The Quality of Mercy

Chapter 1: "Force of Habit"

"She said not to worry. That they wouldn't ever hurt us. I don't understand how she could know that. I mean, how do you know? How can you tell if something like that would hurt you?" Riley says, enunciating as well as he can after his fourth gin and tonic.

The woman sitting on the next bar stool seems amused by his words; it's the first thing he's said all night that seems to have made any impression on her at all. Not that it matters, of course. Nothing about her matters, except what she is, and what she can give him.

This bar is like most of the bars he finds the vampires in. It looks perfectly normal at first, if a little run-down: Neon signs advertising various beers gleam red and blue and green in the darkness. Ashtrays that haven't been cleaned out in far too long litter every table. Some crappy guitar band from the 70s is blaring from the jukebox, which doesn't appear to have been updated since Laura Branigan was a going concern.

But stay a few minutes, have your first drink or two, and you begin to sense that something's not right here. The loud laughter that wells up in most bars never rings out here. The bartender isn't hidden behind his usual mask of weary efficiency; he's edgy and uncertain, even though he's mixed these drinks a thousand times before. And the people who sit alone carry a very different edge of desperation than the kind you're used to seeing. They're hungry, but not the way other solitary people in bars are hungry. They're on the prowl for something entirely different.

Riley's been in bars like this many times before. Once upon a time, when he was young and happy and knew no better, he would walk into a place like this wtih friends. After a few minutes, they'd sense that the bar wasn't quite right somehow, though they'd consciously think no more than that it was dull, or cheap, or just not what they were looking for that night. They'd bolt the rest of their drinks, pull on their coats and wander off to someplace more warm and welcoming.

Now, when he finds a bar like this, he settles in. Has drink after drink, going as fast as he can without making himself throw up or pass out. And, sooner or later, one of them finds him.

The girl tonight is beautiful; they so rarely are. Riley doesn't much care what they look like, most of the time. Once their faces change, they all look alike anyway, as far as he's concerned. But sometimes they want more than his blood -- the drinking excites them, and sometimes he gives them whatever else they want, too.

He never did that before, when he was with Buffy. Back then, Riley turned them away. He couldn't betray Buffy, he told himself, denying how far he'd already crossed that line.

Now, though, who cares? He doesn't, not anymore. And this woman is lovely enough for him to think that he might actually be able to lose himself in her for a while. That's what Riley wants most of all, tonight.

"She thought she had it -- all under control," Riley continues. "I don't think she did, though. I think she was just pretending it wasn't that dangerous so -- so she didn't have to think about it --"

"And you like danger, don't you, naughty boy?" The woman across from him is positively gleeful now. Her large, dark eyes are brimming with delight, and her delicate little mouth has split into a surprisingly wide grin. She's shredding her cocktail napkin with her fingernails, never looking down at the nest of confetti she's making. Her naked, undisguised lust for what's about to happen both excites and disgusts him.

"Yes," he says. "And you're a very dangerous woman."

"Oh, yes," she whispers, giggling as she leans in and gives him a quick, soft kiss on the lips. Her mouth feels warm, at first, and Riley starts; then he realizes it's just the sting of the brandy she's been drinking. It heats his own lips, numbing them slightly. "Now shall we dance?"

Riley likes the English accent, likes her long, dark hair. He even likes the dark-blue velvet gown she's wearing; it looks old-fashioned, almost demure. If he weren't having a nervous breakdown, and she weren't an undead creature of the night, he'd ask her out. The idea strikes him as funny, and Riley starts to laugh, an uneven, broken sound that doesn't even seem as though it should be coming from his body.

She scowls at him, and he shakes his head apologetically. "I'm sorry. I wasn't laughing at you. Let's dance."

He belts the last of the gin and tonic; the bartender starts mixing him another immediately, but Riley shakes his head. As he gets to his feet, he feels the floor shift beneath him; he's drunker than he usually lets himself get. Dangerous, to get this close to losing control. But it doesn't really matter anymore.

Riley takes her hand -- such a tiny little hand, each finger tipped in the ragged remnants of black polish -- and begins leading her toward the center of the bar. Nobody else is dancing to this stupid music, but he's past being embarrassed.

But she begins to laugh. "Not in front of all the big eyes, staring, staring --"

"I thought you wanted to dance."

"Not with our FEET," she says.

