither of them had lied to her before, so it seemed unlikely they would have chosen something so vague to begin with now, but - 
 
Illyria sighed, and got out of the bath to get dressed, wondering if, when she headed over to the other building, there might be food. 
 
There might well have been, but it was all locked up, and only the wolf - Oz, she corrected herself mentally, knowing that it would please people if she referred to him by that name - coming up the stairs as she was leaving. 
 
"They are not here," she said, feeling cross, and as though she had been deliberately made to look foolish. 
 
"No, they've gone over to the hotel." As she continued to stare at him, silently demanding further explanation, Oz sighed, and capitulated. "To see…oh, lots of people. You said you didn't want to, remember?" 
 
"That was yesterday." Illyria scowled. "Now it is today. I wish to be there. Where is it?" 
 
For a second, he looked almost exasperated, before opening Xander's door, sticking the groceries inside, locking back up, and beckoning to her as he headed back downstairs. "C'mon. I'll take you." 

* 

Blonde, brown and red - three heads that Xander tried, valiantly, to tuck underneath his chin all at once as he hugged his girls. Hugged them and accepted greetings and laughed, and, actually, felt a bit uncomfortable as a dozen newly-born Slayers came dashing into the lobby of the Hyperion in answer to Dawn's squeals, and stayed to watch the welcome. A dozen Slayers who, just as suddenly, all seemed to turn at once as Spike came up on their Slayerly radar. 
 
"Vampire…" 
 
"Good vampire." Xander hastened to explain as he disentangled himself from his friends and went to stand next to Wes - who, of course, had done his best to put himself between Spike and as many of the Slayers as he could manage. "Good vampire. Like Angel good vampire." 
 
"Oi! I'm nothing like that poof." 
 
"Not helping, Spike." 
 
"Spike!!" A flash of brown hair and another squeal of greeting from Dawn, who launched herself at the blond. "You're home!" 
 
Dawn enveloped Spike in a tight hug, then released him and kicked him in the shins. "I was worried about you. You left and no one knew where you were. And then we heard you came back, but you didn't call or come home or anything. And at first I didn't care, but then Buffy explained some stuff and then I felt bad about the whole thing and the way I had talked mean about you. Then I just missed you and you still didn't come home! But, wow, you're here now and all souled and everything, but nothing like Angel, because no brood that I can see and, YEA!" She hugged him again. 
 
"Breathe, Bit." Spike chuckled, wrapping his arms around her but obviously a bit surprised at his warm welcome. 
 
Then there was much shifting as Buffy got the younger Slayers to stand down and Wes seemed get less tense. Spike and Buffy greeted each other, a bit stiff and wary, but then after some general talk and inquiries about what the other was doing they kind of relaxed, which, as far as Xander was concerned, was all of the good and typical behavior between ex…ex-whatever the heck they'd been. And oh, speaking of exes, there was Anya, with Andrew. Well, not with Andrew, but there…together…in the same room. And yeah, even Xander's brain was babbling, but he could be excused, because he was busy fielding questions from Willow at the same time he was keeping an eye on everything else. 
 
"Yeah… I'm working for Wes. Wes and Spike if you want to get technical, since they are partners. Oh… and designing their new offices and living space. It's this huge area on the top floor of our building, almost completely open at the moment but I think it's going to be really neat when it's finished. Wes and Spike are living up there now, which means I get the use of their old apartment along with O… oh, yeah, and Mr. Pak, the owner of the building, has me do odd jobs for him sometimes. He has this enormous family and, oh! Yeah, he runs a dojo out of his place in the back and I'm staring to train, ya know? Helps with the whole depth perception thing…" And gee, he'd managed to cover up the almost-saying of Oz' name. Which was good, because he hadn't had a chance to ask him if he cared if Willow knew he was in town. 
 
Willow smiled up at him, "But you are going with us when we go to England, right? Scooby solidarity against the old guard. Well, what's left of the old guard Council after the First, you know… blew them up. Giles says he's going to need all of us to help get things put back together. And he's going to have to send people out to find all the new Slayers and stuff. You can't resist that, huh? I know how you always wanted to travel." 

Willow looked at him with that look. The look that said they were best friends and nothing in the world could be better than something they did together… even if it was "together" in completely different parts of the world.  
 
"And, oh boy, how am I ever going to explain to her that I'm actually happy right where I am? Happy and, yeah, maybe even needed." 
 
"Look, Wils -" 
 
"Xander?" The soft question in Wesley's voice cut him off. 
 
"Yeah?" 
 
"Charles is taking us into Angel's office. Spike is… " Wes glanced back over at the vampire. Spike was still talking to Dawn and Buffy, and Faith had now joined the little circle. Xander looked closer, and saw the problem - the almost imperceptible twitch every time one of the new Slayers walked by him. "Spike is feeling a bit unsettled, I think." 
 
"Do we need to leave?" that might be good for Spike, since retreating into his private Hell of insanity never was a positive step. Good for Xander too, since he could take more time to come up with an explanation of exactly why he would not be going to England with the rest of the Scoobies. 
 
"No… no…. I think if he can just get some distance, he'll be fine." Wes gave a nod to Gunn who went over to Spike and then led him toward the office. 
 
"Oh.. Okay… then, yeah… office." 
 
