(no subject)
New All Over, Part Five
Giles left a message for Faith in the morning, explaining what had happened at the library, suggesting she kept her head down for a few days in case she was targeted and telling her that everyone else would be doing the same thing. There seemed no point in letting her know that they knew she was now working with the Mayor, after all. He had then discussed with Angel the possibility that Willy the Snitch did know where Ethan was and that perhaps a visit should be paid to him as soon as possible. Angel had suggested that he and Buffy handled that as the guy would be less inclined to bullshit the two of them, Giles had countered that he knew Ethan best and in the end it had been decided that they would leave it to the evening but Giles and Buffy would go. This meant that, even with amulet research to do, Giles had almost the equivalent of a day off. Which was just as well, because from the moment Buffy came down with a pyjama-wearing Wesley, any plans he had for the day were immediately overruled.
It wasn’t that Wesley was in any way a demanding child. Quite the opposite. If it had just been him and Giles - and Giles thought longingly of when he had been allowed to have the boy to himself - it would have been peace and quiet and some companionable reading, but, with Buffy in charge, Wesley immediately became a full time job. The first thing on Buffy’s list of demands was Xander being asked to go and buy him a better breakfast.
“He can’t eat cornflakes!” she said in horror.
Wesley timidly tugged at her sleeve. “I like cornflakes, Buffy.”
“You do?” She looked at him in confusion.
Xander already had his coat on - over his pyjamas, Giles noted - and was stumbling blearily for the door, but now paused. “You like cornflakes?”
“Yes.” Wesley looked at them in confusion. “I do. Can I have some for my breakfast, please?”
Buffy snapped her fingers imperiously at Xander. “We need milk.”
“I have milk,” Giles protested, getting out a bowl, a spoon, the sugar, and the milk to go with the disdained packet of cornflakes.
“We’ll need more,” Buffy insisted.
Shrugging, Xander stumbled on out to Cordy’s car, pulling his jeans over his pyjamas as he did so. Cordelia had to go after him in her pyjamas to give him the car keys and a shopping list.
Giles sighed, made a pot of tea, and began to make toast in enough quantities to feed a small squadron. Xander then came back with pancakes, as well as what seemed to be several gallons of milk, and yet the toast still went, as well as the best part of a jar of marmalade. After breakfast - which took an hour longer than he was sure it would have taken if it had just been him and Wesley - there was then the protracted process of giving Wesley a morning bath to make up for the fact he hadn’t had an evening bath before bedtime on account of being busy fighting vampires at bath-time. This also took a long time, as Buffy, Willow and Cordelia all insisted on cramming into the bathroom to bathe him. Giles did try pointing out that Wesley was at the age when he would probably prefer to be bathed by males - Xander, Oz and - bizarrely - Angel all looked up hopefully and he just knew they were planning to spend an hour in there, playing boats with the boy rather than just getting him clean - but Buffy snorted at that idea and told Giles that, of course, Wesley would rather be bathed by them.
Wesley was much too smitten with Willow, Buffy and Cordelia by this point to think of arguing with her, so just gave Giles a ‘help me’ look before being swept off to the bathroom to be cooed over, and half-smothered, while Cordelia argued with Buffy about the right way to wash his hair, and everyone got upset about his bruises. This was, of course, Cordelia and Willow’s first chance to see them and Giles could hear the terse questioning from Cordelia, and Wesley explaining innocently that he just woke up with them, while Buffy said nothing at all.
Wesley then was wrapped in the fluffiest towel that Giles possessed, and carried out to be sat in front of the fire Buffy had insisted Giles lit in the hearth - despite it being July in California and him having very adequate underfloor heating - in case Wesley caught a chill. Wesley then had to have his bruises examined by everyone while Buffy looked more and more guilty and everyone pointedly didn’t mention how it was all her fault although Cordelia looked absolute daggers at her, then smiled sweetly at Willow, asked her to look after Wesley for a moment, then grabbed Buffy’s wrist and dragged her outside. Giles looked through the window to see Cordelia gesticulating furiously while Buffy just hung her head and looked wretched.
Giles dared to open the window a crack and then flinched from Cordelia shouting: “You had no right to do that to Wesley when he was an adult, Buffy! You know how much stronger you are than him. If, when he’s big again, you ever even think about hurting him, I will stake you myself, Slayer or no Slayer!”
Once again, it occurred to Giles that Cordelia was the only person there who liked the adult Wesley as much as they liked the child. It was more than a little galling to realize that in this instance the person who seemed to have shown the most insight into their newest arrival was the least insightful amongst them.
When Giles looked back through the window, Buffy was crying and Cordelia was looking shocked. She hastily scrambled for a handkerchief from her purse and held it out while Buffy sobbed guiltily and Cordelia looked around for reinforcements. She tentatively patted Buffy on the shoulder and essayed an awkward: “There, there. I didn’t mean it. Well, I did, but I didn’t think you were going to start going all…cry-Buffy on me."
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Buffy said brokenly.
Cordelia suddenly looked a lot more human. “I know you didn’t. And I’m sorry I yelled - okay? And he’ll be wondering where you are, so you should go back inside and get him some clothes - not that those clothes you and Giles picked out for him are anything other than frightening but I suppose they’ll do, and we don’t want him catching a chill.”
At the magical word ‘chill’, Buffy hastily wiped her eyes. “You’re right. He could catch cold.”
“Yes, he could,” Cordelia said in her most encouraging ‘talking to the half-witted’ voice. “So, you’d better stop crying and go and take care of him, hadn’t you?”
As Buffy scampered back into the house, Giles watched Cordelia roll her eyes and mutter: “Yes, because pneumonia is such a risk in a heated house in high summer....”
Buffy then had to console herself for her guilt by cuddling the towel-wrapped Wesley, who clearly had no idea why he was back on her lap and being cuddled again, or why she was sniffing, and stroking his hair, but was just so glad of the attention he certainly wasn’t going to ask any awkward questions that might in any way stop the cuddling.
Xander watched Buffy and Willow cooing over Wesley for a while and then looked at Giles. “Doesn’t he ever say ‘enough already’?”
“Not as yet. So far he seems to rather like it.”
Xander shook his head. “That is one scarily affection-starved kid.”
Giles supposed that if Wesley being a child went on long enough, at some point, Wesley might disentangle himself from Buffy’s smothering embrace and start to act a little more like an eight-year-old boy, but that was clearly not something that was going to happen any time soon.
Cordelia managed to use the magical word ‘chill’ to coax Buffy and Willow to stop cuddling him for long enough to get him out of the now damp towel and into his clothes, and as right in front of the fire was deemed the only place warm enough for him to be dressed, everyone in the room got to see how painfully thin he was. Oz winced and Angel grimaced at the sight of not only the bruises but his visible ribs and bony little shoulder blades.
Giles said, “I really do think he’s naturally skinny rather than…deliberately starved.”
Xander said grimly, “If you say so.”
