This is the death of air... 
 

No attack? No pain? Spike had been expecting it…deserving it. Deserving that and so much more. 

Instead there was a soft voice and softer hands. A voice with a honeyed drawl that whispered soothingly over his agitated mind. "That's why Wes brought you back here, y'know? Cos of it bein' all safe?" 

Safe? Here? Spike reeled at that thought. Could they be safe? Safe when they'd just allowed a monster in the door? Did they have any idea what he was capable of? "Nothing is safer than misfortune - Where there's no fear of greater ill to come." 

He curled away from the soft hands. He didn't deserve their comfort. Didn't deserve anything but a quick stake to the heart. "Could help him... Could use me.... Never get it right. Too much blood. Too much pain. Pain with the thousand teeth. Biting…. Biting…" He moaned softly. "Can't get it right.... Can't get it right.... Thought it was helping but it's gone now…" 

And there was that voice again. It whispered warmth and comfort. "Can I help find it? I find lots of things. I write 'em down on walls, so's I don't forget them." 

Spike's laugh was a cheerless cackle, full of pain. "When you write on walls Nanny gets angry... and then there'll be no supper.…" 

His voice cracked then, "Unless you have Nanny for supper…" 

Spike knew his laughter had become hysterical now - wild and uncontrolled. He tried to curl tighter, pulling his knees up and covering his head with his forearms…rocking. 

No "mouse" should have a voice that spoke so calmly and logically, "We haven't got a nanny. So you can't have her for supper. But I can write on walls. You could, too, if you liked.  I've got pens." 

"Wrote once.... wasn't good.... and then the fishes came and the plum.…" 

"I bet it was fine. And nothing's gonna come here. It's safe. You don't have to hide under tables to eat Chinese, either. " Fred put a tentative hand on his back. "Like I said, that's why Wes brought you back here. Cos of it bein' all safe?" 

The warm hands were soothing but too small. Too small for feeling truly safe. Too soft and weak. They couldn't keep him anchored with the roughness he needed. 

"No... well off without me…" Spike's voice was muffled, his head still covered. "Don't care about safe.... Want people to be safe from me.…" 

Her answer was so matter-of-fact, that in other circumstances Spike would probably have laughed. "But we are...see? No-one's in danger. Unless you're gonna go grrr an' weird like Angel did in Pylea, but we're not in Pylea, so you're not." 

No danger? A monster sitting at her feet and she was in no danger? She had to be warned. Had to be prepared for anything he might do. 

He lowered his arms slowly, gold eyes and ridges rising up with his face. 

* 

Fred wanted to laugh. She took too many shortcuts when she talked, she knew that, but this was an unexpected reaction to her attempt at an explanation about the kind of monsters that the sunlit glades of Pylea tended to harbour. So she only smiled, not removing her hand. "It's OK," She was trying again, wondering what the right words were, her fingers itching for a pen so she could scrawl it down in numbers and hypotheses and show him. "Not that sort of grr. Um. It's scalier. And you need a lot of blood to make it stop." All right, well, maybe that wasn't the most helpful thing she could have said to a vamped-out scared person in the lobby, but she was damned if she wasn't going to at least give herself mental cookies for trying. 

He was muttering again, but at least this time it seemed to actually be directed at her, rather than some horrible thing going on where only he could see it. "'S what I am.... don't let me fool you...what he is too....can hurt you…" 

He? Oh. Angel, right. Well, yeah, how stupid did everyone think she was? Scary monsters, come to the Hyperion and rule the world. One of you can look like an extra from a horror film and get patched up by a wigged-out Cordy, and the other can sit on a really-needs-cleaning, wow, carpet. She was going to keep trying, though. Mostly because it was the right thing to do, and she'd learnt about that, the last few weeks while they tried to fight the good fight on their own. 

"Well, everything can hurt me, I know that, 'cept you're not going to, right?" 

And please don't try, because I really don't want to have to stake you and vacuum-clean. Even though the carpet really needs it. 