"Gee, thanks Wes." *sigh* 
 
Willow continued, "We're going to be here in town for at least a month or two. Let everyone rest and heal and stuff. Then, off to England. Oooh… I'll take to the Coven House there. It's really nice and restful, but I know they could use some carpentry work done. Their main house is really old." 
 
"Well, yeah, Wils, I could do that I guess, but… " 
 
"Yo, Xan-man!" Faith joined them, pausing to slide one arm around Willow's waist, and hug. "Hey, Red." 
 
Willow chuckled as Faith continued, "I think, maybe, Wes wants you in the office." 
 
"Yeah?" 
 
"Yeah…" 
 
And how odd was it, that as he retreated to Angel's office, he felt strangely like Faith had granted him a reprieve? 

* 

Wesley was ready, within less than thirty seconds, to offer Dawn a permanent position in his firm, a puppy, a pony, and anything else that came into his or her mind. Possibly every credit card he owned. As Spike and Gunn, in some strange unspoken detente, raided Angel's - his, no, no longer, - cupboards for alcohol, Wesley stood there like a fifth and unnerved wheel. 
 
Until Dawn bounded in, long, shiny hair flying everywhere, and chattering away like an unharmed version of Fred. 
 
"Ooh!" She beamed at the whisky bottle and glasses. "Are we stealing from Angel? Can I have some? Are we going to gossip about everyone?" She jumped into Angel's desk-chair, and glowered, her brows drawing together and her lip sticking out. "Look. I'm Angel. I'm brooooooding." 
 
Wesley tried very hard not to laugh, and failed, miserably. "Mm, so you are..." 
 
"Brood," Dawn said with emphasis. "Brood, woe is me, brood. Mind you, if I had Connor for a son, I'd be, like, way brood. With locks on my door." 
 
Wesley opened his mouth to say something - possibly to deny her the hypothetical pony - and was cut off by Illyria and one of the young Slayers at the office door. 
 
"Uh...she says she knows you?" 
 
"Ah." Wesley stared at Illyria, who appeared to have somehow decided that dressing in a tie-dye shirt of Oz's and a pair of jeans that had belonged to someone at least two feet taller was good dress code. "Yes, she..." 
 
"It's just....man....she's, like, blue!" 
 
Dawn rolled her eyes, and jumped out of the chair, sending it spinning. "Yeah, and you're, like, annoying. Go away. Grownups talking." She closed the door firmly in the other girl's face, and patted Illyria's arm. "We've got whiskey!" she said happily. "Hi, I'm Dawn." 
 
"Key-girl." Illyria gave an odd little half bow of her head, her expression respectful. "Dimension walker. I am Illyria." 
 
"Uh...cool." Dawn was pink with embarrassment. "You live with them, right? Gunn kinda hates you." 
 
"No!" Gunn looked horrified. "No, I - I -" 
 
"Illyria." Wesley cut them all off. "Whiskey?" 
 
It really shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was when she took the bottle, inspected it carefully, and raised it to her mouth. There was a small crunching noise. 
 
With the patience born of long experience, Wesley simply sighed, and removed it from her, ignoring Dawn's wide-eyed stare. "No, Illyria, you drink it, not eat the bottle..." He handed it back to Spike, unable to conceal his amusement as the vampire began pouring Angel's expensive twenty year old scotch (with bitten off top) into equally expensive crystal glasses. 
 
"Can I have some?" Dawn repeated, regarding Illyria as though she were the best thing to have ever happened, on or off the Hellmouth. "Spike, she eats glass!" 

"I am told I should not," Illyria said solemnly, sitting down meekly as Spike pointed a finger at her, and taking a glass full of the peat-coloured liquid. "I will not eat the bottle, my Wesley." 
 
"Cool," said Dawn happily, and ensconced herself back in the chair. "You two know really neat people, you know that?" 
 
Wesley grinned. "On behalf of the supposedly responsible...this entitles you to one very small drink." 
 
Dawn beamed at him delightedly, before turning to Spike. "You made him un-stuffy!" she said, and Wesley was suddenly swamped with memories that he knew were not his, but were nonetheless real, of a little girl in the library, waiting for Buffy and drawing complex and abstract pictures in the margins of his books, ignoring his protests. He was able to ignore Gunn, who was choking painfully on his own drink, and glaring at them. 
 
Spike simply shrugged, smirked, and poured Dawn about a finger's worth of liquor into one of the glasses, handing it to her. "Nah... did that himself. Was all unstuffed when I arrived." The look he shot Wesley said, quite clearly, that he wasn't really talking about Wesley's attitude. 
 
Yes, yes...I'm the original Velveteen Rabbit... Wesley was unable to stop the hot blood that rose to his face. He was rescued by a still wheezing Gunn. 
 
"Can we not talk about stuffing?" he asked rather plaintively. "It's just....wrong. And kinda immoral. And Dawn, you are so gonna want Coke in that...." 
 
Dawn simply batted her eyelids at Gunn and downed the whisky like a shot. The only reaction she got from the man was an eye-roll. Either she had done this before, or Gunn had seen it all before, and either way, he genuinely wasn't either taken aback or impressed. 
 
A desperate-looking Xander came in through the door, oblivious to Spike's beginning-of-a-rant about how this wasn't anything he'd taught her, and where had she learnt it, and - 
 
"Save me?" Xander was looking decidedly wild-eyed. Wesley looked out of the office window at the group remaining in the foyer, wondering if his expression was approaching anything that desperate. Faith, her arm still around Willow's waist, talking earnestly, broke off to wave at him. Ignoring Dawn's list of all the people she had learnt drinking whiskey from, Wesley just sighed. 
 