Then Wesley was obediently putting up his arms so his t-shirt could go on. The closest he came to rebellion was saying shyly: “I know how to dress myself, Buffy.”
“Yes, but you have pulled muscles from fighting vampires and from…before....” Willow said hastily. “So, we should dress you this time.”
Giles was quite certain that even allowing for small boy coordination Wesley could have dressed himself a lot faster than Buffy and Willow, who managed to get every item of clothing inside out or upside down in their distraction at the boniness of his body or the adorable cuteness of his sticky up hair.
“It’s going to be lunchtime before he’s dressed at this rate,” Giles murmured.
Oz put his head on one side. “Well, at least Buffy and Willow are having fun.”
“Yes, they have their own walkin’, talkin’, livin’ mini-Watcher doll.” Xander strode over to where Buffy was trying to get Wesley’s clothing to fit with safety pins. “Buff - enough with the dressing already, Wesley has other things to do today.”
Wesley immediately scrambled down and stood up straight in front of Xander, saying, “I have my lesson books. Mr Giles gave me a notebook yesterday and I have a pen in my bag.” He quickly grabbed his bag and held out the pen as if this would ward off a scolding.
Xander crouched down in front of him. “You don’t need a pen for these lessons. You just have to be prepared to have some serious fun.” Then he scooped Wesley up, tickled him until he curled up like a puppy and giggled helplessly, and deposited him on one of the chairs by the dining room table. “Today, we’re going to study the way pathetic magical fairytale castles put together by Girlies can’t withstand a sustained assault from neighbouring baronial castles put together by Men.”
“I wanted a sea battle.” Angel had already installed himself in the chair opposite Wesley and was starting to clip together pieces of plastic. “But I suppose that can wait.”
Cordelia frowned and looked at Buffy. “I thought Angel was cool?”
Buffy also looked at him in some confusion. “I suppose he’s taking the day off from being cool.”
Oz grabbed another chair eagerly and began to reassemble the parts of the castle knocked over by the vampire assault.
As Buffy and Cordelia both looked to Willow for an explanation, she shrugged. “I suppose Oz is taking the day off from being cool too.”
“They’re scaring me a little,” Cordelia observed, then seemed to realize what Xander had said. “What was that about ‘castles put together by Girlies’? You are so going to get your asses kicked!”
“You can’t attack the Fairytale Castle!” Willow protested. “It’s a place of harmony and being at one with nature. Why can’t we just have a nice little community where everyone lives in a spirit of peace and mutual cooperation?”
Angel said, “It’s a bastion of tyranny run by hereditary…tyrants. They have to die.”
Oz looked at Angel sideways. “Isn’t this a baronial castle?”
“He’s a republican,” Angel insisted. “Does this place come with a little plastic guillotine? Or I suppose we could make one with a pulley system and a razor blade....”
Willow said desperately: “Giles - stop them!”
“I’m not really much of a monarchist either,” Giles admitted, grateful to have his armchair back and grabbing it quickly.
Buffy said, “Don’t worry, Will, we can take them. We have magical forces on our side, remember?”
“We have a wizard.” Xander held out the as-yet-unpacked wizard in his magical cave.
Cordelia sniffed. “Do you have an actual human wizard on your team? Because we have an actual witch.”
Xander turned to Giles quickly. “Don’t you think you should be banning people from using magic in a frivolous way?”
“They have a siege tower!” Willow protested. “All we have are unicorns and a fairy bower!”
Giles sipped his tea and opened a book. “I’m keeping out of it.”
Giles spent a very entertaining morning, pretending to sigh in disapproval, while actually thoroughly enjoying watching the increasingly dirty battle taking place on his dining room table. Angel proved that Angelus had not entirely departed by constructing a working guillotine with worrying dexterity, while Willow kept altering the rules of magical engagement. Wesley actually turned out to be rather good at strategy and was the one who pointed out that there needed to be a point to the game or else they would just end up razing each other’s plastic castles to the ground. It was decided after much heated discussion that the object for the baron’s side was to imprison but absolutely not behead the royal family from the Fairytale castle, who, if they were captured, had to be treated as prisoners under the Geneva Convention; a great disappointment for Angel who was already trying to make up a torture chamber to go with his guillotine. It was finally agreed that he could dunk the king into the well a few times on the grounds that the Baron was probably evil, being a baron, even if a republican one, and he had to reluctantly settle for that, although Giles noticed that didn’t stop him creating a little rack out of matchsticks and wire.
The object for the Fairytale side was to rescue the dragon in the dungeons of the baronial castle as it could then be assumed that if the dragon were at large it would be burning all the fields of the baronial people leaving them to starve to death.
“It’s a deterrent,” Willow insisted. “We don’t actually let the dragon do that but knowing we have it and he could do that means you have to give in. So there.”
“It says here that ‘…when the drawbridge has been sealed using the winch this magnificent castle is impervious to attack’!” Xander complained, after a particularly sustained magical assault. “You’re not sticking to the rules! We’re impervious to attack right now!”
“It also says it’s a ‘King’s castle’,” Buffy retorted. “But I don’t see ‘Angel-I-used-to-be-Irish-and-I-work-for-no-king’ sticking with that part of the rules.”
“I’m still Irish,” Angel protested. “You don’t just stop being Irish.”
“Oh please.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “You’ve been in America longer than any other American who isn’t you know - undead or totally ga-ga. That makes you American.”
“So how come your ‘baron’ is wearing a little crown?” Buffy demanded. “He looks kind of kingly to me.”
“He’s just mocking the trappings of hereditary tyranny,” Angel insisted, yanking off the crown and tossing it. “So there.”
As well as the battle over which side was winning the Playmobil war, there was also the ‘who gets to have Wesley on their side’ war, with the males insisting that he was on the Baronial side of the divide due to his gender, and the girls insisting he was on their side due to them saying so.
Giles did intervene then to say sternly: “You are not to put that child on the spot by making him choose. Draw straws for him or agree to share.”
Willow said, “But, Giles, if you would just come and join us then it wouldn’t be a gender war and you could be teaching Wesley…Watchery things about strategy and....”
“Besieging plastic castles?” Giles looked over his glasses at her and then at a begging look from Wesley found that he was getting up, putting down his book, sighing heavily but complying.
“Okay, so now there are three of us and five of you,” Xander points out. “That means we get Wesley.”
“It’s only fair.” Oz picked him up before Buffy could snatch him and hastily handed him over to Angel who stuck him on his shoulders out of her reach then looked smug.
Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m seeing a whole new bad side of you today.”
Cordelia nodded. “He’s like Dorkus Vampirus. It’s scary.”
Angel just gazed up at Wesley. “So, how do we safeguard the dragon, Wesley?”
Wesley examined the castle and then diffidently pointed out possible areas of attack. “…And there are trapdoors in the rooms, so they could send people up through those and then sneak down to the dungeons.”