He actually smiles at that, and though it's not a true, genuine smile, it comes closer than most of his attempts these days. "Well, then, let's go."

---

They stumble out together, coats pulled around them against an unseasonable chill. She is hanging onto him, giggling, and he puts an arm around her shoulders; they look just like any guy and girl out together on the town. Nice and normal. Just the way he always wanted it.

Is this the way he always wanted it?

Riley pushes that question to the back of his mind. He's gotten very good at that lately.

Normally, what happens next happens in an alleyway, or the back seat of a car, or maybe a suck house, if there's one close by. He's done it in a bar's restroom before, though that was too perfunctory and unpleasant to bear repeating. Tonight, though, the girl's loveliness and the night's chill conspire to make him spring for a motel room. He wants her to take her time with him, wants to be able to lay his arms and neck bare without shivering against the cold. Riley doesn't want to feel anything except the rush.

"Rooms and rooms and rooms, and everyone fast asleep," she says, as he fumbles with the lock. He has the strangest feeling that the parked cars in the lot are all filled with people, staring up at him, disapproving. He doesn't like the sensation. "Every room has a different treat. Like chocolates in a tin. You have to bite in to see what you've got for your sweet."

So she's a little strange. He's been with stranger.

Riley gets the door open, pulls her within. He shuts the door behind them, but doesn't bother locking it; he doubts anything outside is more dangerous than what's inside. She doesn't turn on the lights, just grabs his lapels and kisses him hard, right away. He finds himself returning the kiss, feels something akin to real passion as she pulls his coat off and begins unbuttoning his shirt.r>

Normally, if things turn sexual, it doesn't happen until afterwards, when his thoughts and reactions are muted. But this one wants it all together -- the sex and the drinking, and the thought of combining the rush of her bite and the rush of orgasm excites him on a level he hadn't yet discovered.

Deep within him, there's something akin to despair; he thought he'd sunk as low as he was going to go. He thought he'd accepted his slavery to his craving, his need. But this will be better -- even stronger -- and from now on, this is what he'll desire. He hates the knowledge that he is diving deeper still, and yet he welcomes it too.

Riley pulls his mouth away from hers long enough to whisper, "What do you want?"

"Many lovely things." She rakes her fingernails down his now-bare chest, and he shivers.

"You'll have them," he promises. "But I mean -- what do you want for this? For --"

His eyes, and hers, dart over to the arm she is exposing as she pulls his shirt off. The scars of past bites are almost without number, now. Sometimes he tries to remember things he's heard about junkies, about how their veins collapse and they have to inject drugs into their thighs or their feet, just to find a vessel strong enough to take the puncture. He never thought he'd actually need such information.

"Don't want money," she whispers. "I just want you."

And those are the words he's wanted to hear for so long, the words that make him crush her to his chest in an embrace that's almost real.  She's not the woman he wanted to hear saying it -- but at least there's someone who wants him, just him, even if it's just for one night, even if it's only for this.

Riley begins kissing her again, reaching around her back to unzip her dress. She unwinds her arms from his body long enough to let the dress fall to the floor; she's wearing a little white slip, all silk and lace, and this excites him even more. They fumble their way to the bed, and he falls, pulling her atop him as they go.

The cheap motel bedspread is scratchy against his back, and the headboard is already clattering against the wall, shaking the aged light fixtures bolted there. Riley tries not to think about that, tries to think only about the beautiful woman astride him. Her skin is as pale and fragile as the slip she's still wearing; she's luminous in the darkness, as though her whole body were made of light, save for the hair and the enormous eyes.

Her hands unfasten his belt, slowly. "Wanted to wait," she said. "Wanted to have a lovely time with you, big strapping lumberjack man."

Lumberjack. He hasn't heard that one before. "We're having a good time, aren't we?"

"Yesss," she hisses, taking the buckle in her palm and pulling the belt free. She slides the tan leather through her hands. "But it is so long to wait."

She takes his wrists in one hand, guides them to the bedpost. Almost before his alcohol-fogged mind can comprehend what's happening, she's wrapping the belt around them, holding him in place. Riley isn't sure how to feel about this --  this is kinkier than he usually likes it, and it's dangerous, to say the least.

Then again, isn't danger what he's after?

Her body arches as she rubs herself against him in purely carnal bliss, then she drapes herself on his chest, nuzzles his neck. Riley turns his head to make it easier for her. Force of habit.

