Turnabout

London

Giles frowned as he set down the phone. He fought the urge to polish his glasses yet again. Instead he settled for rearranging the papers on his desk. Spike. From underneath the Hellmouth, that irrepressible irascible vampire had emerged once more. He stared at the picture of his family, Buffy, Willow, and Xander smiling out of the wooden frame, wondering what the Hellmouth had thrown at them this time. Buffy had had nightmares about Spike's burning up for months following the final battle. He suspected they were brought on by the expected survivor's guilt as she was the one who had to abandon him to the task only he could perform in order to save herself. Now Spike appeared to be alive and well in Los Angeles, and none of his experience or training had prepared him for telling his senior slayer that a former vampire lover had returned from the grave she left him in.

Lost in memories of younger, brighter days, he traced a finger over Xander's smiling face. How could it be that a vampire burned to dust in the Hellmouth could be returned to them while they remained unable to find any trace of a human man who had simply driven away?

"Hey Giles!" Willow bounced through the door to his office. "You'll never guess what we got to do today!" She beamed at him expectedly, but her expression faltered as she really looked at the older man. "Giles? Did, um, did something happen?"

"Willow." Giles blinked and searched for words.

Willow sat down suddenly in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

"Oh Goddess. Is it. . . have you heard something about Xander?"

"No, no. Nothing like that." Giles halted.

"One of the newbies spill soda on an ancient text again?"

"I called Angel, in Los Angeles."

"Uh huh."

". . . "

"Um, Giles, gonna need more words here. Not so much with the mind-reading these days." Nervousness had her shifting in the seat. Giles wasn't often lost for words these days.

"Angel wasn't there. It seems that, well, as rather impossible as it should be. . . Spike. Spike has returned." Giles presented a calm gaze that belied the confusion and desperate need to research, understand, control the situation.

"Spike!" Willow squeaked.

"Yes, apparently, he is Los Angeles with Angel."

"Has he seen Xander?"

Giles blinked, but he couldn't truly be surprised that Willow's thoughts returned immediately to the missing Scooby.

"Er, no. Not as such. We didn't speak long, but he did agree to aid in the search."

"Good. That's good, right? And, oh my god, who's going to tell Buffy?"

They stared at one another in silence, neither speaking the fears of a reunion between slayer and the ex-lovers that now both resided souled and well in Los Angeles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wesley leaned back in his leather chair and rubbed his eyes. Tension sent sharp ached through his neck and shoulders, and he concentrated on the pain to avoid the thoughts that hovered at the edge of awareness. The shock of returning memories had been firmly pushed away by forcing himself to focus exclusively on the present. He rose from his desk and opened the doors to the massive cabinet against the wall of his office. He stated at the bottle of Irish whiskey that stood alone on the shelf.

"Consider this a thanks for your help with the G'Ranga demon negotiations." Angel handed him the heavy bottle of exquisite whiskey.

"This is my job. There's hardly a need for such a gift." Wesley demurred.

"Just take it," Angel spoke gruffly. "You're the only one around here that would appreciate it. They sent a case."

Wesley raised an eyebrow.

"The rest will get used at one corporate function or another." Angel shrugged.

Wesley took the bottle from Angel, unaccountably disappointed to hear that the gift had simply been a thank you from the client and not a consideration from the vampire himself.

"Thank you," he said stiffly. Angel nodded and walked out of the office, leaving Wesley to stare at the bottle in his hand, knowing it appealed more for its numbing properties than its fine heritage.

In disgust, he shut the cupboard. The gift mocked him now as it spoke of Angel's falsehoods and enduring dislike of him. Better to go home and get steadily drunk on the gin that awaited him. He gathered his jacket from the coat hook on the back of the door and switched off his office lights. For a brief moment, he considered taking home the texts that he had been studying, but he admitted to himself that the study had merely been an exercise in avoidance and gin would surely be more effective than continuing to distract himself with contradictory histories of vampire clans. Guilt flitted through him at the look on Xander's face when he had refused his offer of help, but he shook it away. He could not endure his own pain, let alone take on that of the young man that Angel's offspring had dragged into their midst. Feeling a kindred despair with the formerly sunny Scooby accentuated the hurt that pierced his own soul. So he had summarily thrown him out, refused to honor his pain or remorse. As he continued down the hall and to the parking garage, he saw again the defeated posture, heard the defeated "Fuck you" and knew that he could not get home to the bottle fast enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
After several hours of silence and dim lighting in his office, Lorne rose and shook himself. Psychic memory hits featured high on his list of things never to experience without copious amounts of prescription painkillers on board first. However, as the pain lessened, he considered the players in their little drama. Surely if anything more dramatic than Gunn's enraged departure had happened, one of Wolfram and Hart's numerous toadies would have come to pass along the gossip. So he hoped to find the offices quiet. He walked from his office to the lobby without encountering another soul. He stopped at Angel's office, but found it empty. He shivered uneasily as if vibes from the confrontation earlier still lingered.

He noticed that lights were off in Wesley's office as well, and Fred had practically fled the building after escorting him to his office. As he reached the main reception lobby, a quiet voice hailed him.