And oh, God, she hadn't helped at all, unless you counted the ridges and fangs going away, because all she seemed to have done was upset him a lot, and what if being upset made the pain start again? She tried, hopelessly, to think of what on earth she could have said that would have made him think he was so very bad - and what a funny word to use, like a small boy, and oh, God, that made her think of Billy, and Wes, and - 

She shut the lid down very firmly on that box of Not Good Things that she was never, ever going to talk about to anyone except Wesley, because maybe one day he'd want to hear the words, and wondered what she was supposed to do. No-one had ever told her that vampires came in the insane variety. But then, no-one had told her about inter-dimensional rips in the fabric of reality, either, and she'd fixed that, so maybe she could do this, too. 

"I don't get that," she said, wishing her voice were less whispery, that it was firm and definite and cut from stone, like Cordy could sound when she was making a point. Here she was, trying to be all helpful, and she just sounded like a little girl who should have been back home and playing with dolls instead of quantums. "You helped. And…helpy people aren't gonna hurt me. I know that. So you're not bad." 

There was a flash of preternatural speed from him, and Fred was gathered into his arms and rocked like the child she knew she sounded like, breathing in cigarettes and sharp ozone and maybe seaweed, and weirdly enough, Wesley's fabric softener, which made a sort of homey-nutso sense that was going straight into the Not Now file while she wondered what kind of horrible things could have happened to someone that they needed to protect someone else in order to have any kind of control over themselves. 

He was mumbling in her ear, and she didn't want what he was saying to make sense, but she had the really nasty feeling that she'd caused all this, and so she was by-golly going to listen, even if it was nothing she wanted to hear, nothing she should hear, not at all what she'd signed up for when she went to college and left her parents, but then, what was? 

"Won't hurt you.... won't hurt you..... wouldn't ever have hurt him. Wanted to help." 

Oh hell. She hoped like anything that he was talking about Angel. But she had a scary feeling that he really, really wasn't. 

Because it wasn't the vampire trying to protect her from invisible boogeymen who had done the hurting. It was her and Charles and Lorne, and who were the bad ones now? 

Not the time, she told herself sternly, and tried to sound more like a grown-up, hugging him tightly and wondering when being right up close and as personal as she ever got with warm and breathing people had become normal with demonic animated corpses. 

And when exactly had she thought that reassuring one of them would be a really good idea? 

"I know." She tried to sound like her mom, who could cure being scared of monsters and wardrobes and exams with the same words, make it all seem completely reasonable even when you knew it was only the squirrels in your head making things up. "It's okay, bad things don't happen here, you don't have to be scared..." 

And huh, she'd forgotten about men, hadn't she, because that made him react, go still and seem to realise what he was doing, which was something, and yeah, she was going to be able to do this, if Charles just stayed away and kept busy with Connor, she was going to get through somehow. 

"Not scared…" he sounded indignant, but he didn't stop holding her, and really, her leg was going to sleep, so - 

"You can let go of me now." Oh, and maybe he didn't know, hadn't noticed, and wouldn't it be funny, in a very not-at-all way, if he'd thought he was protecting her from the other inhabitants of the hotel? "They've all gone." 

* 

Spike looked up as he listened to Fred's voice, still holding her on his lap. She was actually trying to reassure him. It was….well… kinda sweet and far more than the likes of him deserved. "Not afraid of them hurting me or you. Afraid I'll hurt someone else." 

"So you won't, and then it'll be fine. It was for me." Again that matter-of-fact voice, as if there were no possibility of it going another way. 

"Who'd you ever hurt then?" Spikes query was soft and haunted, but he managed to release Fred from his arms and let her sit down next to him. 

"Oh....you know. With the - physics, and the things, and. And. Sometimes things go boom." 

Spike managed a small chuckle at that. "Boom, eh?" 

Fred nodded rapidly, "Yeah, cause, you know, sometimes all the mathematical transfigurations don't." 