"Don't want to wait," she murmurs. Her face has changed now; he can feel the ridges against his skin, hear the lisp created by her fangs. His body tenses in anticipation --

And she bites him, pain and pleasure and degradation and glory and everything else all wrapped into one pure physical sensation. For one moment, Riley is not a disgraced ex-soldier, not a discarded ex-boyfriend. He has no history at all, scarcely even any consciousness. He is only the bliss coursing through his veins, bursting forth with every beat of his heart.

And then it changes.

The dizziness escalates. His heartbeat begins to rattle in his chest. And she only bites down harder, bringing the pain far past the pleasure --

"Wait," Riley gasps. "Stop."

She doesn't stop. Too late, Riley realizes what he's done, what's going to happen, and he is struck with a terror he didn't expect to feel, not when it really came down to this --

The door explodes open -- no other word for it. It flies off the hinges with a crash, and the vampire jumps up. He can see her face wet with his blood as she leaps from his body to confront the intruder.

The intruder isn't surprised to have a vampire coming at him; he backhands her viciously, and she stumbles back, crashing into the mirror on the wall. It's difficult to see, in the darkness, but Riley is pretty sure the intruder is a vampire too. No human would be able to throw her off that easily. This means that his situation hasn't improved all that much. Riley tries to push himself closer to the backboard, to create some slack in the belt that might let him get his arms free. But just the movement makes him dizzy again, almost to the point of passing out.

She springs forward and hits the intruder, hard, an expert blow across the jaw. They begin fighting in earnest then, and Riley realizes in a flash that this woman was no ordinary vampire -- she's got real fighting moves, real strength, a quickness of reflex he almost never ran into in the field. And the intruder's a match for her, coming back at her with everything he's got.

Come to think of it, there's something sort of familiar about it --

The intruder finally gets the upper hand, slams her into the door jamb. She sinks to the floor as a rough voice says, "You shouldn't have come back here, Dru."

The female vampire -- Dru -- looks up at him, and Riley is surprised to see that there are tears in her eyes. "Will you hurt me now? I thought you were done hurting me, my Angel."

Angel.

Son of a bitch.

Angel stares down at her, his face a cold, vampiric mask. "I've hurt you a lot," he agrees. "And I've given you chances I shouldn't have, because of it."

"You do me such nice favors," she says, her voice dripping contempt. And Angel's face changes at that -- it shifts back into human form, into the face Riley's seen and hated in his mind for months. He remembers that face as arrogant, hostile, closed-off.

Angel doesn't look that way now. He is staring down at Dru with something that seems very like guilt. But after a few seconds, he simply says, "I'm not doing you any more favors."

Angel lunges at her, and Riley can see something in his hand that's probably a stake. Drusilla screams as she spins out of the way, backhands Angel brutally. Angel stumbles back, and she hisses at him just like a cat. With one claw-like hand she grabs up her dress and runs into the night.

Angel stares after her for a moment, clearly debating the need to go after her versus the need to take care of her victim, then shakes his head. "Are you all right?" he says, voice gentled, as he turns around. "I know this probably looked really strange --"

Then Angel gets a look at him, sees exactly who it is splayed out on this bed, and all the gentleness and guilt are gone. "You."

"Me," Riley says. He finally gets some purchase on the belt and is able to tug himself free -- a small satisfaction to leaven the shame he feels. To be exposed like this, before Angel of all people, would qualify as his worst nightmare, if he'd ever dreamed of anything so utterly humiliating, which he hadn't. "I guess this must make you feel -- like a big man --"

"What are you doing here?" Angel's face vamps again -- slowly, slower than Riley's ever seen a vamp's face change before. It's scarier that way, he thinks. They should try it more often. "What were you doing with Drusilla?"

"I realize you don't get to have sex that often," Riley spits out, "but I'd think you'd still recognize it."

"How could you," Angel says, and his hand clamps onto Riley's arm like a vise. "How could you do this to Buffy --"

He jerks Riley into a sitting position, and that proves too much: The dizziness overtakes him, and the world goes from dark to black. When he comes to, surely no more than a few moments later, he is actually slumped against Angel's chest. Angel is now holding a cloth -- to judge from the scratchiness, one of the pillowcases -- against Riley's bleeding throat. He has unvamped again, but his expression is by no means kind. "Didn't you know what she was?" he demands. "Haven't you learned how to recognize a vampire by now?"