Buffy looked at Willow. “There are trapdoors? Why aren’t we using the trapdoors?”
Xander and Oz quickly positioned crossbow-wielding soldiers in front of each trapdoor. “Try it, little pixie people,” Xander invited. “See how far you get....”
Giles found that it was surprisingly enjoyable to be utterly…childish for a morning. He told himself it wasn’t that he was slacking on the research to bring Wesley back, just taking a day to recharge the mental batteries. And, of course, if they succeed in capturing Ethan, then it would be much quicker to simply - hit him repeatedly until he admitted what was necessary to turn Wesley back. It certainly wasn’t a case of him wallowing in denial while his subconscious tried to find a way to let the boy stay as he was.
He looked across at Wesley, who was giggling helplessly at something Oz had said as Angel reluctantly passed him over to Xander, who was insisting it was turn to have Wesley as his ‘military advisor’.
“Could you be any cuter?” Xander asked of no one in particular.
“Nope.” Buffy grinned at him. “It is a scientifically proven fact that it is impossible for any child to be cuter than Wesley. And you get him for ten more minutes and then we’re trading you Giles for Wesley.”
“As a hostage?” Xander said hopefully.
“As an advisor,” Buffy said witheringly.
“So we can’t tie him up?”
Buffy looked at Willow. “Boys are strange.”
Willow nodded. “We should take Wesley away from them before they’re a bad influence on him.”
Cordelia was already lifting Wesley from Xander’s arms. She carried him back to the safety of what she termed the ‘sane side of the table’ while Buffy waved to Giles. “You can go and help them now, but remember that if you help them too much we won’t let you play with Wesley.”
Giles said, “You do realize that’s completely illogical - and unfair.”
“Not to mention contrary to the rules of engagement,” Oz pointed out. “As agreed by the covenants governing Playmobil battle tactics.”
“And all tactical matters relating to the deployment of plastic people in a designated war zone.” Xander pointed a finger for emphasis.
Angel’s response was to use the catapult to lob debris at the Fairytale Castle. Willow glared at him and responded with a spell that Giles thought he had better pretend he hadn’t noticed, which caused all of the defenders on the Baronial Castle to fall over. Then there was general plastic carnage as minor spells and major debris were hurdled backwards and forth, at the end of which Willow smugly held aloft the dragon and proclaimed the world safe for Fairy Bowers once more.
Xander and Angel exchanged a look and Angel said: “We could beat them at sea.”
Xander nodded, grimly, and Giles noticed that he, Oz, and Angel all turned away to pool their money; Angel shoving folded twenty dollar bills at Xander.
“What are you doing?” Cordelia demanded.
“Oz and I are off to buy us all lunch, Your Queenliness,” Xander assured her. He jerked his head at Oz, who gave Willow a farewell kiss, and then headed off with him.
Buffy narrowed her eyes. “They looked sneaky. Why did they look sneaky?”
“No reason,” Angel said. “Wesley, do you want to help me put the Viking Ship together while Uncle Oz and Uncle Xander buy lunch?”
Wesley nodded brightly, all fear of the vampire evidently banished during their battle strategizing together.
Giles looked at his dining room table, which was large enough to sit eight but seemed a great deal smaller when it was also required to double as a battlefield. “Shall we move the - plastic people to the floor?” he suggested. “So we can sit up and eat at the table in a civilized manner?”
“Kind of missing the whole day of fun thing, aren’t you?” Buffy observed, but then began to push the furniture back against the walls to make a much larger space for them to expand their plastic empire.
Giles forbore from pointing out that he was actually the one who had purchased the Playmobil castles in the first place. As he turned his head he saw Angel and Wesley sitting on the floor together, tortured vampire back from hell, and Watcher-to-be who had never been permitted until now to just be a child. They were both smirking at something Angel had said, Wesley shaking with laughter so much that he could hardly fit the plastic pieces together. Angel gently guided his hands, and the pieces of longship snapped together properly. Wesley beamed up at him and Angel smiled back. When Giles looked up, he saw Buffy gazing at them with adoration on her face and Giles winced as he realized that in her heart Buffy was still a teenager, and still dreamt that she could somehow have this: partner, child, happiness, with an - infertile - vampire, while she was the only Slayer left able to defend the world from darkness. Wesley giggled again and Buffy sat down next to him, Wesley in between her and Angel, her beaming at them both as she handed over a mast. Giles took a step back, physically and mentally, thinking that if this was to be the closest that Buffy and Angel ever came to having a family life, even as a temporary arrangement from a lie based on a spell, then who was he to interfere?
He turned around and found Cordelia looking at him. She said quietly. “Wesley has rights too. And a life he was living. The adult Wesley. He didn’t come here so that Buffy and Angel could play house, Giles.”
“I know.” Giles removed his glasses to give them an entirely unnecessary clean. “I know that.”
“Please remember it,” Cordelia said, and her expression was pleading not demanding. “Because I don’t think anyone else here is going to.” And then she was beaming at Child Wesley as if no one could have been happier than her and ordering Willow imperiously to help her build the Viking Longhouse.
Giles sighed, replaced his glasses, and tried not to think how easy it would be if the spell simply couldn’t be altered and it was no one’s fault if Wesley had to stay like this and be brought up anew, this time by people who actually liked him.
***
The day went much too fast, Xander thought. He and Oz had purchased the pirate ship and accessories aplenty, and enough lunch to feed even all of them. Lunch had been eaten. Then he, Angel, Oz and Wesley had put the ship together in double quick time then launched an assault from the piece of shiny wrapping paper standing in for the sea on the Baronial castle. That had been all kinds of fun. As had been the epic sea battle between pirates and Vikings that followed, despite Giles bringing the whole funtime thing down by wanting to talk to Wesley about what era the Vikings came from and when pirates had been at their most common and if it was likely they ever would have met geographically. They had all had to yell at Giles quite a lot to get him to stop bringing lessons into the playroom and man the cannons instead, but he had then done so with a ruthless efficiency that had been quite fun to watch.
Then there had been a brief pause to eat a lot more food, and then a trawl through the channels to find out what was on children’s TV, which Angel, bizarrely, had ended up watching with Wesley, as apparently he didn’t have a TV in his mansion so the whole moving picture thing was pretty exciting for him.
Unfortunately, it had then become evening again and while Angel went out to stock up on his blood - and ewww that there was now some of it sitting in Giles’ fridge - they had been forced to phone around everybody’s parents. Willow’s mother was too vague and intellectual to mind and Xander’s parents were too indifferent to care, but Buffy’s mom had taken quite a lot of fast-talking from Buffy and Giles to convince her that it really was crisis time, although a crisis that wasn’t actually very dangerous, really.
“Why can’t you just show her Wesley and let her know the truth?” Cordelia demanded.
Giles and Buffy grimaced. “She’ll want to adopt him,” Buffy explained. “I know what Mom is like with little kids. I wouldn’t get him away from her with a whip and a chair.”