"I am a blissfully content, yet somehow complete failure, as any sort of Watcher ever. Hello, Xander. What from?" 
 
Xander took one of the unfilled glasses, half-filled it, and took a healthy gulp. ""Girls... and Willow resolve face... and "when we get the new Council set up... and Buffy - 'We've got your room all set up"... and Angel... grrr.... and ...and... " He slid down the wall and came to rest on the floor, staring gloomily into his glass. 
 
"Ah," said Wesley, sympathetically. "Well -" 
 
Whatever he was going to say, as so often happened when it came to trying to have a serious conversation with Xander, was lost as Faith came barrelling in through the door at top speed, waving off Slayers like flies as she went, closed the door firmly, waved at a hunted-looking Angel with a smug grin, and kissed Spike lingeringly. 
 
"Hey, gorgeous one of the undead world. Oh, man, save me....hey, Dawnie. There's some really evil blue stuff in that cupboard, drink that. Illyria, right? And you're....eating glass. Cool. Gunn, babes. Light of Angel's undead life and only un-British shag of the decade. Tell me there's more to drink, yeah?" 
 
There was a stunned silence. 
 
"And in five seconds," Wesley said dryly, "so much more than the world or I ever wanted to know. Faith, get a glass. Illyria ate the top of the bottle..." 
 
Faith grinned at him unrepentantly, drained the bottle into the last glass, and sat down beside Xander. "You bein' put-on, Xan?" 
 
With rare and sudden tact, everyone else found other things to talk about, and tried very hard to ignore the conversation going on by the far wall. Wesley, looking at Spike and Dawn, as she held up more and more brightly coloured and unlabelled bottles for his inspection, and Spike burst into rare and genuine laughter, revised his opinion once again. 
 
He'd do his best to give her the moon, for putting that look on Spike's face. And any planets she wanted. 

* 

You bein' put-on, Xan?" 
 
Xander bit his bottom lip and looked out across the office. Yes, everyone was listening; pretending not to, but listening just the same. And how strange was it that Faith was the one asking this question? Faith the one who actually seemed concerned with the answer. No, he knew that Wes probably had some idea of what he was going through, but Wes wasn't the type to pry directly into his dealings with his friends. And oddly enough, he suddenly caught Spike looking at him as if he, too, were interested in some way.  
 
"Yeah, probably just doesn't want to have to go back to answering the phones and stuff, if I leave." 
 
No, that thought was unfair. He and Spike had come to an accord, one sprinkled with taunts and insults it was true, but still, they seemed to be working towards, if not friendship, at least a grudging respect.  
 
But Faith? What was up with her? Judging from the way she had been cozying up to Willow and planting a liplock on Spike, she was doing her best to fit in with all his friends. And leave it to Miss Ever-blunt to come right to the heart of what he was going through and ask about it. Xander supposed that he should be grateful that she waited until now instead of just coming out with it in front of Willow and Buffy. 
 
"No, not put upon. Just… well… expected." Xander shook his head. "And could I possibly be any more vague?" 
 
Faith raised an eyebrow at him, handed him her glass of whiskey, then pulled an amazingly unbent cigarette from the pocked of her hip-hugging jeans and lit it. "Yeah, big with the vagueness, Xan. But I think I know where you're comin' from. When B and Wils get on a roll… it's almost like a Mac truck." 
 
"Yeah," he agreed, "A big red one, eighteen wheels and a cargo of live chickens." 
 
Faith just nodded, blew out smoke and then retrieved her whiskey. "I get that. But you're gonna have at tell them if you want something different than what they're offering. And do it soon or you'll find yourself out in Crackamyass, Africa, hunting for little Slayer girls before you can say "Fuck me." You know that, right?" 

"Only too well." Xander nodded. 
 
"Xander is not going anywhere." Illyria's voice suddenly interrupted their conversation. "I require him to remain." 
 
Faith laughed, taking another draw from her cigarette. "See? Tell them that. Tell them that the Blue Chick requires you to remain." 
 
Xander grinned up at Illyria, feeling like it was the first relaxed thing he'd done since entering the hotel. "Glad to know I'm needed, huh?" 
 
But he turned back to Faith in the next moment, "I'm not going. Not to England, or Africa, or Outer Mongolia. Yeah, sure, I've always wanted to travel, but I want to do it for fun… not to convince little girls that can, I might add, kick my ass eight ways to Sunday, that they want to go have training so they can kick ass even better. I'd - God, Faith - they all seem so young… and so….. " 
 
Xander lost the words at that point. 
 
"Dumb?" Faith supplied with a laugh. "Naïve?" 
 
"Yeah…" he agreed. "And the first time that a girl that I, personally, brought in, tangled with a vamp and lost….. It would kill me. I'd feel too responsible." 
 
"You gotta learn to lighten up, Xan. You aren't responsible for everyone, ya know?" Faith bumped shoulders with him in a friendly. "Slayers die. Been dying long before you were born. Unless, of course, they're me and have mad skills." 
 
Faith's laugh, somehow, put him back on track, and did somehow, make him lighten up, "Yeah… and I hear your fighting is pretty decent too." 
 
