Los Angeles: The Hyperion Hotel:
It must have been something like a homing instinct which had brought him there
– although whose, it would be hard to say. The corridors of the Hyperion
were dusty echoes of his past life. He stalked down them with another echo at
his heels; Illyria appeared to be fascinated by his apparent resurrection. He
was angry. Angry at fate for snatching away the hope of peace he’d yearned
for. Angry with his father for deceiving him, for denying him the perspectives
of a long and measured life. And angry with himself, for being what he was,
and for not knowing it in time to do anything about it.
When you are young, and aggrieved by things over which you have no control, you may well wish your family dead and out of your life – but when you wake up and find that you are younger than you think, and that there is almost no-one left to turn to , then – and only then – do you realise that you didn’t wish it at all.
He’d been running from his heritage all his life, determined to claim humanity over the alien, inhuman blood line that had fathered him. He’d seized the opportunity to come to Earth, to return to what he’d thought of as home – and had made an utter fool of himself there, proving only that he knew nothing about his mother’s people – or how to be one of them.
He’d learned.
He’d learned hard lessons – and half of them from people with far less claim to humanity than his own. The Watcher had taught him a great many things; a dead man with a desire to redeem the sins of the demon within him had taught him a great many more – and in the end, he’d found some kind of balance within himself, an understanding that being only half human might be enough.
Now though, now …
He might be half human, and proud of it, in a perverse, stubborn kind of way, but he was also half Time Lord. He’d died and been reborn, remade in his father’s image. Had been transformed into a creature born to stalk the time streams, one shaped to lift its hand and touch the stars. He could feel the planet spinning beneath him, could feel its place in the greater dance – and more than anything else, he felt alone.
"Wesley?" Angel’s recognition held stunned astonishment, as well it might. Illyria had told them he was dead.
But then again, so were they.
"Angel." The Scholar nodded a brief acknowledgement of the greeting. "Spike."
The second vampire had half risen to his feet, only to fall back again. The two of them were battered and broken from battle; Angel was nursing a ripped arm and there were burns down his entire left side. Spike was cut and gouged in a thousand places, his body bruised and his face bloodied. There was no sign of Gunn or Lorne, but then he didn’t expect there to be.
It was something of a surprise that any of them had survived at all.
"Damn," Spike cursed, staring at him with a mixture of wonder and irritation. "Who did you make a deal with? And why the hell weren’t we in on it?"
"No deals," Wesely denied, stalking across to what had once been the doorway to the office and leaving Illyria standing at the foot of the stairs. "Just – destiny."
"Right," the younger vampire scoffed from his place on the sofa. "And I’m the king of Switzerland. She do it?"
"No," Angel said softly. "She didn’t. Two hearts, Wes? Something you want to tell us?"
"Nothing you don’t already know."
He’d been scanning the disordered remnant of the room with anxiety. Only bits of discarded furniture remained; so much had been damaged, lost or destroyed in the debacle that had been Jasmine’s presence on Earth – and what little had been left had mostly been scooped up and moved to the offices of Wolfram and Heart. All of that was now lost in the rubble of defiance, in the grand gesture that Angel had intended to be his swansong.
His parting gift to the world.
"I thought …" Angel had followed him and was leaning in the doorway with a bemused look on his face. "When I met you … you only had one heartbeat. You were supposed to be a Watcher and you only had … Now, you get two?" There was a beat as he considered the implications of that. "Is Giles … did he …?" Alarm flared in his eyes. "God, if he’s dead, then Buffy …"
"As far as I know," Wesley interrupted dryly, "the Watcher is alive and kicking, and will be for another millennium or two. The only one that …" He broke off, confronting the truth of his situation with a sense of growing dismay. "They can’t all be dead," he murmured. "Can they? Are we really all that’s left of that proud and powerful race … one pure blooded heretic and a half breed disowned before he even knew ...?" The frown that furrowed his face was deep. He turned to stare past Angel’s confused expression, looking at the slender figure wrapped in crimson leather on the far side of the hall.
All that’s left …
Suddenly his sympathy for the Ancient One multiplied a thousand fold – along with the irony of both their situations; she’d been a goddess, one brought back for no true purpose except to destroy something very precious in a world that was no longer hers to claim – and he’d been a man hoping to die a man, only to rise again as something else.
Something that no longer had a place in the Universe.
Not one worth mentioning, anyway.
"Wes – " Angel was trying again, his bemusement not helped by his personal distress and pain. The Scholar gave him a measured look.
"You need to sit down," he assessed curtly. "I take it the battle’s over?"
A nod answered that – a weary one that suggested more of a stand-off than a victory. "We think so. The Slayers came," the vampire breathed, not sounding entirely happy about it. Wesley nodded. Clearly his message to Faith had reached her in time.
"Good. Then you can sit down. Are we in HQ, or triage and dispatch?"
Angel managed a small smile. "Triage. I think. Faith sent us here to wait while they cleared the streets. She said something about – bringing some blood once the worst was over." He paused, looking oddly bereft. "Buffy wasn’t … she didn’t …"
"Come?" Now it was the Scholar’s turn to smile. His held a hint of old bitterness. "That’s why you wondered about the Watcher. Thought they were both out there somewhere. Slaughtered in your cause." The smile faded a little. "Maybe they were …"
A sudden cold shiver caught at him. If Buffy had known about Angel’s last stand, then surely she would have come. And if she’d come, then the Watcher would have come with her, despite what Angel might think. Giles’ refusal to help Fred – to even speak to the vampire when he was desperate for help - had rankled, but the Time Lord’s regard for his Slayer had always been stronger than his sense of duty or his personal feelings. If Buffy had known …
The Scholar practically dived across the room, reaching to wrench the drawers from the antiquated desk, pulling each one out to turn it over and then discard it with disgust. "Where is it? Where is it? I know I left it … ah!" The last drawer had what he was looking for – the slim shape of an emergency recall beacon taped underneath it. He hadn’t wanted to keep it, but neither had he been prepared to throw it away. You didn’t let technology like that fall into the wrong hands – human or demonic – no matter what you thought of the people who’d made it.
"What the hell is that?" Spike had joined the party, limping over to lean his weight against the other doorjamb. "It’s beeping."
It was – although at a pitch the human ear had not been designed to detect. Mark one up for vampiric senses.
"Tee Tee Eh Eee Are Bee." The response was terse. Wesley was turning it over and over in his hand, hoping that the device would recognise him – or at least tag him as a legitimate user, given his regenerated state.
"A what?"
"TARDIS Tracker and Emergency Recall Beacon – aha!"
Paydirt. The thing had shifted in his hand, unfolding to reveal a projective map of the globe. There was only one signal on it – and that a quiescent solitary vehicle parked in the safest place possible, several feet under the ice in Antartica. The signal he expected to see – a brighter, pulsing indicator of an active, awakened TARDIS –was nowhere to be found.
"He’s not here," Wesley released with a sense of profound relief – one followed by a moment of bemused realisation. "He’s not even on this world – or in this time frame. Damn." He looked up, to find two pairs of dead eyes staring at him in utter confusion. "The Watcher has gone," he explained, trying to get his head round what that meant. "I’m willing to bet he was light years away and a millennium distant in time when we tried to call him. And," he went on with growing certainty, "I’m equally willing to bet that Buffy and Dawn aren’t anywhere near that apartment in Rome – anymore than Willow is in Brazil, or Xander in Africa … Damnit," he cursed again, staring up at the ceiling with decided irritation. "I need to talk to you. See you ... "