“Gee, lucky for the rest of us you’re not all weird and hyper-possessive then....”
In the end the phoning had been done and Buffy and Giles had decided to head out in search of Ethan; Xander just hoped that they didn’t get turned into newts by demon-raising, costume-selling, wacky-candy-pimping guy.
He felt decidedly on edge with both Buffy and Giles out of the way. Angel was here, of course, to take care of Willow, but who was to say the Mayor wouldn’t send a bunch of people armed with Holy Water this time? Or if Faith was really in cahoots with him, send her? She didn’t need an invitation to push her way in, and she could kick Angel’s ass. On the other hand Willy was even more scared of Buffy than he was of Angel and they did need to find Ethan.
He thought about there maybe being some horrible side effects to the spell, or Wesley just getting younger and younger until he wasn’t even a baby any more, just a foetus. There were some things he couldn’t take happening, and one of those was harm coming to Willow from the Mayor, and another of those was harm coming to little boys who had never apparently known much in the way of kindness before and were just so grateful for any affection.
The amulet Giles had taken from Wesley’s apartment was still wrapped up in a corner. Giles and Willow had done some kind of neutralizing spell in case it was still - whatever amulets were when they could zap you - active, live, whatever, but it still gave Xander the creeps and he was avoiding that part of the room. Willow and Oz were on the couch, she was half-dozing with her head on Oz’s shoulder, he with his arm around her. Xander remembered when there would have been four of them. Oz and Willow and Cordelia and Xander. He didn’t know who to blame for the ruination of that; he and Willow for giving into temptation when they thought they were going to die, or Cordelia for not being able to forgive him for a momentary lapse. Which reminded him - where was Queen C? He heard the sound of her voice talking quietly and crept over to the kitchen, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to know if everything was okay.
She had Wesley sat on the countertop while she dried the clean dishes on the draining board. Wesley was helping her, wiping very carefully with a teatowel and then handing her the sparkling glass or clean mug with even greater care.
“Why don’t you think they’re your friends…?” Wesley was asking in some puzzlement.
“Because they don’t really like me.” Cordelia said it with a smile, as if didn’t really matter. “They just - tolerate me because I used to go out with Xander.”
Actually, we tolerated you before you and I dated, Cord, Xander thought. You’ve always kind of been one of us. Perhaps with the emphasis on ‘kind of’….
“You used to go out with Xander?” Wesley looked up at her wide-eyed. “Are you going to marry him?”
“No.” She took a glass from him and put it away in a cupboard. “We’re so over. There aren’t words for how over we are.”
Wesley looked at her mournfully, saying tentatively: “Do you get…lonely…?”
Cordelia grimaced. “Yes. You know why I’d be lonely right now, though, Wes, if you weren’t here…?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not here. That’s who I’m missing right now. I’m missing someone who doesn’t - judge me every time I talk to him. Someone who likes me and doesn’t act like there’s something wrong with me. I’m missing you.”
Wesley gazed up at her. “Big me?”
“Yes. I miss Big You.” She looked at his face and smiled at him. “Except I’m not - because I have Little You, except - I’m still missing Big You, I’m just not missing him as much because I have you to talk to. And you know what? Even though you’re only eight years old now, I’d still rather spend time with you.”
Wesley looked mournful. “If I get big again will you miss - me me…?”
Cordelia took the glass from his hand, put it away, and then picked him up carefully. “Oh God, yes. So much.” Xander saw in some dismay that there were tears in her eyes as she pressed a kiss into the little boy’s hair. He backed up quickly, wondering just how far she had invested, in him, in Wesley the Watcher. It had been clear from the beginning that she saw him differently from the rest of them; saw something in him they didn’t see. Had she been seeing him as the possible answer to her problems? A way out of Sunnydale? Out of her recent history with him? Did she feel as if she had burnt all her bridges just because she had dated someone her friends didn’t approve of and who had exchanged one solitary kiss with a childhood friend?
Wesley isn’t going to solve that, Cord. Even as a twenty-six year old with a salary and a really nice suit, he’s just a guy, with problems of his own. And now we know even more problems than we ever guessed before. You’d actually be exchanging one screwed up guy with self-esteem and daddy issues for another.
He snatched a breath and then hummed a jaunty tune, before arriving in the doorway with a big smile on his face. “Need a hand there, you two?”
Cordelia quickly wiped her eyes. “No, we’re fine.”
“Is your head okay?” Xander looked at the bruise on her cheekbone and winced.
She nodded. “It’s okay.”
“Well, mine is kind of thumping, wanna share some Tylenol and some good old fashioned…tea…?”
Cordelia did smile then. “Wow, that’s the most exciting offer I’ve had all day - and isn’t that the sad admission?”
Xander put the kettle on. “Want me to take the munchkin?”
“He’s fine.” Cordelia bent her head to rub her nose against Wesley’s. “Not the heaviest child I’ve ever met.”
Wesley grinned at her. “Uncle Richard used to say that soaking wet and with a rock in my pocket I weighed almost as much as Cuthbert.” He looked down at the floor. “It didn’t sound mean when he said it. It was just funny.”
“It is funny, Wes,” Xander assured him.
Wesley leaned his head against Cordelia’s neck. “Is Buffy coming back soon?”
“Yes, sweetheart.” She handed Xander the teabags. “She’ll be home soon.”
“I like Buffy,” he said drowsily. “She makes me feel safe.”
Xander saw the way Cordelia’s fingers automatically strayed to that bruise on his ribs that Buffy had left there, but all she did was kiss him on the forehead and say without a tremor: “She makes us all feel safe. That’s what she does.”
“I like you too.” Wesley’s eyes were closed and he was so close to being asleep it made no difference. “I like all of you. If I can’t be big again can you not tell Daddy? Then I can stay here with you....” And then his thumb was in his mouth and he really was asleep.
Cordelia said urgently to Xander, “Please, take him.”
Xander hurried to do so, lifting the boy into his arms. Then Cordelia sat down on the chair and her shoulders began to shake, and then she was sobbing, silently, but wretchedly, while Xander watched and felt useless, automatically rocking the boy he held so as to keep him asleep.
“Cordy, what is it…?” he whispered.
She wiped her eyes after a minute, got up, and shook back her weight of long brown hair. “It’s everything....” she said. And then she snatched a long deep breath and looked across at him. “It’s nothing. Life’s just… sometimes it just sucks, you know…?” She came across to where Xander was holding Wesley and looked down at his sleeping face. Wesley had the longest thickest eyelashes Xander had ever seen on a boy, and the palest skin. He should have been all round and pink, but he was narrow and white instead. Cordy said, “Can I have him back, please?” and it wasn’t imperious, just pleading. Xander handed him back into her arms without a word, still shocked by her outburst of grief, and then she was rocking Wesley and humming to him softly, and Xander was busying himself making tea, while the tear tracks dried on her face, and he knew that neither of them were ever going to refer to what had just happened ever again.
