“And when you’re finished with that I need the Randall file,” Lilah ordered as she closed her office door behind her. So much to do before tonight and she was still having to deal with that ignoramus Jeremy Randall and his Tuscan Hellcat. Only an idiot would summon a Hellcat from another dimension with the hopes of taming it for home use. Hellcats were unpredictable, and personally, she was loath to bring another one into the Wolfram and Hart fold because he couldn’t control it.
Striding to her desk she took a seat when the back of her neck prickled. Glancing up suddenly she gasped. “God! Why didn’t you say something?”
Wesley crossed his legs in the chair he’d been seated in in the corner of her office for some time now. “We need to talk.”
Her eyebrow arched. “We do? I haven’t seen you in a matter of days and suddenly you show up all stealthy, demanding we talk?”
“Don’t get pissy with me Lilah. It doesn’t enhance your personality.” Wesley leaned forward on his knees, hands clasped together. “You’re hiding something from me. I want to know what it is.”
She let out a short laugh. “I’m hiding something from you? I’m hiding a lot from you, Wes. It’s sorta my job. I don’t divulge company secrets to people sitting on the fence. Especially those who have been cavorting with the enemy the last few days, looking for ways to stop my dastardly evil plans.”
“Tell me about the Gy-ra,” he requested, unimpressed with her bravado.
“What about it?”
“You’re going to try to raise it tonight. The demon that will bring about the next phase of the End of Days.”
“Looks like you know all the facts,” she noted. “What do you need me for?”
“You realize what that will mean, don’t you, Lilah?” he asked, rising to his feet and crossing to her desk. “The end of humanity. This demon will have the power to raise an army and destroy us all. That includes you.”
“Maybe…maybe not. It’s amazing what having friends in high places, or low, as it were, can do for a girl’s position.”
“Don’t play coy with me!” he snapped and she cringed. “This is serious. People, millions of people, will die if you succeed in this. Is wealth, power…are they worth that price?”
Lilah watched him carefully for a moment before she grinned. “I’ve never seen you so… You’re positively upset about this, aren’t you? Let me ask you, then, Wes…what part of this comes as a surprise to you?” The grin faded. “Did you think that just because of our involvement, or because I’ve helped out the side of good once or twice along the way, that I would forget my ultimate obligation and agenda? That I was going to see the error of my ways and follow you on the path of righteousness? Don’t forget who I am, and who I work for…don’t forget who you turned to, Wesley. There’s a part of me that you identify with. You’ve embraced it a time or two yourself. Feels good, doesn’t it? Sliding into that dark spot you hid from the world for so long?”
Lilah rose to her feet and rounded the desk. “You’ve got the potential in there, my boy. It’s itching to come out but you keep pushing it down, denying what you really want to be. And for what? For friends that abandon you in your darkest hour? Angel tried to kill you, remember? The others left you to die in the street when you got your throat slit. Gunn can barely talk to you now, you sicken him that much. And you’ll never have a chance with Ms. Texas.”
“Don’t change the subject,” he growled, cutting her off. “Tell me what the plan is.”
“Why?” she cried. “So you can try to stop it? You can’t stop it, Wes. I’ll give you that much of an edge. You can’t stop it. It’s coming, whether you want it to or not. Time to choose sides, buddy boy. I’ve picked mine…the only side that has a chance of survival after this goes down.”
“You’re going to raise the Gy-ra, and then what?” he tried again.
“Your friends will die, one by one. Ultimately, that’s the plan. Kill the Slayer, kill Angel, kill anyone with the potential to even dream they can stop us. You know the story, Wes. Don’t pretend you don’t. I’ll be disappointed if you haven’t researched this to death with your little nitwit friends.”
“Kill the Slayer.” Something in the way she had spoken caught in his mind. “Kill the Slayer, kill anyone with the potential to stop the Gy-ra.”
“Like that’s a big surprise? What did you think the plan was? Invite them for tea and cookies?” Lilah sighed and shook her head. “Look. Much as I love rehashing information with you, most of which I’m sure isn’t new to you, I have things to be doing. Big night for us here.”