Yeah, he was finally able to joke about their "encounter"… all water under the bridge now. They had both grown up, let bygones be bygones. Life was too short to hold on to that stuff - hold on to old pains and anger. 
 
"You want another bite you just let me know, Xan. I might be willing to hang on to the afterglow this time." Faith stubbed out her cigarette butt in the now-empty whiskey glass…and then lowered her voice. "We okay, Xan? At least, okay enough that we can deal?" 
 
"Okay." He nodded agreement. "More okay if you help me convince Wils and Buff that I really am happy right where I am." 
 
"Deal." Faith held out her hand to him. 
 
"Deal" Xander took her hand, and was only slightly surprised when she pulled him closer and planted a big sloppy kiss on his lips. 

* 

Illyria stood there, holding her glass - now empty - and frowning as she tried to process what was going on in her mind. Neither Faith's comment nor Xander's smile at her had been mocking, but - they unsettled her, as happened so often now.  
 
And the kiss... 
 
She scowled involuntarily, trying to understand why it was she should have felt something so bright and sharp twist within her when the dark girl kissed Xander. She had seen kissing. She knew what it was, what it could mean. 
 
She understood, even if only at a theoretical level, what affection meant, and love. That kisses could reflect both - and more. Other things. Things that had made the vestiges of humanity in this shell of hers burn with a heat she had known on some level meant embarrassment, and that outweighed her curiosity, sending her stepping quietly backwards. 
 
Kissing was...private, sometimes. She had meant to ask about that. Why it meant things she shouldn't see, one day, and meant nothing more than Wesley's brief smile, the next. 
 
It meant 'Good morning,' and 'Thank you' and that people would see each other later. The Imugi kissed Oz on his forehead, at times, quiet and solemn, and that was benediction and affirmation. 
 
It could mean the same as a steadying hand.  
 
But it could also mean things she knew she was not supposed to ask about, things that were always said in a quiet moment or behind a screen or door, things that she should not intrude on, not because they would have cared, but because it was not a place she should be. It could mean sanity and home. It could mean I'm sorry and I hear you and a dozen other things that she was not meant to be able to translate. 
 
It meant I love you. 
 
Illyria had been worshipped, and adored. She had crossed oceans of time and space to defend those who gave her those things. 
 
But she had never been loved, never had someone laugh into her eyes, never had anyone lean forward and see her and feel these things for her because of who she was. 
 
And now... 
 
This face was not hers, these memories and emotions that were struggling to co-exist within her were alien and should have remained so. 
 
But somehow...somehow they had come to matter to her. And she cared that this was happening, not so much because of what was making it matter, but because she had never wanted such humanity, never felt its lack or its presence, and yet the lack of it, now, made her feel small and trapped and lonely. 
 
How could she want love, when she could not feel it? It was ludicrous. This place was ludicrous. 
 
How could she prove her superiority when she was becoming as weak as they? 
 
She stomped over to Wesley, and turned her scowl on him. 
 
"I want to go home, now," she announced, and ignored his upwards look of surprise. 
 
Because her voice had not shaken. At all. 

* 

"No!" Dawn's voice squeaked out, and Spike wanted to agree with her. "You can't leave yet, Illyria…. Because…because… blue stuff." she waved the bottle and then continued. "Blue stuff and I'm trying to convince Wes to do a spell for me. And don't be a spoil sport, it's going to be fun!" 
 
"Yeah, Blue. Don't want at leave when the party's just startin'." Spike knew that Wes would take her home if she really wanted to go, but he'd be damned if he'd let Wes go by himself, even if he wasn't ready to leave Dawn, yet. "I still have a lot of tormenting planned for the Poof. Need your help, don't I?" 
 
Illyria just looked at him, her eyes unreadable, as she repeated, "I want to go home, now." 
 
Something about her voice seemed odd. It had a timbre that Spike didn't quite recognize; one that he couldn't quite put down to her still adjusting to her new state.  
 
"Well, yes… certainly. If you're sure that you wish to go…" Wes' voice trailed off as he looked helplessly from Spike to Dawn and then back to Illyria. 
 
"Il-ly-ri-aaaaaaa…." Dawn's voice whined, as only a teenager's seemed able to do. She looked around the room frantically, and then demanded, "Faith… tell Illyria she can't leave yet. She hasn't met Willow or Buffy or Angel… I mean, not that she'll probably consider any of that exciting or anything, but…. Please, Faith…." 
 
Faith looked up from where she and Xander had continued to converse, adding her two cents to the conversation, "Yeah, I don't know about the rest, but you'll like Wils. She's a really bad-ass Wicca with the cutest little set of freckles all over her…uh… nose." 
 
"Yeah! And then we'll have Red and Blue…" Dawn bounced. "All we'll need is a yellow and we can make a whole rainbow. Please, Illyria…." 
 
A blue head tilted, blue eyes blinked like clockwork, a small wrinkle appeared on an indigo forehead. "You do not make sense, Key-girl. I am ready to go home now." 
Wes started looking around the room for his coat, and Spike growled, "Bloody Hell." 
 
So much for a nice visit and Xander being able to get this all over and done with. He walked over, placing one large hand on Illyria's arm. "Are you sure, 'Lyria? I really wanted you to meet everyone, and I really do need to talk to Willow and Buffy. I need to do it now, because the longer I wait, the harder it will get, ya know? I want them to know I'm staying here, with you and Wes and Spike. It's important to me." 
 