***
Giles left a message for Faith in the morning, explaining what had happened at the library, suggesting she kept her head down for a few days in case she was targeted and telling her that everyone else would be doing the same thing. There seemed no point in letting her know that they knew she was now working with the Mayor, after all. He had then discussed with Angel the possibility that Willy the Snitch did know where Ethan was and that perhaps a visit should be paid to him as soon as possible. Angel had suggested that he and Buffy handled that as the guy would be less inclined to bullshit the two of them, Giles had countered that he knew Ethan best and in the end it had been decided that they would leave it to the evening but Giles and Buffy would go. This meant that, even with amulet research to do, Giles had almost the equivalent of a day off. Which was just as well, because from the moment Buffy came down with a pyjama-wearing Wesley, any plans he had for the day were immediately overruled.
It wasn’t that Wesley was in any way a demanding child. Quite the opposite. If it had just been him and Giles - and Giles thought longingly of when he had been allowed to have the boy to himself - it would have been peace and quiet and some companionable reading, but, with Buffy in charge, Wesley immediately became a full time job. The first thing on Buffy’s list of demands was Xander being asked to go and buy him a better breakfast.
“He can’t eat cornflakes!” she said in horror.
Wesley timidly tugged at her sleeve. “I like cornflakes, Buffy.”
“You do?” She looked at him in confusion.
Xander already had his coat on - over his pyjamas, Giles noted - and was stumbling blearily for the door, but now paused. “You like cornflakes?”
“Yes.” Wesley looked at them in confusion. “I do. Can I have some for my breakfast, please?”
Buffy snapped her fingers imperiously at Xander. “We need milk.”
“I have milk,” Giles protested, getting out a bowl, a spoon, the sugar, and the milk to go with the disdained packet of cornflakes.
“We’ll need more,” Buffy insisted.
Shrugging, Xander stumbled on out to Cordy’s car, pulling his jeans over his pyjamas as he did so. Cordelia had to go after him in her pyjamas to give him the car keys and a shopping list.
Giles sighed, made a pot of tea, and began to make toast in enough quantities to feed a small squadron. Xander then came back with pancakes, as well as what seemed to be several gallons of milk, and yet the toast still went, as well as the best part of a jar of marmalade. After breakfast - which took an hour longer than he was sure it would have taken if it had just been him and Wesley - there was then the protracted process of giving Wesley a morning bath to make up for the fact he hadn’t had an evening bath before bedtime on account of being busy fighting vampires at bath-time. This also took a long time, as Buffy, Willow and Cordelia all insisted on cramming into the bathroom to bathe him. Giles did try pointing out that Wesley was at the age when he would probably prefer to be bathed by males - Xander, Oz and - bizarrely - Angel all looked up hopefully and he just knew they were planning to spend an hour in there, playing boats with the boy rather than just getting him clean - but Buffy snorted at that idea and told Giles that, of course, Wesley would rather be bathed by them.
Wesley was much too smitten with Willow, Buffy and Cordelia by this point to think of arguing with her, so just gave Giles a ‘help me’ look before being swept off to the bathroom to be cooed over, and half-smothered, while Cordelia argued with Buffy about the right way to wash his hair, and everyone got upset about his bruises. This was, of course, Cordelia and Willow’s first chance to see them and Giles could hear the terse questioning from Cordelia, and Wesley explaining innocently that he just woke up with them, while Buffy said nothing at all.
Wesley then was wrapped in the fluffiest towel that Giles possessed, and carried out to be sat in front of the fire Buffy had insisted Giles lit in the hearth - despite it being July in California and him having very adequate underfloor heating - in case Wesley caught a chill. Wesley then had to have his bruises examined by everyone while Buffy looked more and more guilty and everyone pointedly didn’t mention how it was all her fault although Cordelia looked absolute daggers at her, then smiled sweetly at Willow, asked her to look after Wesley for a moment, then grabbed Buffy’s wrist and dragged her outside. Giles looked through the window to see Cordelia gesticulating furiously while Buffy just hung her head and looked wretched.
Giles dared to open the window a crack and then flinched from Cordelia shouting: “You had no right to do that to Wesley when he was an adult, Buffy! You know how much stronger you are than him. If, when he’s big again, you ever even think about hurting him, I will stake you myself, Slayer or no Slayer!”
Once again, it occurred to Giles that Cordelia was the only person there who liked the adult Wesley as much as they liked the child. It was more than a little galling to realize that in this instance the person who seemed to have shown the most insight into their newest arrival was the least insightful amongst them.
When Giles looked back through the window, Buffy was crying and Cordelia was looking shocked. She hastily scrambled for a handkerchief from her purse and held it out while Buffy sobbed guiltily and Cordelia looked around for reinforcements. She tentatively patted Buffy on the shoulder and essayed an awkward: “There, there. I didn’t mean it. Well, I did, but I didn’t think you were going to start going all…cry-Buffy on me."
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Buffy said brokenly.
Cordelia suddenly looked a lot more human. “I know you didn’t. And I’m sorry I yelled - okay? And he’ll be wondering where you are, so you should go back inside and get him some clothes - not that those clothes you and Giles picked out for him are anything other than frightening but I suppose they’ll do, and we don’t want him catching a chill.”
At the magical word ‘chill’, Buffy hastily wiped her eyes. “You’re right. He could catch cold.”
“Yes, he could,” Cordelia said in her most encouraging ‘talking to the half-witted’ voice. “So, you’d better stop crying and go and take care of him, hadn’t you?”
As Buffy scampered back into the house, Giles watched Cordelia roll her eyes and mutter: “Yes, because pneumonia is such a risk in a heated house in high summer....”
Buffy then had to console herself for her guilt by cuddling the towel-wrapped Wesley, who clearly had no idea why he was back on her lap and being cuddled again, or why she was sniffing, and stroking his hair, but was just so glad of the attention he certainly wasn’t going to ask any awkward questions that might in any way stop the cuddling.
Xander watched Buffy and Willow cooing over Wesley for a while and then looked at Giles. “Doesn’t he ever say ‘enough already’?”
“Not as yet. So far he seems to rather like it.”
Xander shook his head. “That is one scarily affection-starved kid.”
Giles supposed that if Wesley being a child went on long enough, at some point, Wesley might disentangle himself from Buffy’s smothering embrace and start to act a little more like an eight-year-old boy, but that was clearly not something that was going to happen any time soon.
Cordelia managed to use the magical word ‘chill’ to coax Buffy and Willow to stop cuddling him for long enough to get him out of the now damp towel and into his clothes, and as right in front of the fire was deemed the only place warm enough for him to be dressed, everyone in the room got to see how painfully thin he was. Oz winced and Angel grimaced at the sight of not only the bruises but his visible ribs and bony little shoulder blades.
Giles said, “I really do think he’s naturally skinny rather than…deliberately starved.”
Xander said grimly, “If you say so.”
