31_days | [October 8, 2008] [BtVS/Angel] Equivalent Exchange

Title: Equivalent Exchange (3/6)
Day/Theme: October 8. power play
Series: Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Angel, Wesley, Connor, Buffy, Fred, Spike; Buffy/Angel, Spike/Buffy, Wesley/Fred UST, mentions of Connor->Xander and Connor->Spike
Rating: PG
Notes: Previous parts here

-

"Before you leave," Vail said, standing up, "there is something I need from you." He waited until Angel turned around to face him before continuing. "Your son."

The only response Angel gave Vail was to fold his arms.

"I am not as young as I once was," Vail croaked, "so I need to put my affairs in order before I run out of time."

"What does my son have to do with your affairs?"

"He is destined to kill Sahjhan," Vail said. "It would be an... inconvenience to me if he remained alive." Once again, he waved his hand. But this time, instead of a box of light, he held up a vase that Angel recognized - the one Sahjhan was trapped in. "Holding him in this is not as a permanent solution as I require." He waved his hand again, making the vase disappear. "The good news for you is that I wasn't going to your son to take care of this for a few more months."

He took steps towards Angel. "You have until then to teach him how to kill again." He continued to walk past Angel. "If you'll excuse me, there are things I need to attend to."

-

Buffy didn't waste any time. As soon as she shut Angel's office door, she asked, "What do you have?"

"Mostly bad news," Angel admitted. Buffy slumped down in the chair in front of his desk. "Connor is apparently part of some prophecy. The only thing I can say for sure is that it does have to do with him being the key."

Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Do you know what the prophecy is?"

"Nothing that I can confirm," Angel said and forced himself not move towards and comfort her. It wasn't easy, it'd been nearly five years since he was all business with her. "Just that he's part of one."

"What aren't you telling me?" Buffy asked without bothering to open her eyes.

Angel tightened his grip on the pen he was holding. "I know you don't trust me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to lie to you."

Buffy looked at him and said, incredulously, "You think I can't tell when you're lying to me?"

Angel leaned forward. "What exactly do you think you know about me now? We haven't really talked in years."

"I don't have time to do this," Buffy snapped as she stood up. She turned around sharply and began to walk towards the door.

Before she opened it, she said, without turning around, her voice without the heat it had a moment before, "For the record, I never said I didn't trust you. It's just that the Slayers are my responsibility and the only ones who can help her are those of us who know what she's going through."

Angel bit down his reply about what Andrew said. It was likely that Buffy would become even angrier at him for taking Andrew's word as the truth without contacting her. And, Angel had to admit, she would have had a point.

-

Wesley was about to knock on the door to Angel's office when he heard Eve's voice.

"My hands are pretty much tied, Angel." A pause in which neither of them said anything passed. Wesley set his knuckles on the door, intending to knock, when Eve spoke again, "What would you have me do?"

Angel's voice was angry when he answered. "If you think I'm going to let Vail - " Angel abruptly stopped and Wesley filed away the name 'Vail' to look into at a later time. "Just get out. And try not to bother Wes too much when you do."

Wesley imagined Eve rolled her eyes as she stood up and walked across the room. Wesley opened the door and didn't bother to keep it open for her when he walked in.

"Those windows can be useful," Wesley said once Eve had left the room.

"Could smell you too," Angel said.

"Speaking of which," Wesley said, "that's also a skill Connor possesses." At the look Angel gave him, Wesley elaborated, "He was able to smell Buffy before he saw her yesterday."

"Does that narrow anything down?"

"Any information we acquire has the potential to be useful," Wesley said.

"Meaning nothing," Angel said as he leaned back into his chair, face lined in frustration.

"Not yet," Wesley admitted and gave Angel a small, comforting smile as he walked over towards him. He rested against the edge of Angel's desk slightly before continuing, "However, it's likely we'll have something to on after we run the tests later today."

Angel looked away from Wesley. "Buffy and I had a fight."

"She wouldn't let that get in the way of helping her brother," Wesley said. "So that's obviously not what's troubling you."

Wesley wordlessly followed Angel with his eyes as shoved away from his desk and stood up. Then he walked over towards the window, folded his arms, and stared out at the city before him. "It's not just the fight. It's being next to her. And so much has changed."

Wesley processed that for a moment. "Do you feel as if you're not able to connect with her as you once were able to?"

"That's one way of putting it," Angel said, his voice sounding distant and alone.

"What hasn't changed is that no one else matters as much to you," Wesley said and he was about to stand up and walk over to Angel when he was struck with the image of Cordy and froze. Then he tensed, slightly, as he sometimes still did when he thought he'd said the wrong thing. "Unless, of course, Cordelia -- "

"Let's just say that Cordy doesn't make things easier," Angel said. He turned around, unfolding his arms as he did. "You should go work on getting ready to test Connor. Have Fred help."

Wesley shook his head as he took a few steps over towards the other man. "Angel - "

"Wes."

The tone of Angel's voice stopped Wesley from taking another step and the look in his eyes made him give Angel a short, slow nod. "If you change you're mind..."

Angel met Wesley's eyes. "Thanks."

-

Two words from a familiar voice stopped Spike in his tracks:

"You're alive."

"And corporal too," Spike said as he turned around to face a pair of angry blue eyes.

"I said I'd kill you if you hurt my sister again," Connor said, storming over to Spike in a manner not unlike Buffy when she was pissed. When Connor had closed the distance between the two of them, he folded his arms and said, "And now I have super powers to help me."

Spike rose an eyebrow. "Haven't touched her."

"You died!"

"Saving the world - "

"And couldn't bother to pick up a phone and tell her you weren't dead?"

Spike hide his wince by stretching out his arms and leaning against the hallway wall. "It was for the best."