He watched her closely, Watched that clockwork tilt of the head which usually meant she was processing something. He hoped that she "got" what he was telling her, because, dammit it was important and he wanted to do it now, not just because it would be easier to get it over and done with, but because he wanted to do it with Wes and Spike there for moral support.  
 
And he'd need it… because Willow always could make him cave… and he wasn't much better against Slayer Puppy-dog eyes. He was pitiful. 
 
"Please, Lyria? For me?"  
 
The door popped open and Andrew poked his head in the door, "Are you guys staying for food? We're going to order from Marguerita's." 
 
"And Tacos…." Xander looked at Illyria, imploringly. 
 
The blue head cocked in the other direction, considering. 
 
"I will stay." She finally answered… then added, "For tacos." 
 
And that was good enough for Xander. 

* 

Home. When one of the famille rose bowls or vases, brought back from China by Roger and forbidden to be touched, was flicked by a careless duster or a child's fingernail, it had always given off a sound, clear, the sound of true porcelain. 
 
That was how the Hyperion had sounded to Wesley, the sound of the door closing behind him when he came in, the sound of a chair scraping in the kitchen, of Cordelia's laugh, of the drawers of the filing cabinet, the ring of a house, a true home. 
 
Home was in the sight of curtains drawn every dawn and open at evening, a reversal of the norm; in the light through the French windows of the foyer, reflections of electric bulbs on polished door knobs, on the letterbox. It was in cuttings and seed-plots in the struggling almost-garden. 
 
The ring of home was, too, in the feel of paper, of the finally-working heating warming his fingers, of the cold hotel-keys, in brief touches and fleeting kisses and the brush of Cordelia's scented hair against his cheek, but most of all, it was in sound. 
 
The sound of clocks, all over the hotel, time that meant nothing to Angel but so much to the rest of them, sound that came from the clock in the hall, the French clock in the foyer under its glass dome. 
 
Clocks ticked and taps dripped, and the emptiness itself had been home, but now it was no longer true, the hotel was filled with sound and movement, the clocks unheard amidst it all. 
 
Wesley felt Illyria's anxiousness in his blood, felt his loss and his uneasiness in every fibre, half-remembered words whispering in his brain and driving him further into himself, even while he smiled, and agreed to who-knew-what, and breathed the Slayer-scented air of the hotel as it was now. 
 
He walked out, blindly, into the courtyard, not thinking of the sun as a barrier to the one person he wanted near him, but only as the division between him and the past, him and Angel, that he could trust to. 
 
He thought of how sometimes, in England, rare days had come in February, rare and wonderful days when the sun had been bright and searing, despite its promise of a warmth that had never come with the light. 
 
He fixed his eyes on an anemone plant, minutely looking at the green-edged petals, the tiny stamens. It was Dawn who spoke to him; the young girl with a past that didn't really belong to any of them and yet knew everything, and obviously only brought out by some strange kind of a sense of duty, 
 
And yet, Wesley thought, duty could be very kind. As Dawn spoke, the conventional words that he had expected 
 
Are you all right? 
 
the anemone seemed to burn itself into his brain. 
 
The sudden pain of imminent loss, of Buffy's nearness, was so intense that he had to close his eyes against it. 
 
Spike! 
 
He gave an odd little gasp, and Dawn put her young, warm, pulse-thrumming hand on his arm. 
 
Wesley opened his eyes. The anemone had blended into the rest of the overgrowth; there was only the sunfilled day, and Dawn regarding him anxiously. 
 
"Even when one is stricken," he said unsteadily, "much remains," and Dawn, looking straight into his eyes, as so few people did these days, flung her arms around him and hugged him hard. 
 
"I know," she said, and muffled a harsh, barking sob into his shoulder, biting down into the thin wool of his jumper, shaking against him while no-one could see her amidst the sun's glare on the glass. She pulled away, after a bit, and looked up at him again. "I know. Now make the spell for me, Wes, and let's pretend…." 
 
* 

The Dark Slayer had asked for his assistance, so Spike was "running interference" for Xander.  
 
"I'll tame Red… you just keep Buffy occupied so they don't double team the guy, alright? He's gotten better at standing up for himself but those two have always been able to take him down." 
 
So here they were, Buffy and he, sitting on a couch in a corner of the lobby, cozy as you please. There was a time that he would have lived for this much of her positive attention… not that he'd ever turned down the other kind either. But now?  
 
Spike's mind whirled down that path. What, exactly, did he feel now? Annoyed, a bit, because Buffy and Red were trying to lure Xander off when Wes wanted him here. Affection? Yes, certainly that.. Buffy was Buffy and she seemed to command that, no matter how annoyed you got with her. Love? Yes… but it was muted, he realized. It was the way he felt about Dru. The sadness of something that was never "quite" what he needed, although he had longed for it with all his heart and done so many things to make it work out. No fire. No passion. No mental heart-flipping thump when he looked at her. Just a lingering warmth of remembered fires, fading fast. 
 
He listened though, keeping up his end of the conversation, watching the goings on across the room. Xander talking to Red, his face serious, hers just beginning to display a slight pout as Xander's words registered. Dawn prattling on to Wes and Illyria about plans and spells and other teenagery things. Angel trying to direct the movements of dozens of mini-Slayers, all of whom seemed about as likely to listen to him as a herd of cats…  
 
"You could come too." Buffy's voice suddenly broke through his thoughts. "We could really use you, for training if nothing else. Who else could I trust to give the girls a big wake up call without doing any real damage? Who better than to teach them about Vamps than you?" 
 