“Kill anyone, Lilah?” he asked her, grabbing her arm. “What exactly did you mean by that?”
Lilah wrenched her arm free with a glare. “What is wrong with you? What do you think I mean?”
“You said kill the Slayer…then kill anyone with the potential to stop you.”
“So?”
“How far are you taking that, Lilah?”
“Wesley,” she sighed wearily. “I honestly don’t have time for this--”
“Kill a Slayer, another’s called.”
“Generally, yes. Or so I’m told.”
“You have a division here dedicated to the study of Slayers.”
“Of course.”
Wesley’s brain was working it through. “You used that to track Faith. You hired her once…you knew she’s arrived in Los Angeles before anyone else.”
“Part of the job,” she told him testily. “Is there a point to this?”
“If you’re tracking a rogue Slayer you were presumably keeping tabs on Buffy…”
“She doesn’t do too much. Not a big world-traveler last time I checked.”
“It’s conceivable you’re tracking the potential Slayers,” he concluded darkly. “In fact, I’d say it with some degree of certainty.”
“Yes, we do,” Lilah told him with just a hint of waver in her voice.
“Which means you would know that girls all over the world are being hunted down, killed in cold blood for no apparent reason.”
Lilah tried her best to look nonchalant. “Happens in this city every day.”
“But not generally because these girls harbor the possibility of becoming the next Vampire Slayer,” he pointed out. “You knew. You…you have a hand in it. You, the law firm…you’re involved with the extermination of the potential Slayers.”
Wesley and Lilah stared at each other evenly for a moment before she smiled. “Well, of course we are. There’s not much that goes on in this dimension, or any other for that matter, that we don’t have some kind of vested interest in.”
“You ordered the attacks? On Buffy, on Faith? The others? Or are you just merely observers in this? Tell me!” he cried, suddenly violently angry.
Lilah reached behind her suddenly and held up a sharp letter opener. “One more step and I call security. Whether that’s before or after I use this on you is up to you.”
He wasn’t afraid but he did stop his advance. “I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection before now.”
She shrugged. “If it helps, we’re actually the contractors on this little deal. Just the research team, essentially.”
“Meaning someone else is doing the hunting. The Harbingers. They work for the First Evil.”
“If you didn’t think the Senior Partners were on the First Evil’s speed dial, I’ve really misjudged your smarts, Wes.”
“You’re killing the Slayers to help even the odds with this little war of yours. You’re taking out an entire line of warriors, a line that has existed for longer than you and I can conceive.”
“And what about this surprises you, Wesley?” she snapped, eyes like daggers as she continued to hold up the letter opener before her. “My job here is to ensure that this apocalypse happens, and that it goes smoothly for the people involved. Did you think that just because I happen to be sleeping with you that I would make exceptions for your friends? That my feelings for you were going to get in the way of something I’ve been working my entire life to see happen?”
He hadn’t known the depths of his feelings for her, that he’d even had any at all, until her words penetrated his anger. A tinge of hurt picked at his heart and his hands unclenched from the fists they’d been in at his side.
“No…I suppose I’ve been terribly blind to you, Lilah,” he said simply.
They stood in silence until Lilah slowly dropped the letter opener to her desktop once again.
“You still have the choice, Wesley,” she told him, kinder now. “You could be a part of something huge here.”
Wesley turned to the door and opened it. Glancing back at her, he nodded. “I will be. When I stop you.”
*~*~*
Buffy knocked for a third time on Faith’s door, and getting no response, turned and headed down the hallway to her own room. She hadn’t seen Faith since last night and the fact that no one else had, either, was starting to bother her. It wasn’t unlike the Faith of old to take off without telling anyone, but with the Harbingers out there Buffy sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case. Safety in numbers.
Research had turned up a number of semi-interesting facts on the Gy-ra, mostly involving death, blood and rampaging evil, none of which came as a surprise to Buffy or her friends. But that was good. That they could understand and deal with. And stop. They’d gear up tonight and go out en masse and defeat the Gy-ra, as they’d gone out before and defeated hundreds of other demons from reigning chaos on the world.