Then Wesley was obediently putting up his arms so his t-shirt could go on. The closest he came to rebellion was saying shyly: “I know how to dress myself, Buffy.”
“Yes, but you have pulled muscles from fighting vampires and from…before....” Willow said hastily. “So, we should dress you this time.”
Giles was quite certain that even allowing for small boy coordination Wesley could have dressed himself a lot faster than Buffy and Willow, who managed to get every item of clothing inside out or upside down in their distraction at the boniness of his body or the adorable cuteness of his sticky up hair.
“It’s going to be lunchtime before he’s dressed at this rate,” Giles murmured.
Oz put his head on one side. “Well, at least Buffy and Willow are having fun.”
“Yes, they have their own walkin’, talkin’, livin’ mini-Watcher doll.” Xander strode over to where Buffy was trying to get Wesley’s clothing to fit with safety pins. “Buff - enough with the dressing already, Wesley has other things to do today.”
Wesley immediately scrambled down and stood up straight in front of Xander, saying, “I have my lesson books. Mr Giles gave me a notebook yesterday and I have a pen in my bag.” He quickly grabbed his bag and held out the pen as if this would ward off a scolding.
Xander crouched down in front of him. “You don’t need a pen for these lessons. You just have to be prepared to have some serious fun.” Then he scooped Wesley up, tickled him until he curled up like a puppy and giggled helplessly, and deposited him on one of the chairs by the dining room table. “Today, we’re going to study the way pathetic magical fairytale castles put together by Girlies can’t withstand a sustained assault from neighbouring baronial castles put together by Men.”
“I wanted a sea battle.” Angel had already installed himself in the chair opposite Wesley and was starting to clip together pieces of plastic. “But I suppose that can wait.”
Cordelia frowned and looked at Buffy. “I thought Angel was cool?”
Buffy also looked at him in some confusion. “I suppose he’s taking the day off from being cool.”
Oz grabbed another chair eagerly and began to reassemble the parts of the castle knocked over by the vampire assault.
As Buffy and Cordelia both looked to Willow for an explanation, she shrugged. “I suppose Oz is taking the day off from being cool too.”
“They’re scaring me a little,” Cordelia observed, then seemed to realize what Xander had said. “What was that about ‘castles put together by Girlies’? You are so going to get your asses kicked!”
“You can’t attack the Fairytale Castle!” Willow protested. “It’s a place of harmony and being at one with nature. Why can’t we just have a nice little community where everyone lives in a spirit of peace and mutual cooperation?”
Angel said, “It’s a bastion of tyranny run by hereditary…tyrants. They have to die.”
Oz looked at Angel sideways. “Isn’t this a baronial castle?”
“He’s a republican,” Angel insisted. “Does this place come with a little plastic guillotine? Or I suppose we could make one with a pulley system and a razor blade....”
Willow said desperately: “Giles - stop them!”
“I’m not really much of a monarchist either,” Giles admitted, grateful to have his armchair back and grabbing it quickly.
Buffy said, “Don’t worry, Will, we can take them. We have magical forces on our side, remember?”
“We have a wizard.” Xander held out the as-yet-unpacked wizard in his magical cave.
Cordelia sniffed. “Do you have an actual human wizard on your team? Because we have an actual witch.”
Xander turned to Giles quickly. “Don’t you think you should be banning people from using magic in a frivolous way?”
“They have a siege tower!” Willow protested. “All we have are unicorns and a fairy bower!”
Giles sipped his tea and opened a book. “I’m keeping out of it.”
Giles spent a very entertaining morning, pretending to sigh in disapproval, while actually thoroughly enjoying watching the increasingly dirty battle taking place on his dining room table. Angel proved that Angelus had not entirely departed by constructing a working guillotine with worrying dexterity, while Willow kept altering the rules of magical engagement. Wesley actually turned out to be rather good at strategy and was the one who pointed out that there needed to be a point to the game or else they would just end up razing each other’s plastic castles to the ground. It was decided after much heated discussion that the object for the baron’s side was to imprison but absolutely not behead the royal family from the Fairytale castle, who, if they were captured, had to be treated as prisoners under the Geneva Convention; a great disappointment for Angel who was already trying to make up a torture chamber to go with his guillotine. It was finally agreed that he could dunk the king into the well a few times on the grounds that the Baron was probably evil, being a baron, even if a republican one, and he had to reluctantly settle for that, although Giles noticed that didn’t stop him creating a little rack out of matchsticks and wire.
The object for the Fairytale side was to rescue the dragon in the dungeons of the baronial castle as it could then be assumed that if the dragon were at large it would be burning all the fields of the baronial people leaving them to starve to death.
“It’s a deterrent,” Willow insisted. “We don’t actually let the dragon do that but knowing we have it and he could do that means you have to give in. So there.”
“It says here that ‘…when the drawbridge has been sealed using the winch this magnificent castle is impervious to attack’!” Xander complained, after a particularly sustained magical assault. “You’re not sticking to the rules! We’re impervious to attack right now!”
“It also says it’s a ‘King’s castle’,” Buffy retorted. “But I don’t see ‘Angel-I-used-to-be-Irish-and-I-work-for-no-king’ sticking with that part of the rules.”
“I’m still Irish,” Angel protested. “You don’t just stop being Irish.”
“Oh please.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “You’ve been in America longer than any other American who isn’t you know - undead or totally ga-ga. That makes you American.”
“So how come your ‘baron’ is wearing a little crown?” Buffy demanded. “He looks kind of kingly to me.”
“He’s just mocking the trappings of hereditary tyranny,” Angel insisted, yanking off the crown and tossing it. “So there.”
As well as the battle over which side was winning the Playmobil war, there was also the ‘who gets to have Wesley on their side’ war, with the males insisting that he was on the Baronial side of the divide due to his gender, and the girls insisting he was on their side due to them saying so.
Giles did intervene then to say sternly: “You are not to put that child on the spot by making him choose. Draw straws for him or agree to share.”
Willow said, “But, Giles, if you would just come and join us then it wouldn’t be a gender war and you could be teaching Wesley…Watchery things about strategy and....”
“Besieging plastic castles?” Giles looked over his glasses at her and then at a begging look from Wesley found that he was getting up, putting down his book, sighing heavily but complying.
“Okay, so now there are three of us and five of you,” Xander points out. “That means we get Wesley.”
“It’s only fair.” Oz picked him up before Buffy could snatch him and hastily handed him over to Angel who stuck him on his shoulders out of her reach then looked smug.
Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m seeing a whole new bad side of you today.”
Cordelia nodded. “He’s like Dorkus Vampirus. It’s scary.”
Angel just gazed up at Wesley. “So, how do we safeguard the dragon, Wesley?”
Wesley examined the castle and then diffidently pointed out possible areas of attack. “…And there are trapdoors in the rooms, so they could send people up through those and then sneak down to the dungeons.”
Buffy looked at Willow. “There are trapdoors? Why aren’t we using the trapdoors?”