A sudden chuckle, more natural sounding, "You're an odd bird.... " 

"Not really, only being a cow for five years makes you think your head's fallen off, and that makes some stuff kaplooey. That's why I write it all down." 

Spike looked at her for a moment, his face blank. Yeah, that must be why Wes left him here. Safer for all concerned to keep all the crazies in one place… and let the Grand High Master of Brood watch over them. 

He absently began patting his pockets again, finding and pulling out another cigarette and his lighter, "Mind if I light up, pet?" 

Fred shook her head and giggled, "Nope. I like the smell. Course, I used to make…" she waved her hands around "…you know. With the roaches. That aren't insects." 

"You smoked Maryjane, luv?" Spike chuckled as he lit his cigarette. "Never would have thought.…" 

They talked around each other for awhile, discussing the merits of different brands of papers, and late night munchies and tacos. Winding through with a thread about transfigurations and demons and how best not to annoy those that Spike was mentally naming as his new "keepers", but also how to escape their watchful eye. 

"You're not a prisoner, luv. Sure old Charlie wouldn't mind you stepping out for a bit. Absence makes the heart grow fonder." He took a long drag off of his cigarette. "Or so I've heard tell." 

"Absence makes Charles panic and polish his axe." Fred gave a small smile, "It's my fault, you know. That he left. I told him to. Even when I knew...I told him I knew and I told him not to come back. So he didn't. He didn't and he didn't and now he never will." 

"That the Muscle man left?" Spike frowned a bit at that, then got it. "You mean Wes.…" 

"Yeah," Fred sighed. "I wanted to hurt his feelings." 

"Bloke's hurt all the way through, love.... not much else to be done." He took another puff on his cigarette" 

"Oh." Fred pulled her knees up and hugged them tightly. "Shouldn't I have told you to go there, then?" 

"No.... no.... Didn't do nothing wrong, luv. Wanted to help him, though, and thought…" his voice cracked slightly. "Don't matter what I thought.... wrong, wasn't I?" 

* 

Fred opened her mouth. Then she closed it again. Then she said, with enormous politeness, "Excuse me," got to her feet, went behind the desk, and picked up the phone to dial the number she had almost finished tapping in about twenty times a day. 

When a groggy, raspy, irritable voice finally answered her persistent ringing on the fifth attempt, she snapped, 

"Wesley, you're completely crap! Not only that, you're Britishly crap, and you need kicking, and you never explain anything to anyone, and you're so self-reliant it should be banned,and you never think anyone else has a reason for anything, and you never listen to anyone, and you're so busy putting yourself last that you screw everything up, and now your vampire thinks I'm insane!" 

There was a short silence on the other end of the phone, and then a bewildered Wesley asked, "Fred?" 

"Oi!" Spike was quick to point out, "Not his bloody vampire…" 

This was answered with a scowl from Fred and she took the phone into the next room, closing the door behind her. 

"'S not like I can't still hear you. Vampire, ya know…" He muttered it under his breath but then did his best to tune it out, humming to himself in the silence of the room. 

* 

He didn't really want to hear the conversation. Didn't want to hear Wes telling her that Spike was now Angel's problem and not his. Didn't want to hear Fred arguing Angel's side. He should just leave now, while it was still dark enough for him to find some place to hole up. 

But what then? 

Couldn't stay here. Couldn't go back to Sunnydale. And he'd be damned if he'd go tagging after Dru while she flitted from one demon to the next and whined about how he was now "just like Daddy". 

He hadn't felt this useless since before he was turned. 

"Fuck all… maybe I'll just go to Cleveland. 'Nother Hellmouth there after all… and no Slayer to watch over it." Yeah, maybe that was his best bet. Go to Cleveland. "God, I hate snow…." 

* 

Wesley swore with vehemence, dropped the phone receiver down, grabbed his jacket, and headed out. 