Shards of the broken mirror are on the floor. Riley can see his reflection in them. It looks as though he is leaning over at an impossible angle, as though he is all alone.

"I knew what she was," Riley says.

Angel looks down at him then, really looks at him for the first time. Riley watches his expression change as he sees the scars on the arms, on the neck. When he meets Riley's eyes again, pity and contempt are warring in his eyes. It's hard to say which one outrages Riley more. Angel says, "You get off on it."

"Don't you?" Riley says, and the reaction from Angel is so stunned that it almost makes up for the fact that he's still cradled in Angel's arms like a baby. He decides to press the point. "You ran Dru out of here. You owe me one. And all the blood's got to be getting to you, right?"

With effort, Riley leans back, exposing his throat to the vampire that holds him. "Come on, then," he says. "Finish me off."

He says it in a tone that spells seduction, with an inflection he'd never, ever in his life thought to use with a man. But he's not using it for seduction -- not for sex, not for drinking. He doesn't want either of those things, not now nor ever again. He's hit bottom at last, found the ultimate limits of his addiction and humilation, and there's nothing left but the end. If Angel can give him that end and damn them both to hell in the bargain, so much the better. All Riley has to do is make Angel mad enough to snap, just for an instant; that's all he needs --

Angel meets his eyes for a moment, then looks down to the exposed wound at Riley's throat.  Then Angel takes the pillowcase and wraps it back around Riley's neck. He leaves enough space to breathe. The disappointment is so crushing that Riley feels tears springing to his eyes, but damned if he'll let Angel see it.

"You can't stay here," Angel says.

Riley wants to ask why not, but Angel isn't interested in a conversation. He slides off the bed, then pulls Riley forward onto his shoulder.

And as his head falls toward Angel's back, the dizziness claims Riley once more. The darkness lasts for a very long time.

---

Chapter 2: "The Long and Short of It"

Charles Gunn is not taking any excuses today, dammit.

They give him the run-around. They don't give him what he wants. Day after day, he comes back here -- and day after day, they jerk him around.

Well, today he's dragged his ass out of bed to get here at 8 a.m. Because today he's not listening to their shit. Today, he is going to get exactly what he came for.

Gunn ties a black cloth around his head -- something he used to do a lot more, back in the day, but still tries when he feels the need to get in touch with his inner bastard. He shrugs on his jacket and walks into the place like he owns it, slamming his hands against the door. Little bells jingle. The people behind the counter jump as Gunn says:

"Tell me you are not out of maple-frosted."

The Dunkin Donuts lady stares at him for a moment, then says, "Uh, no. There's -- two left."

"Pop 'em in the box, then," Gunn says, good humor restored. As he gives the rest of his doughnut order -- picking out his favorite and Cordelia's, now that Wesley's has been taken care of -- Gunn slips the rag off his head and gives the clerks a smile. They're either very happy or very relieved to see it.

Now that this errand has been taken care of, Gunn feels good today. A whole lot better than he should, actually. Just two days ago, his entire life seemed shot to hell. A.I. taking on debt like the Titanic took on water, his best friend still in a wheelchair, and a crazier-by-the day vampire out there ticking away like a time bomb.

Today, A.I. is still broke and Wesley's still in that wheelchair. But Angel's laid his fate down at their feet, and damned if that doesn't brighten up the whole day.

On one level, Gunn's satisfaction comes pretty cheap, and he knows it. Angel thought he could fire them and take off on his own, and now he's come crawling back: Nothing quite like that to soothe the bruised ego. But Gunn knows that's just what it is -- his ego -- smiling right now. There's nothing wrong with it, but his personal feelings aren't exactly the main issue here, he figures. He's got to keep the big picture in mind.

Evening before last, when Angel came to them with his offer, nobody knew what to do or say. He followed up on a vision with them, but it didn't exactly feel like old times. Wesley told Angel they all needed a few days to think it over, and Angel accepted that without a word. Gunn saw both Wesley and Cordelia glancing in his general direction. Probably they were wondering what Gunn would say about all this.

Gunn figures they're nervous about how he's gonna react; he was friends with Angel before all this Darla business went down, but not like they were. Cordelia and Wesley -- they had loved the man. Probably they still do, deep down. And they know, by now, what Gunn's temper is like once it gets set off. Probably they think Gunn will pitch a fit if they try to bring Angel back into the group.