"Flattering that is…. But what about Hair Boy?" he nods, towards Angel who is trying to convince one of the younger Slayers that it's "not a good idea to slide down the banister, even if Joan said she'd catch you" 
 
"I didn't ask him, Spike. I asked you." 
 
That sounded even more flattering… if you didn't know his Sire. There was no way that Angel was leaving L.A. right now. Spike knew that, and Buffy probably did too. Big poof was all tied up with his son (Mr. Brood the second), and the cheerleader, and, oddly, Gunn…  
 
Spike looked up, just in time to notice Wes standing there, a strange blank expression on his face. Then he just walked away without a word, heading towards the courtyard. 
 
"No." Spike's answer was soft, distracted. "Not leaving here, pet. Happy at what I'm doing and where I'm doing it for the first time in years. Sorry…" 
 
Buffy started to protest, considered how to persuade him, but then stopped as she noticed his expression. "Well, think about it, okay? You know you're welcome if you change your mind." 
 
"Yes, thanks, pet… Good to know." And without a further word he moved toward the courtyard doors. 
 
Wes was out there, Spike knew. He opened the big double door wide…then froze… unable to follow into the blinding light of mid-day sunshine.  
 
"Bloody Hell."  

* 

Wesley talked to Dawn as she helped him prepare the spell, showing her how to concentrate on what she wanted from it, letting the image take over her mind until she could breathe actuality into it, a small jewel of a world within her palm, a fragmented scenario of perfection that she could see with absolute clarity. 
 
"It's like a snow globe," she said, enchanted, and Wesley nodded.  
 
"Perhaps that's where the idea came from, originally," he suggested, and Dawn smiled.  
 
"Oh, that would be cool," she agreed. "People wanting to keep snowflakes for ever…yeah, I can see that. Did you do this? When you first came? Think of England and make one of these?" 
 
Wesley smiled, and shook his head, leaving her be for now and letting her project different images into the little glowing sphere of light. 
 
It would do no good to let her know that he was long since past the need to have his memories come into even a kind of miniaturised life, that there were few that were good, and even fewer, by the time he left England, that he was even vaguely interested in seeing again. He wanted Dawn to have something better than photographs to look back on, when she left, to retain the clarity of the good things in her life, even when she moved on to new things, and began to make new memories for which she would not need a spelled globe. 
 
He had used up all the images he wanted to see long before, when he was at school, consoling himself amidst its grey bleakness with a private blaze of colour, brought to life by a spell that he had read up on long before he was supposed to even try such advanced things, desperate to take a small piece of home with him into the unknown and frightening. 
 
Wesley had taught Dawn the smaller version of what he had learnt and practised, the spell that would, however briefly, bring him into the world he had left, and not the world to him. 
 
As Head Boy, he had not only had his own room, but his own set, and he had turned it, when he was sure of privacy, into a haven of remembrance, letting the peace that had been so lacking when what he saw had been real envelop him. 
 
Gardens could not be seen all in a moment, but as a place to explore, and he had made his rooms into a place that shimmered and faded behind him as he moved through it, only ever maintaining what he was looking at, a place not only of flowers, but of shapes and shades, beauty of foliage, of different greens and of water. 
 
He sometimes thought it was the only way he had survived. 
 
He also wondered if, in the weeks to come, he would need to do this once again, to move back into the half-life that had been his before, bring things out of his mind and into a room once again, consoling himself for the almost, the lost, with an illusion. 
 
But he would never be able to conjure up those emotions again, nor scent, nor touch, and half of the memories he would long to hold to would slowly vanish into something more ephemeral even than memory, something that always lay, tormenting in its elusiveness, at the edge of his perception. 
 
No magic in the world, no memory, no soft imprint of the mind would ever replace reality, just as no illusory garden would ever replace the scented headiness of the flowers he had left behind. 
 
"To see the world in a grain of sand…" he whispered, and tilted his head back, concentrating, letting the image grow outwards from his cupped palm, a garden at night; shapes of bush and branch and twig, outlines of paths, humps of granite rock broken by the darkness of trees. 
 
Within the world of his memory, he brought back the heavy blooms of hydrangeas, of stock and white tobacco flowers, and amidst the gloom, the white of plum and snow-in-summer, to gleam in fake moonlight. 
 
He heard Dawn gasp, and smiled to himself, letting his head rest against the edge of the old fountain, and holding onto his dream for a while longer. 
 
* 

Spike paced back and forth in the open doorway. Wes seemed to be alright, chatting and working with Dawn… but something in the look he had given Spike just before he went out into the courtyard was setting all of his senses on the alert. 
 
It hadn't been a look of jealousy at seeing he and Buffy together, so cozy and all… nor would Spike have called it anger or despair or any one of a half dozen other emotions that would have been more likely, he would have thought. No, that look had been one of simple and long expected resignation. A look that Spike would have done anything to wipe off of Wesley's face…  
 
"And would too, if I could just fuckin' get out there." He slammed his hand against the door frame. 
 
And then, suddenly, the sun was gone. 
 