Fred had been furious. Not the half-childish, 'how could you do this, Wesley, Angel's our hero, you betrayed him, you're not perfect, how dare you,' kind of furious that she had confronted him with at the hospital, but an out on her own, 'this is my opinion and y'all can go to hell' type of furious, in a way that made him realise how she had been studying for her doctorate at such a young age. 

It made him realise how, in fact, she had survived Pylea, Pylean-style vampires, and living in a cave for five years. 

Disturbingly, through the various points of irritation she had listed, he had got the gist of what had finally annoyed her almost past bearing, and he knew she was right. 

The first person to want to help him in what was now months, the only person to have even tried to understand what he was doing, and he had successfully managed to sacrifice him to his own pride. Because he was so damned afraid of being turned down, yet again, in favour of Angel's more worthy assistance, he had come across as uncaring, cold, and ungrateful to the point of mania. 

You're so full of your own damn pride that you can't even swallow it any more! she had shouted at him. Yeah, we should'a listened to you, way back when, an' you don't want to hear me now, but hey, guess what? Too little, too late, an' we've all got our separate worries, so we're just gonna have to cope, I know that. But shit, Wesley! You had help, an'you threw it away for what? So's you could make us all feel guilty? Hell, we were already, but you're just making someone feel like shit when he doesn't deserve it, so get yourself over here and sort this out! Angel's not gonna help, an' you know it! He's got Connor an' Cordy an' a whole heap of stuff he's gonna need us for, an' Charles is being a - a - a wanker! 

That, apparently, once he had got clarification, was the understatement of the decade. Wesley wondered, briefly and viciously, if thumping Charles over the head with his axe handle - repeatedly - might give him some sense of how bad he had made things. Then he grinned, sharp and nasty, into the LA dark. From the sound of things, he could ask Fred to volunteer, and she'd be more than happy to help out… 

The only question was how on earth he was going to make his second monumental mistake in almost as many months right. 

His cellphone rang as he kicked the bike into action, and he snapped it on. 

"What?" he demanded. 

"Uh, Wesley?" Fred sounded much less definite this time. "Listen, can you hurry? Only I don't think we've got any snow." 

* 

Spike was still sitting on the floor a half hour later, in spite of the fact that he had convinced himself that going to Cleveland was, somehow, a solution to his feelings of uselessness. 

"Bloody snow…" he muttered under his breath, between puffs of his cigarette. "Hate it. Hate bein' cold." 

He was still sitting there when Cordelia and Gunn came back through, helping a somewhat revived looking Angel to his room. 

"Look, Blondie," Gunn turned toward Spike, "You were told not to be smoking in here. Put that damn thing out." 

Spike didn't ignore him, so much as the fact that Gunn's voice simply didn't penetrate the cycle of his thoughts. 

"Snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew. Did never whiter shew, Nor Jove himself, when he a swan would be For love of Leda, whiter did appear…" Another nervous puff of his cigarette. 

"Yeah… whatever that means…" Cordelia rolled her eyes, wrapping her arm more tightly around Angel's waist as she led him out. "Gunn, I'll help Angel to bed. You keep an eye on Insane-o Boy." 

"I'll do that." Gunn frowned suddenly, "Where's Fred?" 

"Gone. Lost. Hiding. Hidden." Spike looked up at him. "She writes and moves on, to call for the dispossessed." 

"And what the Hell is that supposed to mean?" Gunn grabbed Spike, hauling him to his feet, hand wrapped in the collar of his duster. 

"Means what it means, mate." Spike's voice was still distracted, as Gunn lifted him higher to stand tip-toe. "Bird's flown. Don't know where… Not far though, not far." 

"Look, give me a straight answer, or you're going to have a short talk with the business end of a stake." Gunn pulled out a stake, and held it's point just below Spike's chin. "Where is Fred?" 

"Not here… didn't see… didn't know. Didn't hurt her. Wouldn't." No. No pain for the little Mouse. She walked light on his guilt and soothed away the grip of despair. 

"Her sweet babble is the voice of trees, whispering tales of sunshine and mystery…" Spike's inner thoughts came out distractedly. 