But, as much as they all rely on each other now, there are still some things Wesley and Cordelia don't understand about Charles Gunn.

Gunn smiles and shakes his head as he swings out of the doughnut shop and lopes the few blocks to their new offices. When they vote today -- Wesley is a stickler for procedure -- Gunn's voting for Angel, and he has no doubts about doing so. Angel has a dark side a mile wide, no question. He's not going to be on Gunn's best-friends list anytime soon. But he knows stuff about demons and magic even Wesley doesn't know, senses things even Cordelia doesn't sense and, no denying it, kicks more ass in a fight than Gunn does himself. This is somebody you want on your side, if at all possible.

Gunn learned to be resourceful at an early age. Had to, with parents who were more interested in their addictions than in him or his baby sister, Alonna. They were out all night a lot of the time -- which meant they slept through a lot of the day, assuming they'd come home to sleep at all. So if the kids were going to get fed, get dressed, get to school, or have any semblance of a normal life, it was generally up to Gunn to handle it.

And Gunn handled it. He learned the maximum amount of clothes you could stuff in one laundromat machine, and that, if you set the water to "cold," color separation didn't matter so much. (This had been learned through painful trial and error that led to Alonna inheriting a lot of newly-pink t-shirts and socks.) He learned what store owners were softhearted enough to pay him a little cash money to do odd jobs like breaking down boxes. He learned the air-conditioned shops that wouldn't shoo out two unchaperoned children on a blazing-hot day. He learned how to save up cans and bottles for recycling, and where people who didn't need those pennies might throw away their own cans and bottles.

Above all, he learned that you never, ever throw away anything you can use.

Gunn's held on to this lesson ever since, even during those periods of time when it didn't seem like he needed it. When their dad took off, around about the time Gunn was 12, he figured things were headed for the worse; instead, their mother pulled herself together. She married Derris the following year, and they'd all gone to live with Mama Jeane, who cooked wonderful meals and owned a washer and dryer all her own and had considered Gunn and Alonna her grandchildren the very first day they came up her steps. That was the family's best four years, and whatever Gunn knows about being happy, he learned then.

But he never forgot how you should handle yourself when the happy times end. So when Derris died -- October 9, a date that never fails to drag Gunn into a cold, gray funk -- and their mother spiraled out of control again, and poor Mama Jeane was without Derris' income from the garage, Gunn had known what to do. He packed up Alonna, refused to let Mama Jeane give them money (though he was, and is, not averse to stopping by for Wednesday dinner now and again), and headed to the streets. He made do, just like he always had, only he got better and better at it.

When he found out about vampires, those skills had been put to use yet again. Scraps of lumber could become weapons of destruction. Junked-out trucks could become armored vessels of war. Abandoned warehouses could become fortresses. It was all in how you played the hand you were dealt.

As far as Gunn's concerned, Angel Investigations has just pulled a key card from the deck.

He swings through the door at A.I. and proudly holds out the pink-and-white box. "On this day when we celebrate the great democratic process, I thought doughnuts were in order."

Cordelia looks up at him from her place behind the desk. She's wearing her oldest jeans and a blue tank top; obviously, she's not expecting customers, though considering the level of business they aren't doing, Gunn can't blame her. "We have doughnuts just about every morning," she says.

"See? Always something to celebrate." She gives him one of her brilliant grins as he sets the box in front of her. "English? Got some maple-frosted, just for you."

Wesley's begged off eating for several mornings now, claiming that he wanted his favorites or nothing at all. Now, though, he says only, "I'm not terribly hungry." His voice isn't strong as he says it, and Gunn casts a worried look in Wesley's direction. The man was always thin, but now he's downright bony. Today he's slumped over a bit in the wheelchair, and he looks about 15 years older than he actually is. Pain and illness will do that to a man; so will sadness, and fear.

"You better eat something sometime," Gunn says. "Or we're gonna have to tie you to that chair to make sure you don't up and blow away."

"I haven't much appetite these days," Wesley says. The weight of the decision they're all about to make is hanging over Wesley like a black cloud, and Gunn wants to laugh. The man is so damn worried; Wesley can tie himself up in knots better than anybody Gunn's ever known. He's going to be so relieved when they just get it over with. And maybe then, God willing, Wesley will finally eat something.

