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Needed	By : abra Category: Angel the Series > Het - Male/Female > Faith/Wesley Views: 1835 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own AtS, nor make any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or the setting of the story. All things I borrowed from the Buffyverse are a creation of and belong to Joss Whedon.

Timeline: more than 9years after NFA ("Angel"), 10 after "Chosen" (BtVS)

Beta: Rachael, thank you!

Feedback: review please! or the last chapters might stay in my head for a looong time.

Chapter 12

He looked to the exit. The darkness was flowing out even faster. He gathered his strength and tried to crawl back. Justine knelt next to him, knife once again at his throat. The swish of the blade... skin being slashed, blood gushing... Pain... Darkness enveloping him from inside and out.

He saw the hem of Faith's pink dress. Faith, Alex, the girls... he crawled a few more inches. The dark mist was rising. He never saw Angel's foot. He just felt the savage kicks, in his face, in his gut.

Wesley knew he was not going to make it. He had never accepted that his death would not stop other deaths. He had never accepted that he was going to lose.
His last minutes. He had to make them count. Wesley ignored the pain, switched on his transmitter and made his choice.

"Spike, get in the cave. You have to activate the salamander."

Angel was still kicking him, but Wesley kept his eyes open until he saw the neon bright hair of the vampire. He hoped it wasn't another trick of the cave. He held the blue eyes trying to distinguish between reality and illusion, then pointed toward the corridor where he had dropped the case.

Spike shoved Angel aside as he ran passed. Wesley expected the beating to continue, but it did not. He looked around the cave. The mist was swirling off the floor. And he was alone. He pressed his hand over the neck wound. Blood gushed from it, trickling between his fingers. He couldn't even see the wound in his chest. He could only feel the pain. His breath was labored. The sword had probably pierced a lung. He waited for the taste of blood in his mouth. When that would come, it was the end.

He rolled on his back. Was this all just an illusion? How did the nightmare theory went? If you died in your sleep... If you died in the Matrix... But he knew it was not an illusion. Unlike the First, inside the cave, the Darkness had the power to give physical form to its illusions. Alex was the proof, after all. Alex... Faith...

He hadn't even been aware he had closed his eyes until he felt the running steps, but he was not seeing who had come.

"Wesley!"

Faith's shout jolted him from the drowsiness. She fell hard to her knees next to him. She put her palm on his neck over his own bloodied hand.

"Don't fucking die on me, Wes!" she said. "Don't you dare fucking die!"

Wesley wished he could oblige. He wished he could talk. Tell her something worth remembering. Tell her she was a good person, she was a great Slayer, a wonderful mother. Tell her she deserved to be happy.

At the same time, he wanted to know how the battle was going, why had she left the fight, how were the other girls. He wanted to tell her to go help Spike.

Spike...

He strained to hear any signs of Spike's progress. As if from a great distance, Wesley heard Spike's voice.

"You look good, Slayer."

A short pause and than a thump. The thump of a body hitting the floor. For a confused second, Wesley thought Spike had fell in the trap, just as he had fallen, but he realized that the vampire would've turned to dust if he was dead. More dead anyway.

Wesley's eyes were slowly closing again. He felt Faith's shallow breathing as she cradled his head in her arms. He heard her whispered confession, and that made his death a thousand times worse.

"Don't die, Wes. We'll get you out of here. Get you to a hospital. We'll call a healer. Fight, damn you! We put our souls on the line for you. If you die now, Spike and I will lose half our soul each. We gave you our souls, damn it! That's gotta count for something. We survive. You do the same! For us! If you die, Wes... We gave you the best of ourselves. If you die, you leave two monsters in the world. Come on, Watcher. Fight. Just hang on for one. more. second."

Was she crying? Not Faith. Her soul... Spike's hard earned soul... He had been such a fool. There's no such thing as nothing left to lose.

"No instant cure in that backpack of yours?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

She let out a short laugh.

"Scotch," she said.

"What happened?" Grace's voice came out on the common frequency.

"Wes is hurt," Faith said, her voice trying to feign calm, and failing.

"Fuck. Is he dead?" Grace asked.

The sounds of the battle were not just background noise. They muffled the girl's voice.

"No," Faith answered.

"Smear some Mohra blood on him and get back out here!" Miranda interjected.

"What?" Faith said sharply. "Do you have any?"

"There should be a vial in your backpack," Miranda said.

Faith rummaged desperately through the multitude of items. Wesley smiled. That backpack of hers really had everything. Seconds later, she was prying his hand away from his neck. Wesley felt the cold fluid dripping on the open wound. Then the tingling of the tissue regenerating. He heard Faith cursing under her breath as she was ripping open his shirt. She was pouring dark blood on her palm. Wesley gripped her hand.

"Don't use it all," he told her.

"What? Why?"

"Just don't. Trust me."

She spread the greenish blood over his chest, making sure she covered the entire wound.

"Any others?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Thanks."

"Yeah," she said, and got up.

Wesley raised an arm, asking for her help to get up. Faith grabbed his wrist and pulled him up. Her hand was sticky with his blood and that of the demon, but Wesley gripped it hard. He realized that he did not want to let it go. Not a good time for that. It's not always about holding hands. Really not a good time for that.