It was what they did.
Opening the door to her room Buffy took a much-needed minute to herself, resting her exhausted brain. She could sleep for a week, at least. Maybe two. Where did it say in the Slayer-handbook that sleep deprivation was a requirement?
Probably right next to the part about not having friends or family to complicate a Slayer’s life.
“Grumble,” she muttered to herself, rubbing at her eyes.
“Is this a private reverie?” Angel’s voice came from the doorway.
She turned halfway to look back at him. “No…come on in.” He stepped inside the room, looking at her curiously. “I’m just a little tired. And I still can’t find Faith.”
“She’ll turn up, I’m sure. It’s a little tense around here. She probably went out for air.”
Buffy shrugged. “Problem is last time I checked Faith’s idea of getting air was cross-country travel.”
“Give her a chance.”
Feeling sheepish at her complaining, Buffy changed the subject. “What’s up? I went looking for you…earlier.”
“Yeah…I needed some time to think. I think we need to talk…again,” he added when she gave him a wry raise of her eyebrows. “I wanted to apologize, Buffy,” he began, taking a seat on the edge of her bed, then deciding against it and moving instead to a chair across the room. “For my behavior earlier. I shouldn’t have run out on you like that.”
Buffy shrugged, grateful for the physical distance between them. “Why did you?”
“I’m not sure… Everything got so…” He faltered, none of his carefully planned speech coming to mind. “It was intense, what happened between us. I guess I handled it badly.”
“Angel…this intense stuff between us seems to keep happening. And I think we need to figure out why. Before one of us kills the other one. Dead-er.”
He gave her a muted smile. “Yeah…you’re right.” He glanced down at his hands and flexed his fingers. “Uh…any ideas?”
She almost laughed. “Um… Extreme circumstances involving world peril and bottled up emotions?”
“That’ll work,” he agreed with a smile. “But I don’t think that’s all of it.”
Buffy shrugged, slightly uncomfortable. “No?”
A little truth never hurt anybody, right? “There’s a lot of history between us. Unfinished business, so to speak,” he said conversationally. “We never really got to find out how our story ends.”
Her face softened. “No… I guess we didn’t.”
“And here we were, thrown together again, and me with only the memories of right after I left you in Sunnydale…when we were still…”
“Up in the air about each other?” she suggested.
He nodded. “Exactly. Those feelings didn’t stop though, Buffy. When my memory came back, they were still right there, fresh.”
“Don’t you think some of that was residual?” she asked, half-hopefully.
“Possibly… But what I really need to know is…” Angel took a deep breath. Here goes. “What about you?”
“Me?” she asked, surprised. “What about me?”
“Do you have any…thoughts on this? Feelings? About me…or, about us.” God, even at 250 plus years of age he was incapable of confronting a woman about her feelings for him.
“I…uh…” Dumbly she stammered until her brain began to work again. “I don’t know, Angel. We deny ourselves and it’s bad…we give in and it’s bad…”
“You’re not answering my question.”
“I don’t know if I can,” she told him honestly. “There are things, feelings, for you in my heart. There always will be.”
“Do you need time?”
“Don’t you?” she asked slightly incredulous. “I mean, not too long ago we were rolling around on that very bed and then you were tearing out of there like I’d let the sun in. Now you’re sitting here asking if I need time to sort out my feelings for you?”
Angel’s eyes fell to his hands in his lap. “I thought if we worked this out it would make being around each other easier on us…and everybody else.”
She watched him nervously for a few moments. “Angel, yes,” she said finally, “I need some time. This is all pretty…sudden. Three days ago we hadn’t spoken to each other in months and now we’re supposed to make decisions about our relationship in a matter of minutes? I don’t work that way. I’m sorry.”
He stood suddenly. “No, I’m sorry. I’m going about this all the wrong way. I thought since we kept backing off from each other, and that wasn’t working, that the direct approach was the way to go…”
“Wait, Angel,” Buffy sighed. “Don’t go, please. I think you’re right about the talking thing. We need to. Clear the air, get it all out before we go fight the gyro demon.” When he hesitated, she added, “Please?”