Cordelia looks somber too -- at least, as somber as anyone can look while chowing down on a strawberry-and-sprinkles frosted doughnut. Gunn sits down and sighs. "Well, we didn't drag our butts in here for crowd control with the customers. Let's stop worrying and vote on this thing."

"All right," Wesley says. He looks a little bit brighter as he fumbles around in a desk, then pulls out a cigar box and some straws, some long, some short.

You have got to be kidding, Gunn thinks. Then again, it's not that surprising. If Wesley can add an extra step to a procedure, he will.

Wesley catches the expression on Gunn's face. "I thought we ought to make the vote anonymous."

"In case it's not unanimous?" Well, whatever. "Which straw means what?"

"A long straw means Angel comes to work for us," Wesley says. "A small one means he doesn't, and we carry on as we are. We'll take turns putting our straws in the box, then open it up and -- and we'll see."

"No fair peeking!" Cordelia says.

Wesley prepares to go first, then stares at the others. Cordelia covers her eyes with one hand; Gunn sighs and does the same. If Wesley had the chance, he'd have set up a voting booth and a ballot and everything, complete with hanging chads.

"Next," Wesley says. Gunn pauses a minute to see if Cordelia will move; he doesn't hear anything and so opens his eyes. Wesley is sitting there, his eyes screwed shut like a little boy playing hide-and-seek. Shaking his head in amusement, Gunn takes a long straw and slips it into the box.

Cordelia goes, and seems to take an inordinate amount of time with it. But finally she says, "Okay. We're ready!" with such forced brightness that Gunn wonders if she's about to cry. When he opens his eyes, she's got her arms folded around her body tightly, as though she were trying to keep warm.

Wesley takes up the box. He pries open the lid just a tad, just enough to swipe his fingers in and pull out -- "One long straw."

Gunn smiles easily, but the grin fades as Wesley pulls out the next. "One short straw."

Who the hell put that in there? He fights the urge to look into Cordelia and Wesley's faces, to see who the holdout is. He's starting to see the sense of this whole cigar-box ritual.

Wesley finally pulls out the last -- then stares at it while saying, very slowly, "One bent straw?"

Gunn and Wesley, as one, turn and look at Cordelia.

"I didn't know how to vote!" she says, running one hand through her hair. "I don't know how I feel about all this, and I'm not gonna know anytime soon, and I was hoping maybe you two would agree so it wouldn't matter, but now you don't, and I totally can't handle being the deciding vote. I really can't."

"Cordelia --" Wesley says, and his voice is cool. It hits Gunn for the first time: Wesley voted no.

Son of a bitch.

Now that he's faced with it, though, Gunn realizes he should have seen this coming. Wesley and Cordelia care about Angel more than he does. That means his firing them hit them a hell of a lot harder, a lot harder, apparently, than they've let on these past few weeks. They're still hurting, and Wesley for one isn't ready to set it aside.

Cordelia's pacing back and forth now, and Gunn wasn't wrong before -- she really is close to tears. "I want things to be the way they were," she says. "Like they were with Angel before. But they can't ever be like that again, can they?"

"I don't think so," Wesley says.

"But the other thing I want is for it to be like it was when the three of us got this place, when it was all fun and exciting. And it's never gonna be like that again, either. Not if we walk away from him. It changes things."

"Yeah," Gunn says. "It does."

That alone is enough to tell Cordelia how they voted, and Wesley shoots Gunn a dirty look. But she's not thinking about that right now. She's just pacing, wearing a rut in the office's cheap little carpet. "I'm not ready, Wesley," she finally says. "I'm just not."

"It's all right," Wesley says, and his voice is softer now. "I don't want this to be any worse for you. Take your time. There's no rush."

"Okay," she says, then takes in a deep breath, lets it out. "Okay."

"We'll just move on to our other business of the day," Wesley says.

Gunn claps his hands. Finally, something constructive to do. "And what is that, oh Fearless Leader?"

Wesley looks a little abashed. "I was rather hoping one of you might know of some."

They sit there in silence for a moment -- client-free, as ever. Gunn notices that every sill is free of dust, every window sparkles, and the faint smell of Windex is in the air. They rarely lavished this kind of loving care on the Hyperion. Seldom had the time.