"Yeah, well if you don't tell me where she went, you are going to know a lot more about trees and sunshine… up close and personal." Gunn growled at him, drawing back the hand that held the stake. 

"Charles!" Fred's voice rang out, "Stop it right now. You're being… being… such a poophead!" 

"And I would suggest you release him… immediately." Wes stepped into view right behind Fred. 

Gun shoved Spike away with a frown, and he hit the floor… rocking and mumbling, "…was a tall, thin man with a sweet consumptive voice and knavish eyes." 

Wes looked down at him, "Yes… quite." 

* 

He had thought he'd known what to expect. Coldness, silence, his own stumbling attempts at explanation and apology falling into nothing. Instead, he had been greeted before he even kicked the stand down on the motorbike, with Fred launching herself at him, seriously panic-stricken, and fisting her hands in his jacket, muttering, "Sorry I yelled, sorry, Wesley, we're  all screwing up today..." until he peeled her off, holding her hands in his as much to keep her at arm's length as to reassure her. 

"What's this about snow?" he asked her, although he had a niggling feeling that he had at least the right suspicions. 

"I don't know." Fred sighed. "After you put the phone down...I went back out and he was talking about it. In rhyme." 

Wesley rubbed his hand over his face. "Right. Well. Shall we go in, then?" 

He was certainly not prepared for the sight of Gunn with a stake, nor the fear that shot through him, and momentarily, he was paralysed, his tongue stuck to the roof of a dry mouth. He was forever grateful to Fred, her thin body vibrating with outrage, stepping forward and calling Charles a 'poophead', which, considering how very much more pithy she had been only half an hour previously, flooded him with an amusement that, while inappropriate, freed his tongue. 

He hoped Gunn took the dryness in his voice as he demanded that Spike be released for cool arrogance, rather than the residue of his fear, and was assured that he had as the one-time vampire hunter released his quarry. Spike hit the floor, pushing himself back so that he was braced against the lobby desk, rocking and mumbling to himself - Turgenev? Wesley found that his momentary amusement was being suppressed by rage, and turned to Gunn with disillusionment at his former co-worker sharpening his tongue. 

"And what, exactly," he spat out, "were you hoping to achieve?" 

Gunn looked completely unrepentant, shrugging broad shoulders and looking directly at Wesley, ignoring a still-chuntering Fred beside him. "Hey, just wanted to know what he did with Fred. Crazy guy there.... not to mention Vampire." 

Wesley thought of Spike, pulling together what he could of coherency and sanity to help him drag a drowned, ungrateful, bitter Angel out of the ocean. Of him coming out of the one place he had been given as a sanctuary just to pull Wesley out of an elevator in a power-cut. Coming up with theories about tides, when Wesley wouldn't have blamed him if he'd wanted to do nothing but sleep away whatever horrors had given him back the curse of a soul. 

He was tired, and his arm hurt, and he had never intended for any of this to happen, and suddenly he was so angry with Gunn that he could hardly get the words out to convey his utter contempt. "Nothing changes with you, does it? I can't help wondering just how supportive you would have been of Angel in his rat-eating days. Has it ever occurred to you that there was always a reason you were never put in charge here?" 

Gunn stepped closer to him, the same feeling of anger and disgust seeming to roll off him in waves. "And the reason that you no longer are? Can't just come horning in here, English. There were reasons we told you to get out." 

And oh, words, words he could use, drag them out over sandpaper pain into honesty, make the truth see the light of day even if Gunn never would. "I rather thought I no longer was because of your complete inability to differentiate between winning and trying to do the right thing. Your mistake, Gunn? Assuming that I'd want to come back. By the way, if 'horning in' translates as 'getting my head out of my arse with a little help, and stopping you from behaving like a prat', then perhaps it's long past time I did. What part of 'soul' was unclear to you? What part of 'fighting the good fight' did you forget recently? Angel has some excuse, after all, he's been starving at the bottom of the ocean, but you? Please. Enlighten me. Because the last I remember, you were trying to convert people to your side, not turning them away because they didn't happen to fit in with your world view." 