"Got a room for an unemployed lawyer?"

Lorne stopped to consider Lindsey sprawled on one of the couches.

"Did he give you that shiner in lieu of severance pay?"

"Not sure he thinks he ever hired me," Lindsey snorted. "So I doubt we can call this a payoff." He expression darkened as he recalled the catalyst for the blow, and he knew that repercussions from the afternoon's meeting were far from over. None of Angel's team would believe the depth of sorrow he held for precipitating the events of the day, and he had no doubt that once Angel disclosed what had happened after the meeting ended, he would be reviled that much more.

"I'm not sure I want to hear the whole story, sugarplum, but I've got a feeling you had better let me in on the climax." He held up a hand as Lindsey drew breath to speak. "Not without a sea breeze."

Lindsey rose and stretched painfully. "Still got that Fat Tire beer no one else in LA manages to stock?"

"Shipments every second Tuesday like clockwork. It's a big hit with the college crowd."

Lindsey nodded, "Lead on then. We'll toast to another banner day here at good ole Wolfram and Hart."

Lorne shook his head. "Ah, the good old days. Mayhem, deception, and a little violence followed by a round at Caritas. Hey, do you have your guitar? Wednesday nights are usually a little dead, and we could use a dose of those Oklahoma pipes."

"Looking for a reason to read me?" Lindsey narrowed his eyes in suspicion, trepidation seizing his heart, but continued to walk with Lorne through the front doors and out to the car waiting to take the demon home.

"Muffin, you couldn't pay me to do a reading tonight." Lorne sighed.

Lindsey's demeanor shifted as the tension left him. He nodded and silently they got into the car for the short trip to the club.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xander stood in the center of the Hyperion lobby. The silence oppressed him as he looked around at the empty room. If he had been given the option of a taxi rather than the Wolfram and Hart town car, he would have had the driver drop him at the nearest bus station. That thought brought him face to face with the reality that he had little in the way of funds, and even if he had found an ATM at the station, he probably could have withdrawn enough funds to make no further than one of the beach cities.

Wesley's dismissal still stung and added fuel to the helplessness, loneliness, and impotent rage that seemed to build continually. Fuck. He hadn't wanted to come back. Yet here he was once more, stuck in the middle of the pain and powerlessness of being a human way out of his depth. Stupid fucking vampire. He couldn't get it through Spike's head that as the token human, he was better off being an anonymous vampire whore where no attachments meant no losses.

The ringing phone startled him out of his thoughts. He stared at the phone, letting it ring several times. The machine didn't pick up, and the ringing finally began grating on his nerves.

"Angel's House of Pain. You pay, we flay. Can I help you?" If he had to answer the phone, no rule stated he had to do it graciously.

A long moment of silence came over the phone line before Angel spoke. "Xander? I need to talk to Fred. Is she there?"

"Geez, Deadboy. Maybe you oughta leave well enough alone for one day. My guess is that if she is here, she's not looking for another round of do-you-remember-when."

"Cordelia's dead." The flat tone nearly took Xander's knees out from under him.

"I'm sorry. I was tracking with the wanting to talk to Fred thing. But I thought you just said..." Xander couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't speak the words into existence.

"That's why I need to talk to Fred." Rather than angry, Angel simply sounded tired.

"But, Cordy, she wasn't even there. How can she be..." Xander gave up on standing and slid to the floor beside the reception desk.

"Lifting the spell...it released her from her coma."

"Released as in..."

"Let her die. According to Lindsey," the name came out on a growl, "she has been stuck here since the memory spell took place. Lifting it..."

"Lifting it killed her." Xander interrupted harshly.

"I have people looking into that. But the mystics and doctors on staff seem to agree with him."

"So, do I hate you more for killing her or for keeping her in magical coma suffering God knows what torments for months just to protect your precious, oh, and let's not forgethomicidal son. Help me out here Angel, waddaya think?"

"Xander, shut up and put Fred on the phone. Hate me for whatever you want to hate me for. Just get me Fred."

"Do I get to deliver the good news myself?" Xander spoke harshly, all pretense at civility dispensed with.

Angel seemed to be considering the option, judging by the silence that met Xander's statement.

Finally Angel sighed. "No. No. I'll come to the hotel myself. This isn't something that she should have to hear over the phone."

"Ya think?" Sarcasm fairly dripped over the phone line.

Angel hung up without a goodbye.

"Fucking vampire asshole." Holding onto anger at Angel felt much easier than giving into the gaping maw of grief that loomed. Xander jerked to his feet and slammed the phone down. He covered his face with his hands. Anger, grief, despair. All of it was too much. He needed out, away, from himself, from Angel, from Spike, and from all that being back among the Scooby life brought with it.

Knowing he would never get far without funds in LA, he opted for the most familiar means of escape. Stalking into the kitchen, he yanked open cupboard doors until he found a nearly full bottle of Glen Fiddich. Without bothering to appreciate the fact that Angel's taste in liquor clearly outstripped his own--or at least outclassed his funds--he screwed off the top and took a long swallow, relishing the burn and yearning for the numbness it promised.