Xander and Oz quickly positioned crossbow-wielding soldiers in front of each trapdoor. “Try it, little pixie people,” Xander invited. “See how far you get....”
Giles found that it was surprisingly enjoyable to be utterly…childish for a morning. He told himself it wasn’t that he was slacking on the research to bring Wesley back, just taking a day to recharge the mental batteries. And, of course, if they succeed in capturing Ethan, then it would be much quicker to simply - hit him repeatedly until he admitted what was necessary to turn Wesley back. It certainly wasn’t a case of him wallowing in denial while his subconscious tried to find a way to let the boy stay as he was.
He looked across at Wesley, who was giggling helplessly at something Oz had said as Angel reluctantly passed him over to Xander, who was insisting it was turn to have Wesley as his ‘military advisor’.
“Could you be any cuter?” Xander asked of no one in particular.
“Nope.” Buffy grinned at him. “It is a scientifically proven fact that it is impossible for any child to be cuter than Wesley. And you get him for ten more minutes and then we’re trading you Giles for Wesley.”
“As a hostage?” Xander said hopefully.
“As an advisor,” Buffy said witheringly.
“So we can’t tie him up?”
Buffy looked at Willow. “Boys are strange.”
Willow nodded. “We should take Wesley away from them before they’re a bad influence on him.”
Cordelia was already lifting Wesley from Xander’s arms. She carried him back to the safety of what she termed the ‘sane side of the table’ while Buffy waved to Giles. “You can go and help them now, but remember that if you help them too much we won’t let you play with Wesley.”
Giles said, “You do realize that’s completely illogical - and unfair.”
“Not to mention contrary to the rules of engagement,” Oz pointed out. “As agreed by the covenants governing Playmobil battle tactics.”
“And all tactical matters relating to the deployment of plastic people in a designated war zone.” Xander pointed a finger for emphasis.
Angel’s response was to use the catapult to lob debris at the Fairytale Castle. Willow glared at him and responded with a spell that Giles thought he had better pretend he hadn’t noticed, which caused all of the defenders on the Baronial Castle to fall over. Then there was general plastic carnage as minor spells and major debris were hurdled backwards and forth, at the end of which Willow smugly held aloft the dragon and proclaimed the world safe for Fairy Bowers once more.
Xander and Angel exchanged a look and Angel said: “We could beat them at sea.”
Xander nodded, grimly, and Giles noticed that he, Oz, and Angel all turned away to pool their money; Angel shoving folded twenty dollar bills at Xander.
“What are you doing?” Cordelia demanded.
“Oz and I are off to buy us all lunch, Your Queenliness,” Xander assured her. He jerked his head at Oz, who gave Willow a farewell kiss, and then headed off with him.
Buffy narrowed her eyes. “They looked sneaky. Why did they look sneaky?”
“No reason,” Angel said. “Wesley, do you want to help me put the Viking Ship together while Uncle Oz and Uncle Xander buy lunch?”
Wesley nodded brightly, all fear of the vampire evidently banished during their battle strategizing together.
Giles looked at his dining room table, which was large enough to sit eight but seemed a great deal smaller when it was also required to double as a battlefield. “Shall we move the - plastic people to the floor?” he suggested. “So we can sit up and eat at the table in a civilized manner?”
“Kind of missing the whole day of fun thing, aren’t you?” Buffy observed, but then began to push the furniture back against the walls to make a much larger space for them to expand their plastic empire.
Giles forbore from pointing out that he was actually the one who had purchased the Playmobil castles in the first place. As he turned his head he saw Angel and Wesley sitting on the floor together, tortured vampire back from hell, and Watcher-to-be who had never been permitted until now to just be a child. They were both smirking at something Angel had said, Wesley shaking with laughter so much that he could hardly fit the plastic pieces together. Angel gently guided his hands, and the pieces of longship snapped together properly. Wesley beamed up at him and Angel smiled back. When Giles looked up, he saw Buffy gazing at them with adoration on her face and Giles winced as he realized that in her heart Buffy was still a teenager, and still dreamt that she could somehow have this: partner, child, happiness, with an - infertile - vampire, while she was the only Slayer left able to defend the world from darkness. Wesley giggled again and Buffy sat down next to him, Wesley in between her and Angel, her beaming at them both as she handed over a mast. Giles took a step back, physically and mentally, thinking that if this was to be the closest that Buffy and Angel ever came to having a family life, even as a temporary arrangement from a lie based on a spell, then who was he to interfere?
He turned around and found Cordelia looking at him. She said quietly. “Wesley has rights too. And a life he was living. The adult Wesley. He didn’t come here so that Buffy and Angel could play house, Giles.”
“I know.” Giles removed his glasses to give them an entirely unnecessary clean. “I know that.”
“Please remember it,” Cordelia said, and her expression was pleading not demanding. “Because I don’t think anyone else here is going to.” And then she was beaming at Child Wesley as if no one could have been happier than her and ordering Willow imperiously to help her build the Viking Longhouse.
Giles sighed, replaced his glasses, and tried not to think how easy it would be if the spell simply couldn’t be altered and it was no one’s fault if Wesley had to stay like this and be brought up anew, this time by people who actually liked him.
***
The day went much too fast, Xander thought. He and Oz had purchased the pirate ship and accessories aplenty, and enough lunch to feed even all of them. Lunch had been eaten. Then he, Angel, Oz and Wesley had put the ship together in double quick time then launched an assault from the piece of shiny wrapping paper standing in for the sea on the Baronial castle. That had been all kinds of fun. As had been the epic sea battle between pirates and Vikings that followed, despite Giles bringing the whole funtime thing down by wanting to talk to Wesley about what era the Vikings came from and when pirates had been at their most common and if it was likely they ever would have met geographically. They had all had to yell at Giles quite a lot to get him to stop bringing lessons into the playroom and man the cannons instead, but he had then done so with a ruthless efficiency that had been quite fun to watch.
Then there had been a brief pause to eat a lot more food, and then a trawl through the channels to find out what was on children’s TV, which Angel, bizarrely, had ended up watching with Wesley, as apparently he didn’t have a TV in his mansion so the whole moving picture thing was pretty exciting for him.
Unfortunately, it had then become evening again and while Angel went out to stock up on his blood - and ewww that there was now some of it sitting in Giles’ fridge - they had been forced to phone around everybody’s parents. Willow’s mother was too vague and intellectual to mind and Xander’s parents were too indifferent to care, but Buffy’s mom had taken quite a lot of fast-talking from Buffy and Giles to convince her that it really was crisis time, although a crisis that wasn’t actually very dangerous, really.
“Why can’t you just show her Wesley and let her know the truth?” Cordelia demanded.
Giles and Buffy grimaced. “She’ll want to adopt him,” Buffy explained. “I know what Mom is like with little kids. I wouldn’t get him away from her with a whip and a chair.”