Gunn was really invading his space now, close enough for Wesley to feel the warmth of his breath, close enough for him to have to fight the urge to push the man away, lash out with a fist instead of honesty, to simply stop trying, and let the whole thing degenerate into the brawl they both wanted. "And I thought we were suppose to be a team. People who worked together and talked to each other.... and didn't keep important secrets. You sure proved me wrong there." 

It's not my business to prove you right when you aren't! Wesley wanted to shout, but instead he simply responded with all the icy dismissal he was capable of - 

"I kept my secrets to keep you out of danger - but believe me, next time I'll be damn certain of leaving you in the path of Angelus to satisfy your moral code." 

* 

Spike watched, furtively, from where he was crouched against the lobby desk. The Muscle was getting a bit pushy…physical…and Spike didn't like it at all. Bloke brought home their precious Angel and they were still treating him like something they'd scrapped off their shoes. Wasn't right. Just wasn't right. 

Not that he really thought Wes was in danger. Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength - or so his whirling mind told him. But being in danger and this whole flexing of muscles were two different things. Shouldn't have to keep proving it… not to the likes of that git. 

"You know, English, you're just pissing me off.... " Gunn poked Wes in the chest with his finger, hard. "You think you know so damn much.... and you know nothing…" 

He shoved Wes towards the door, "Get the Hell out!" 

There was a growling roar and before Wes could even regain the little balance that the shove had stolen from him, Spike was there, slamming into Gunn. And then crashing to the floor, clutching his head, as the small piece of military technology in his head fired off. 

"God damn it!" Wes was uncertain of what to do, but dropped down to the floor beside Spike. His hand hovered over the pain-ridden vampire, not knowing whether to touch him or not. 

And then, suddenly, everything began to move way too fast. 

A rustle of movement and a shifting of air - Gunn was looming over them, the stake back in his hand. 

Another flash of movement and Wes had his revolver out, and pointed it at the dark figure. 

"Charles!" A cry from Fred, and then, "Wesley!" 

Wes' voice was low, but deadly serious. "Back off, Gunn. Now!" 

He watched as Gunn did just that - moving back to where Fred stood, hands spread to his sides. 

Movements then seemed to return to normal speed. 

Keeping one eye on Gunn, Wes spoke low to Spike. "Are you alright?" 

Spike just whimpered and clutched his head, "Sorry.... sorry.... Sorry…" 

Sorry for jumping Gunn, sorry for not being able to do more, sorry for not being enough, sorry for……… 

"Do you know, I rather came here assuming apologizing was going to be my part of the night?" 

"Got it wrong again then, did you?" 

Wes's lip quirked as Spike joked through the pain, "Alas, for I am doomed." 

A rough choking laugh, fought back with a groan, and then, "Can't keep you safe. Shouldn't touch you, him…." 

And from somewhere in the back of his mind the thought came. Wes didn't need him for protection. He was quite able to taking care of himself. But… he must want something. Spike had no illusions at this point in his unlife - if someone sought him out, they had to want something. Whether that something would be for good or ill… 

A warmth began in his chest, distracting him from the fading pain in his head. The Mouse… Fred, he corrected….had called Wes. The small flutter of warmth gained strength as he thought about the girl trying to help him in his unstable state. And Wes had come…. Come to help him, anchor him… 

He glanced up at Wes then. 

The ex-Watcher… and now something much more than that. Tougher, stronger, less hide-bound and book taught… and, he had come to help when asked. Didn't need to, Angel would have, eventually, yielded to the call of blood and done his duty….. But Wes? There were no ties between them that had not been forged in the last few days… other than Wes's sure knowledge of what Spike was… and had been… 

But Wes had come. 

"Leave something behind, mate?" 