They both ran toward the exit. The place was swarming with vampires. Faith threw herself into the m�l�e without hesitation. Wesley's head was still spinning from the blood loss. He made the decision to sound the retreat.

"Everyone get inside the cave!" he ordered on the common frequency. "Hold the entrance."

He was betting their lives on the success of his plan. He saw the dark mist rising like steam from the thicker cover that kept pouring out from the cave. It had already covered the sky above the forest. He looked at his watch. It was past daybreak. The reddish nuances of the sunrise were nowhere to be seen. The air was gray and it was getting darker by the second.

Wesley stayed until he saw the girls coming toward him, and ran back in the cave. He had a hard time finding his way in the darkness. He managed to find the corridor. He saw that Spike had taken the salamander out of the case. He was surrounded by people Wesley did not recognize. They were all holding weapons. Before Wesley got the chance to do anything to distract them, Spike activated the salamander.

"Sorry, Nibblet," Spike said, placing the salamander by the body of a teenage girl with long brown hair.

Wesley recognized the dead girl as Dawn Summers. The girl's neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. The salamander flared, and the cave shook. The figures surrounding Spike lost their consistence. The mist stopped flowing. The magical fire rose higher. It became a pillar of fire, with the salamander as its base. The thin pillar became a rapidly thickening column. The vampire was not moving. He kept staring at the fading silhouette of the girl while the flames were growing closer and closer.

"Spike!" Wesley shouted.

The vampire snapped out of his reverie. He looked at the fire, and than ran toward Wesley. They both left the room in which the fire kept growing.

Wesley hoped he had calculated correctly the diameter of the salamander fire. It would be a bitch to get so far, and be turned to ashes by your own device.

In the outer room of the cave, the four girls were dusting the vampires who dared to get inside the cave. Wesley looked down and was relieved to notice that the dark mist hovering over the floor was dissipating. He followed Spike and joined the girls' efforts to keep the vampires outside. In a matter of minutes, came the sweet sound of bodies turning to ashes.

"Weren't you dying?" Spike asked, turning to Wesley.

"I got better," Wesley answered. "How did that Mohra blood get into Faith's backpack?" he asked Miranda.

"Alex ordered it on eBad after your little demonstration in the kitchen," the girl answered. "I thought he told you," she addressed Faith.

Faith shook her head.

"He was kind of annoyed I shipped him off to Xander," Faith said.

The six of them stood in silence for a while, gazing at the wonderful image of the early morning light. The soft summer wind blew away the piles of ashes sprinkled all around the clearing.

"They're probably not all gone," Wesley said. "Some might still be hiding in the forest."

"Yeah, but we have the advantage in the daylight," Eliana said.

"True," Wesley agreed.

He wondered about Spike. How was he going to make it all the way to the car? The path to the cave had been quite difficult. Maybe he could walk with his duster over his head, but if they were attacked...

There was, of course, the alternative of the Mohra blood. Even in his weakened state he had remembered the story Angel had once told him, when the vampire was in the depths of his broodiness over their work at Wolfram and Hart. Theory went that if a vampire's blood mingled with the blood of a Mohra demon, the vampire's body would be revived, but in the form of a zombie. However, when this had happened to Angel, the first known souled vampire, he had turned human. Now, Spike had a soul, but, after Faith's story of their halved souls, he stood a fifty-fifty chance to become human.

There was no urgency anymore. They should leave while the sun was still in the sky, but they did not need to leave right away.

Wesley found himself developing plans for the future. His mind was already drifting days ahead, at the patrols they had to set in order to cleanse the mountain of vampires. The smart ones among them would probably scurry away, but the spells of confusion were going to make it difficult for them. It was strange that the Slayers, whose blood was rich with power and magic, were not susceptible to these spells.

He hauled his mind back to the present. Why was he hesitant to tell Spike about the effects of the Mohra blood?

A ray of sunlight shone on Faith's hair. Beautiful, rich, dark brown. Wesley thought about passing his fingers through it. He smiled noticing that her hair had lost its usual silkiness during the night's events. He could see congealed blood in her locks, red blood and green blood. The difference between life and death for him.

Was that why he was hesitating? He was afraid that human Spike would be even more competition for her heart? This train of thought made him uncomfortable. It was still not a good time to think about that. He took the plunge and told Spike about the Mohra blood.

Faith took the vial out of her backpack. It was smeared with Wesley's blood. She looked from the vial to Wesley. She had again that expression he couldn't quite read. Or didn't dare to. When she looked at him like that, Wesley's world was turning upside down.

"Fifty-fifty's not good enough," Spike said.

Wesley realized he was not surprised. Angel had refused to stay human despite having much better reason to want to give up his vampire nature.

~~~~~~~~

They made it to the car more or less intact. About a dozen vamps attacked them, but only in groups of two or three at a time. The Slayers hardly broke a sweat in dealing with them. Wesley tried to fire his crossbow a couple of times, but the wound in his chest, though rapidly healing, still hurt and it had ruined his aim.

It took them a few hours to get back to the house. As soon as Faith parked the car, Wesley went straight to his room and fell asleep before he his head hit the pillow. He had promised himself that he would catch up on his sleep after the Apocalypse, and his body was collecting on the promise.

~~~~~~~~
to be continued...
- 11
- 12
- 13
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