"Any headaches?" Gunn asks Cordelia hopefully.

She makes a face. "Not until we did that stupid box-straw thing."

"There's always Word-Puzz," Wesley begins.

Cordelia stands up and grabs her purse. "And with that, I bid you all farewell."

"You've been at work for twenty minutes," Wesley says.

"And I feel like I've been here for twenty years," Cordelia said. "In other words, since I was about seven months old. I need to get out of here. I need to think."

"Understood," Gunn says. Cordy's not gonna have anything constructive to add for the rest of the day, he thinks. Besides, he's just about ready to hear Wesley's side of this whole thing. Wesley hasn't said a word, of course, hasn't even so much as thrown a glance in Gunn's direction, but Gunn can tell Wesley's ready to vent.

Gunn hopes so, anyway. Because he'd hate to have to beat it out of him. The man's his friend, after all.

"I have an audition this afternoon anyway," Cordelia says. "So it's not like I was in for the long haul."

"An audition!" Wesley says, too brightly. "That's wonderful! I thought you'd all but given up on your acting, and yet here you are. Back on the horse."

"They foreclosed on my horse," Cordelia says with a frown. "Thanks for the painful memory."

"Don't mind him," Gunn says, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. "You knock 'em dead."

"Like I wouldn't," she says, with that fake bravado he loves so much.

With that she's out the door, smiling as she slides on her dark glasses. As she walks down the sunny street, she looks for one minute like the carefree girl she ought to be.

Gunn and Wesley watch her go in a silence that stretches out long after she's gotten lost in the crowds. Then Wesley says, slowly, "I never dreamed you'd vote yes."

"I never dreamed you'd vote no," Gunn says.

"It's not anger," Wesley says carefully, so carefully that Gunn knows Wesley's been having this argument with himself for a while now. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't angry, but that's not why I don't want him back."

"So what is your reason?" Gunn says. "I know Angel went through a scary period there, but these days, he's tryin' to live right."

"And he's no good at it," Wesley says. "Angel tries, and he tries. When does he get it right? I don't know that we can survive his getting it wrong one more time."

Gunn opens his mouth to protest -- whatever else Angel did or didn't do, he never tried to kill them. Next he thinks that Wesley's talking about getting hurt, but that wheelchair Wes is sitting in is proof of the consequences they all face, with or without Angel.

Then he remembers the way Angel looked when he came back to the hospital that long-ago night and asked if Wesley and Cordelia were still alive. Gunn realizes the wounds Wesley's most afraid of aren't physical -- whether he realizes that or not.

Being shot takes something out of a man, sometimes; Gunn has reason to know this, given the neighborhoods in which he's had to make his way. Some people are never quite the same afterwards, as though something had been torn out of them, something more than just flesh. He doesn't think Wesley is one of those, but it's too soon to really be sure.

All Gunn knows right now is that Wesley is even thinner and paler than he was before, and that the pain and the worry are wearing on him. "You look bad," he says flatly. "Didn't the doctor tell you to take care of yourself? Or aren't you letting Virginia take care of you?"

He expects Virginia's name to win a smile from Wesley; instead, Gunn sees his friend tense up. His shoulders draw in slightly, as though preparing for a blow. "Wesley?"

"Virginia and I split up," Wesley says, his voice strained by his effort to appear casual. But he's not fooling anyone. Gunn has spent the last few months watching Wesley light up like a fireworks show every single time Virginia called him on the phone, or dropped by the office. No way Wesley ended this.

"What happened?" Gunn says, putting one hand on Wesley's shoulder.

Wesley shifts away, not forbidding the touch but not encouraging it either. Gunn lets his hand drop. "I think Virginia's had enough danger and darkness in her life for a while."

Whether Wesley knows it or not, Gunn thinks, the words hanging there, unspoken, are "and so have I."

"I'm sorry, man," he says. "She's a fine lady."

"That she is," Wesley says. He presses his lips together tightly, but Gunn knows he's not going to be able to maintain that self-control for much longer.

Gunn decides to help him out. "Well, then, we have to find somebody else to take care of you."

"You're not volunteering?" Wesley says, cocking an eyebrow.

"Hell, no. I look like a nursemaid to you? What I'm thinkin' is that it's time to introduce you to Mama Jeane." Gunn grins as the image forms in his head, then starts to laugh. "What are you doing for dinner?"

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