* 

Wesley, fleetingly, considered the irony of life, that a man for whom he had taken a bullet (admittedly from a zombie cop, but still, presumably the action counted for something), that he had counted as a close friend, who, in another lifetime - or perhaps timeline, he was still unsure as to what Cordelia's astral voyage had truly shown her - seemed to be the only one he could trust, was now someone on whom he had pulled a gun, and was quite coolly contemplating aiming for his knee and pulling the trigger if he took one step closer. 

He didn't want to hurt Gunn. He didn't even want to hurt Charles, though this new, more threatening incarnation of the man who had once delighted in teaching him a peculiar version of a handshake, and rechristened him 'English', was more alien in his alterations than Angel to Angelus had ever managed. But he would be absolutely damned if he allowed any of this to go further. 

You have no right! he wanted to shout, though whether it was to Gunn, or to the absent Angel, or to Fred, who had asked him for the impossible yet again, it was hard to tell. The only thing that, surprisingly, he did not feel, was any kind of resentment towards Spike. 

He wasn't stupid enough to think that the vampire had jumped in out of some belief that Wesley was incapable of dealing with the situation, even though there might have been some truth in that; rather than cause the tension and violence already simmering in the Hyperion to escalate, he might well have left and returned at some other time, were it not for Spike's ill-fated intervention. Some moral code of his - whether it had come with the soul, or had always been there, had been outraged, and it had been as instinctual a reaction as Wesley's aiming of a gun at the man he would once have trusted before even Angel. It had not, perhaps, even been personal, merely a reaction to something he saw as intrinsically wrong - and God knew Wesley could sympathise with that. He had spent much of the last few years, after all, hurtling from one reaction to another as events over which he had no control crashed around him. 

He considered Spike's question, and smiled ruefully. "Apparently so," he said. "Well...not quite that. I came back to ask you something. I wondered if - the offer of help you made me. I wondered...does it still stand? You see, I thought - I thought I was doing the right thing." He managed a rueful smile, unaware that his free hand had come out to clasp around Spike's wrist in a gesture that had started to become natural, and that his eyes were a long way from the bleakness they had settled into weeks before, softening into something approaching a plea. "I told you. I'm - making getting this wrong - getting my own choices wrong - into a sort of habit. Getting a lot of other things wrong as well, actually, but the point is - I'm not as selfless as I thought I could be. I need your help. So i came here to ask...would you consider coming back? Staying on for a while? Because God knows...I need it." He swallowed, and then added, roughly and honestly, "Please?" 

* 

That "please" almost did Spike in. 

How could Wes bring himself to say it? Especially to the likes of him? Wes was a White Hat to his very core, in spite of having gained some rough edges and cynicism over the passage of time. A White Hat with ethics that stood out a mile, and he was pleading for Spike's help? 

The very wrongness of that jolted him to the core of his soul, and he asked warily, "Yeah?" 

"Yes." came back the simple answer. But it was the expression on Wes' face, the feel that Spike got from the other man that really answered his tentative question. 

He slowly stood up, his eyes brightening and a flash of the old confidence showing through. "Yeah, then... Alright. Can help, ya know? Translations... identification." 

"Thank God someone can!" Wes gave a wry smile. 

"Best get at it then…" Spike bounced up on his toes, then swaggered toward the door, his duster billowing out behind him. He paused at the landing and looked back at Wes. "Comin', mate?" 

"Apparently so…." He lowered his gun and with a last warning look toward Charles and a slight smile for Fred, he moved toward the door. 

Spike stood at the door, his anxiousness to be gone apparent in every movement. To be useful, to help, that was what his soul told him was right. These were things he'd learned at his mother's knee - things that were crashing back into his conscious mind with a vengeance. 

He waited for Wes to catch him up at the open door, then paused and spoke quietly, "Thank you, mate.…" 

"Not at all." A pause and then, "Unfortunately, I didn't actually get to shoot Charles. Ah, lost opportunities.…" Wesley grinned sideways at Spike. 

"Give 'im time.... Sure he'll give ya another reason…" And he allowed the door to close behind them with a final click.