The whole courtyard was bathed in the cool, forgiving light of the moon and filled with flowers… and scents… jasmine and forsythia… roses… and hints of a dozen others that Spike did not know the names for. 
 
Spike heard Dawn gasp and his eyes darted around to be sure that it was a gasp of pleasure and surprise, rather than one of fear.  
 
"Wes? Love?" Spike stepped cautiously out into the courtyard, speaking softly. He wasn't sure how much concentration Wes needed to keep this bit of magic operational and he sure as Hell did not want to startle him and suddenly find himself being burned to a cinder, as the sun came back. 
 
"Spike!" Dawn grabbed him before he could get any further. "Do you see this? Isn't it amazing? Wes did it! He showed me how to do it too… well, on a much smaller scale, of course, but I'm just starting. And wow! I mean you can even smell the flowers and feel the breeze. Is this what England looks like? God, I can't wait to see it first hand… not that this is not wonderful… and as a matter of fact, I wondering if the real thing could possibly live up to how amazing this looks. I mean look…" 
 
Dawn paused, plucking a rose off one of the nearby bushes, "It even has a smell and OW! Hmmm… thorns too, apparently." 
 
She tucked the offended digit into her mouth, and spoke around it. "Wes says I should be able to do this with training." 
 
"That's lovely, Bit…" Spike manages a distracted smile. "Why don't you go show that to Gunn?" 
 
There's the sudden yip of a surprised male voice and they both turn towards the lobby. 
 
"On second thought," Spike chuckles. 'Maybe you should show that to Illyria and distract her a bit." 
 
Someone, and Spike will never admit to it, has told Illyria that the best way to get Angel's undivided attention is to "kick his arse"…. and obviously, the all-too-literal Warrior God is testing the theory. 
 
"Oh, yeah…. I'm all over it… " A stifled laugh and Dawn bounces off to avert the mini-disaster, leaving Spike to continue alone. 
 
"Wes?" His words are almost a whisper as he approaches. "Everything okay, love?"  
 
A silent nod was the only reply… and the look of Wesley's eyes scanning over the Dawnless and therefore now-silent scene. 
 
Spike tried again, "My mum's garden was rather like this when I was small… when she could still get out and work in it… I used to play there, dashing up and down the paths with my hobby horse while she and Nanny talked." 
 
That prompted a bit of a smile at least, "I'm sure you were quite adorable." 
 
"Of course." Spike preened and chuckled. "Still am, aren't I?" 
 
But there was no answer. Just that same bleakly resigned look on Wes' face. 
 
"I'd expect your own mum's garden was rather like, eh?" Spike felt odd, trying to bully through all this crap and small talk to get Wes to tell him what was wrong. "You feeling sick for a look at the real thing?" 
 
Then another thought occurred to him. "Don't want to head off with the Watcher, do you? Go back to England? You regretting being here, love?" 
 
If Wes left… went with Giles and the Slayers… he could do what he was trained to do. And now, with the shambles the Council was in, Wes would be able to shine… get the recognition he deserved. 
 
"You know I'd never hold you back from what you want, yeah?" Spike's voice was soft and low, almost desperate. "But… if you go… can I tag along?" 

* 

Wesley sat still and silent, trying to assimilate what he had just heard into some kind of mental partition of his constantly shaking world that made sense. 
 
He had known from the time the group arrived at the Hyperion how short his time was, his own stolen season. Perhaps even before that, back to the night they heard of Sunnydale's destruction, and he tried to communicate his own hard-won philosophy to Spike, getting past their separate feelings of betrayal and anger and disillusionment to a truth they could both understand… 
 
In a hundred years, we'll all be dead… 
 
But that 'we' did not include Spike, only those who, like Wesley, had been given an allotted timespan. If Wesley had too short a time for regrets to be a part of it, Spike would have a potential eternity in which those regrets could haunt him. And Wesley had no intention of letting that happen. 
 
He had let down the last of his barriers that night on the roof, accepted once and for all how deeply and how irretrievably he loved - and his belief in Spike's honesty, that his love was returned, had never faltered. But there was more to them both than that, more to the lives they had chosen. Unlike Xander, carving a new path for himself in the aftermath of losing all that he had made himself into, Spike had never truly wavered from what he was. 
 
He was a true counterpart to Buffy, in a way that perhaps it had always been too late for Angel to become. Wesley had heard the truth of that in every fleeting mention of her, but it had never been brought home to him as forcibly as when he saw them together. There was a strength there, an almost dazzling attraction of power and emotion that even he could feel, something greater than any mere mortal copy could provide. 
 
Something greater than he could provide. 
 
He had determined, in that moment, to tell Spike that he was free of any obligation, real or imaginary, that while he meant every word he said, every half-whispered avowal, every touch into which he had tried to pour the words that still stuck behind his teeth, he accepted there was something more needed, that his fight was not the one that called to Spike, or Buffy, or Faith, just as theirs would never be one with which he could feel an affinity. 
 
He had meant to say it quietly, and with dignity, intended to spare them both the potential for recrimination or anger. 
 
But he had not expected for one second that Spike had thought he would be the one to leave…and the request to accompany him had knocked his thoughts for a loop, an odd spin of disorientation that felt weirdly like hope. 