“Gee, lucky for the rest of us you’re not all weird and hyper-possessive then....”
In the end the phoning had been done and Buffy and Giles had decided to head out in search of Ethan; Xander just hoped that they didn’t get turned into newts by demon-raising, costume-selling, wacky-candy-pimping guy.
He felt decidedly on edge with both Buffy and Giles out of the way. Angel was here, of course, to take care of Willow, but who was to say the Mayor wouldn’t send a bunch of people armed with Holy Water this time? Or if Faith was really in cahoots with him, send her? She didn’t need an invitation to push her way in, and she could kick Angel’s ass. On the other hand Willy was even more scared of Buffy than he was of Angel and they did need to find Ethan.
He thought about there maybe being some horrible side effects to the spell, or Wesley just getting younger and younger until he wasn’t even a baby any more, just a foetus. There were some things he couldn’t take happening, and one of those was harm coming to Willow from the Mayor, and another of those was harm coming to little boys who had never apparently known much in the way of kindness before and were just so grateful for any affection.
The amulet Giles had taken from Wesley’s apartment was still wrapped up in a corner. Giles and Willow had done some kind of neutralizing spell in case it was still - whatever amulets were when they could zap you - active, live, whatever, but it still gave Xander the creeps and he was avoiding that part of the room. Willow and Oz were on the couch, she was half-dozing with her head on Oz’s shoulder, he with his arm around her. Xander remembered when there would have been four of them. Oz and Willow and Cordelia and Xander. He didn’t know who to blame for the ruination of that; he and Willow for giving into temptation when they thought they were going to die, or Cordelia for not being able to forgive him for a momentary lapse. Which reminded him - where was Queen C? He heard the sound of her voice talking quietly and crept over to the kitchen, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to know if everything was okay.
She had Wesley sat on the countertop while she dried the clean dishes on the draining board. Wesley was helping her, wiping very carefully with a teatowel and then handing her the sparkling glass or clean mug with even greater care.
“Why don’t you think they’re your friends…?” Wesley was asking in some puzzlement.
“Because they don’t really like me.” Cordelia said it with a smile, as if didn’t really matter. “They just - tolerate me because I used to go out with Xander.”
Actually, we tolerated you before you and I dated, Cord, Xander thought. You’ve always kind of been one of us. Perhaps with the emphasis on ‘kind of’….
“You used to go out with Xander?” Wesley looked up at her wide-eyed. “Are you going to marry him?”
“No.” She took a glass from him and put it away in a cupboard. “We’re so over. There aren’t words for how over we are.”
Wesley looked at her mournfully, saying tentatively: “Do you get…lonely…?”
Cordelia grimaced. “Yes. You know why I’d be lonely right now, though, Wes, if you weren’t here…?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not here. That’s who I’m missing right now. I’m missing someone who doesn’t - judge me every time I talk to him. Someone who likes me and doesn’t act like there’s something wrong with me. I’m missing you.”
Wesley gazed up at her. “Big me?”
“Yes. I miss Big You.” She looked at his face and smiled at him. “Except I’m not - because I have Little You, except - I’m still missing Big You, I’m just not missing him as much because I have you to talk to. And you know what? Even though you’re only eight years old now, I’d still rather spend time with you.”
Wesley looked mournful. “If I get big again will you miss - me me…?”
Cordelia took the glass from his hand, put it away, and then picked him up carefully. “Oh God, yes. So much.” Xander saw in some dismay that there were tears in her eyes as she pressed a kiss into the little boy’s hair. He backed up quickly, wondering just how far she had invested, in him, in Wesley the Watcher. It had been clear from the beginning that she saw him differently from the rest of them; saw something in him they didn’t see. Had she been seeing him as the possible answer to her problems? A way out of Sunnydale? Out of her recent history with him? Did she feel as if she had burnt all her bridges just because she had dated someone her friends didn’t approve of and who had exchanged one solitary kiss with a childhood friend?
Wesley isn’t going to solve that, Cord. Even as a twenty-six year old with a salary and a really nice suit, he’s just a guy, with problems of his own. And now we know even more problems than we ever guessed before. You’d actually be exchanging one screwed up guy with self-esteem and daddy issues for another.
He snatched a breath and then hummed a jaunty tune, before arriving in the doorway with a big smile on his face. “Need a hand there, you two?”
Cordelia quickly wiped her eyes. “No, we’re fine.”
“Is your head okay?” Xander looked at the bruise on her cheekbone and winced.
She nodded. “It’s okay.”
“Well, mine is kind of thumping, wanna share some Tylenol and some good old fashioned…tea…?”
Cordelia did smile then. “Wow, that’s the most exciting offer I’ve had all day - and isn’t that the sad admission?”
Xander put the kettle on. “Want me to take the munchkin?”
“He’s fine.” Cordelia bent her head to rub her nose against Wesley’s. “Not the heaviest child I’ve ever met.”
Wesley grinned at her. “Uncle Richard used to say that soaking wet and with a rock in my pocket I weighed almost as much as Cuthbert.” He looked down at the floor. “It didn’t sound mean when he said it. It was just funny.”
“It is funny, Wes,” Xander assured him.
Wesley leaned his head against Cordelia’s neck. “Is Buffy coming back soon?”
“Yes, sweetheart.” She handed Xander the teabags. “She’ll be home soon.”
“I like Buffy,” he said drowsily. “She makes me feel safe.”
Xander saw the way Cordelia’s fingers automatically strayed to that bruise on his ribs that Buffy had left there, but all she did was kiss him on the forehead and say without a tremor: “She makes us all feel safe. That’s what she does.”
“I like you too.” Wesley’s eyes were closed and he was so close to being asleep it made no difference. “I like all of you. If I can’t be big again can you not tell Daddy? Then I can stay here with you....” And then his thumb was in his mouth and he really was asleep.
Cordelia said urgently to Xander, “Please, take him.”
Xander hurried to do so, lifting the boy into his arms. Then Cordelia sat down on the chair and her shoulders began to shake, and then she was sobbing, silently, but wretchedly, while Xander watched and felt useless, automatically rocking the boy he held so as to keep him asleep.
“Cordy, what is it…?” he whispered.
She wiped her eyes after a minute, got up, and shook back her weight of long brown hair. “It’s everything....” she said. And then she snatched a long deep breath and looked across at him. “It’s nothing. Life’s just… sometimes it just sucks, you know…?” She came across to where Xander was holding Wesley and looked down at his sleeping face. Wesley had the longest thickest eyelashes Xander had ever seen on a boy, and the palest skin. He should have been all round and pink, but he was narrow and white instead. Cordy said, “Can I have him back, please?” and it wasn’t imperious, just pleading. Xander handed him back into her arms without a word, still shocked by her outburst of grief, and then she was rocking Wesley and humming to him softly, and Xander was busying himself making tea, while the tear tracks dried on her face, and he knew that neither of them were ever going to refer to what had just happened ever again.
***