All the anger seemed to drain from Connor's form. "I thought you'd be different than Angel."

"Are you trying to find a way to give me a heart attack?" Spike said as made a gesture of disgust with his arms.

Connor didn't even crack a smile and Spike was reminded, again, of what he'd lost with Connor. Not even earning his soul had helped cool Connor's anger.

"You made her cry too," Connor said and then brushed pass him.

Spike watched him walk away and when he was out of site said, "You can come out now."

"What did you do?" Angel asked, appearing from around the corner of the hallway.

Spike inclined his head to Angel and avoided the question by saying, "And to think, he used to have a crush on me."

Angel stared at him.

"Got me to tell him him about the old days," Spike said as he rolled his shoulders. "Didn't even want to know about you. It proves he had taste"

"I can't really blame him," Angel said shortly and began to walk down the hall.

Spike followed him. "You should thank me, I did a world a favor by improving that taste of his. Last thing the world needs is another person having the hots for Xander."

Angel paused to digest this. Spike honestly couldn't hold that against the old man. "We're never going to talk about this again."

Spike was only too glad to keep going on after that. "I, for one, was pretty sure something was up with the poor kid after that. Nothing short of magic could make you look at Harries and think 'I -"

Without a word, Angel knocked Spike hard on the back of his head and walked swiftly down the hall towards his office.

-

After double-checking that everything needed for Connor's tests was there and ready to go, Fred set down the clipboard and turned around to face Wesley, who was scribbling things down in his old clipboard. "I'm ready when you are."

"I'll be done in just a moment," Wesley said, and true to his word, no longer than a minute passed before he, too, set the clipboard down. Then, as took hold one of his wrists awkwardly, he said, "I did mention that we're to do this alone, right?"

"A few times," Fred confirmed.

He turned around. "That would include Knox."

Fred licked her lips. "I know. To be honest, we haven't really been spending as much time together as we used to."

"I had noticed that you two worked on projects in completely different manners," Wesley said.

Fred jumped on that. "Yeah. He's not nearly as thorough as I am. And we're pretty much on the same page when it comes to science, which isn't a bad thing, really. But, it's nice to work with someone who has different set of skills. It brings in new ideas and keeps things fresh." She bit her bottom lip and walked over towards him and leaned on the counter, tilting her head up so she could look at his face. "Like someone who works with, say, magic."

"I imagine that would be a very beneficial experience," Wesley said and got out his cell phone eagerly. "Perhaps I could set up and appointment with one of my employees to work with you."

Fred just stared at him, and was seriously considering taking the advice Spike had given her to just skip the flirting, hints, and signals and kiss him, when Connor poked his head into the lab.

"Is this where I'm supposed to be?"

"Yeah," Fred said as cheerfully as she could manage though her frustration, "Come on in."

-

As Buffy sat down across from Spike in the lounge, he said, "Don't bother with the talking-to. Your brother already had a go there."

"Works for me," Buffy said, not bothering hiding her tiredness from Spike, as she folded her arms on the table and set her head on them.

Buffy heard a chair scrape across the floor, closer to her, and then a familiar palm was set on the top of her shoulder. "Just don't focus on the bad parts, Pet."

"What are the good parts?" Buffy said as she turned her head to look at him. "The only thing I can think is my brother is changing and there's nothing I can to do stop it because I have no clue why it's happening. Oh, and as a nice bonus, I just found out that there's a prophecy about him and, surprise, I have no clue what it's about either."

"He'll be a whole lot harder to kidnap with extra strength," Spike pointed out after a short moment.

"Then he'll want to fight with me," Buffy said and when Spike tried to pull away, she set her hand on his and held it against her shoulder, rubbing his wrist with her thumb.

"He's got grow up sometime," Spike said as slowly, his hand relaxed against her skin.

"Not until I say so," Buffy retorted and pressed her face back into her arms and her shoulders shook as she laughed in spite of herself and everything around her.

-

"I'm starving," Fred said as she stretched her arms out. "Why don't we get something to eat?"

Wesley glanced at his watch. "I'm afraid I don't have enough time. There's some research I need to catch up on."

"I could help," Fred said. "Order in." She grinned at him as she said, recalling Wesley urging her to eat a few months ago when she was working on making Spike corporal again, "You shouldn't skip meals anymore than I should."

"It's a rather complicated subject. It would probably be best if I worked at it alone," Wesley told her as he gathered up the notes they'd taken on Connor and put them in a file. Realizing how that sounded, he looked up at her and said quickly, "Not that you're anything short of brilliant - it's just."

"Outside my expertise?"

"Of sorts," Wesley said with a nod.

Fred gave him a quick smile. "I guess I'll be going then."

"Make sure to have a nice evening," Wesley said. "I'll make sure to give these files to Angel."

Fred walked towards the lab door. And then she turned around and walked back to Wesley. "Raincheck?" She folded her arms behind her back and rocked her feet. "And maybe this time without meetings on Angel that tun out kinda pointless because he's too busy with Buffy and Connor to quit and none of us have any good ideas anyway." She shook her head to get back on subject. "Or meals that aren't meetings at all. Like - like a date."

Wesley's eyes widened slightly and he clenched the files he was holding. "I think I'd like that."

"Good," Fred said before taking his hand and squeezing it for a moment before turning around and walking out of the lab.

-

Angel had been reading the files on Connor, trying not to think about how he wouldn't be able to avoid his son forever, much less how he'd handle it when it came time for Angel to face him, when Wesley, without a word, walked into his office over towards his desk.

He dropped a file on Angel's desk and opened it up on the first page which Angel recognized as the first page of his contract with Wolfram & Hart. At the bottom, written in blood, was his signature.

"Is there something you'd like to tell me, Angel?"