Reluctantly he took a seat again and they sat across from each other, neither sure where to start.
“You know I care about you,” he began a moment later, hesitantly.
She nodded. “I care about you, too, Angel.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t, anymore. But I do.” Admitting it was almost harder than just grabbing her and kissing her senseless. Why was that? “I thought it was the spell, I thought it would go away.”
“But it didn’t?” Was it wrong to be a little hopeful?
His eyes touched on hers. “No. It didn’t. It… It seems to be getting worse, actually.”
Her heart skipped. “Oh. Worse…in a good way?”
Angel’s lips curved into a soft smile. “It’s not horrible…no. But, it’s confusing, to say the least. And…”
“It’s getting worse for me, too,” she admitted. “I don’t want it to…I haven’t really thought about us, like this, in a long time now. But being here… And those kisses…and the other stuff,” she blushed, “it’s sorta hard to ignore it.”
He nodded and again they fell into silence. “I feel like a teenager,” he chuckled a minute later, absently playing with a stray thread on the seam of his pants. “I’m way past being an adult, you’d think this got easier with time.”
“I don’t think baring your heart ever gets easier. That’s what we’re doing, right? We’re…”
“Admitting we might still love each other,” he concluded softly.
Her heart picked up pace and began slamming her chest, a sound that delighted his ears.
“Well,” she said nervously. “There you have it.”
“I guess so.”
“What do we do now?” she wanted to know. “I mean, not to put any pressure on us, but… Are we saying we think it might be worth it to try again?”
His shoulder jerked. “That’s probably not the wisest thing, considering…” he began and watched as her face fell slightly. “But I’m not sure how we can avoid it at this point. It’s been… a long time for us. And we seem to be right back where we left off.”
“But now…the timing of it all.” Her face fell into such a frown he wanted to laugh and kiss her until it went away. “The end of the world is right around the corner, things couldn’t be more crazy.”
“So… We wait until it’s over. If we stop it, when we stop it, we can focus on us. See if we think it’s right.”
Buffy nodded, a million thoughts racing in her head, her heart practically jumping through her chest. She and Angel? Really? Having an actual adult conversation about themselves, their feelings for each other, and being logical about those feelings instead of talking themselves into just doing what’s right?
“So…ah. I should go, then. I mean, if we’re done here,” he stammered nervously, rising to his feet.
“Oh…okay,” she nodded, standing as well. “Yeah, I mean… We should probably get downstairs anyway. Lots of planning to do for tonight.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
They nodded at each other and simultaneously headed for the door.
“Oh, sorry--” she stammered as they practically collided in their haste to get out of the room.
“Here, let me--” Angel reached for the doorknob at the same time she did and their hands met, electricity zinging through their systems.
For a moment Buffy’s eyes held Angel’s, both full of doubt and a little fear. Her breath held and for a second it was like déjà vu as his hand gently tugged on her sleeve, pulling her toward him. In a moment of perfect clarity she watched as his fingers held the white fabric of her shirt, hesitating only for a moment before moving up her arm to slide around her waist. In a matter of seconds their lips came together. The kiss was gentle, loving, and he maneuvered her around until Buffy’s back was pressed against the door. Tenderly his lips moved over hers, his tongue dipping into her mouth for only a moment before he stopped and rested his forehead against hers.
“We’ll figure this out,” he whispered.
She nodded quickly. “We will. I know it.”
Angel’s eyes closed as an image of Cordelia swam before his eyes. “I’ve got some stuff to go take care of. But I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Oh…can I help?”
His head shook and he planted a soft kiss to the top of her head. “It’s something I’ve got to do on my own, okay?”
“Sure…okay,” she nodded.
Wistfully he kissed her lips once more before opening the door to her room and heading out into the hall. “I’ll see you in a little while.”
Buffy gave him a crooked smile as she shut the door.
“This is what you get for thinking it couldn’t get crazier around here,” she admonished herself.