"But I'm not going," he said absurdly. "I assumed you were. I was trying to - I wondered if…" The false dusk covered the colour that rose in his face, but not the heat that he knew would be tangible. "I wondered if this would be enough. After you left. I understand, you see, I always did…that their fight is for something greater. For the one thing that truly matters. But -" he took a deep, shaking breath, "It's not my fight any more. The greater picture was never really mine to see, and now - now it isn't at all. But you…you deserve something more. Greater than this. The real battle, out there. The only thing is…" he tried to smile, aware that it was more like a wince than usual, "I imagine I shall be rather desperately homesick, when you leave." 
 
"So this…" Wesley didn't have to look, to know that Spike was gesturing to the false garden. 
 
"An attempt at consolation." 
 
"Does it work?" 
 
"Not very well," Wesley admitted. 
 
"Good," said Spike with savage irritability. "How many times do I have to tell you I'm not going any place?" 
 
"But you -" 
 
"Wes. You're meant to have brains. But fuck, I'm damned if you ever use 'em on anything but books! Unless you go, I don't. Screw this 'something greater' bollocks, I know where I want to be, and it isn't Pudding Island, unless that's what you want. So is it?" 
 
"I -" 
 
"Wes. Concentrate. Do. You. Want. To. Go. Back. Simple choice. Yes or no?" 
 
"No," Wesley managed in a kind of croak, wondering if he had fallen down the rabbit hole at last. 
 
"Right, then, we're staying," was the response, and Wesley, his disbelief startling into a kind of grateful, blazing joy, let some of that emotion blaze through into the web of his spell, even as he turned to kiss Spike. 
 
As he closed his eyes, azaleas flamed higher than his head, an apricot, pink and orange bonfire of his own vanities in their destruction, reflecting against the curtained windows and back out into the magical gloom like a private sunrise. 

* 

Xander's Journal - 
 
Arguing, recriminations, pouting, resolve face… Yeah, I expected all that, right up to and including tears.  
 
Amazingly enough it didn't happen. Mostly 
 
Spike distracted Buffy… and Faith…. Well, Hell. Faith distracted Willow…. And wasn't that just…. Strange? 
 
I'd started the whole conversation by dancing around what I wanted to say. Trying to make Willow understand that as much as she might think they needed me… that was how much I was sure they didn't. None of the things she mentioned were things that no one else could do…. And do better than I ever would.  
 
Rebuilding the Council? Well, unless they meant that literally, as in putting the building back together, I was completely redundant, having no skills for administrative work, nor the desire to learn it. 
 
Finding newly empowered Slayers? Well, I might be good at smoothing their way into the transition, but heck, they had all the new Slayers that had fought the First. Those girls were all more qualified to explain the pros and cons of what they were. 
 
Training? Yeah… like I enjoy getting my arse kicked by a bunch of little girls… 
 
What it all boiled down to was that Willow, and Buffy, just wanted me around. Their Xander-shaped friend, loyal and trustworthy. Someone they could tell their troubles to and snuggle up with when life got rough. 
 
There were worse things I could do, I suppose…. I mean, yeah… definitely worse. I could still be working at the Pizza Barn. But still, it wasn't what I really wanted to do.  
 
I was trying to explain it to Willow… and it was like talking to myself for quite awhile. Like no matter what I wanted it should take a backseat to friendship.  
 
Now, I'm all for friendship and it's importance, but the thing is, friendship should add to your life… not take away from it. And somehow, I got the impression that taking away was exactly what I'd be doing if I went to England. I tried to explain that to Willow, but I wasn't getting anywhere until Faith finally stepped in. 
 
"Awww, come on, Red… cut the guy some slack. He's happy here. Got a good job, some good friends to keep him company and he feels useful." Faith drawled. "Those are things ya can't beat with a stick, ya know?" 
 
"Yeah, but-" 
 
"No buts, Red." Faith continued. "Your friend is happy here and you're trying to drag him off because you think you'll miss him. How selfish can you be?" 
 
"Selfish? But I-" 
 
"Yes, Red… selfish. Very selfish." 
 
And, that was it… Willow burst into tears and started apologizing, telling me how sorry she was for being selfish and how, as long as I was happy, she would be happy. 
 
Huh…. 
 
Maybe I need to keep that in mind for the future… more plain talk and less worrying about hurting my friends feelings. It'll probably keep me from doing a lot of things I don't really want to do. 
 
Oooh…like research! 
 
Of course, since Wes is paying me to do research, I don't know if that would actually work. 
 
Anyway…. Things were tearing up pretty badly in Willowland and I was just about at the point of either running for the hills or hugging her so tight her eyes bugged out when I heard it… 
 
The call of the Vampire…. 
 
"Xander!" 
 
Nope… not the bleach blond variety… the grumpy, broody variety. 
 
Illyria had kicked him in the ass, presumably to get his attention. 
 
That's my girl. *L* 
 
Oh… and no, I mean that in a strictly platonic, friendshippy kind of way, because… no… so over the Demon Magnet thing.  
 
But I do seem to get along with Illyria… and she doesn't seem to actually hate me or anything. She's actually got a pretty good sense of humor, if you can figure it out… It's just that her areas of reference are, understandably, a bit different from most people. 
 
And it's… well… I get fascinated with watching her. Yeah, I'm laughing at myself here. I'm more of a "watcher" than most of the actually Watchers are. Illyria is still, kinda, learning her way around things… and people… and it's like, watching her, I see old things in new ways. 
 
Of course, I still can't figure out why the shower hates her….  

*