Travelin' Companions

DATE: 4/24/02
SUMMARY: Wesley gets an offer he can't refuse when he finally meets William the Bloody and his seraph.
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: Through "Villains" and the equivalent on AtS

A/N: Danielle is the same character from "The Seraph", although the two stories do not jive.  All you really need to know is that Danielle is an angel made solid who looks after William...and any other underdog who catches her fancy.

Wesley grimly sauntered into his apartment, pain and anguish plastered across his face.  A quick glance over to the phone notified him of eight new messages.  Eight short blinks of a red light.  Blink, blink, blink, blink…

He shook his head, trying to bring himself back to reality.  He walked over to the phone and pushed the play button just before he bent down to place the box of belongings on the floor.  That was it then.  Clear out your desk.  Hey, it was his business.  How come…

The first message interrupted his internal soliloquy.

“Beeeeeeep.  Wesley?  Where are you?”

“Beeeeeeep.  Wesley?  Where the HELL are you?!”

“Beeeeeeep.  Wesley Windam Price?  Where are you?  You haven’t called your mother in weeks!”

“Beeeeeeep.  Wesley?  This isn’t like you.  Where are you?”

“Beeeeeeep.  Congratulations.  You have been chosen for a world class vacation on the Titanic Cruise Line.  To claim your valuable prize, please call me at this number.  1-800-SCAM-SSS.  Hurry.  Operators are standing by.”

“Beeeeeeep.  If I ever find you, Price, I’ll rip out your innards and wear them to Mardi Gras.  You’re a dead man, Price!  A dead man!”  In the background, Wesley heard a Fred voice telling Angel to calm down, then the phone was thrown to the ground.  There was silence until the familiar tone of a phone off the hook rang annoyingly.

“Beeeeeeep.  Watcher?  You back yet?”  The voice quieted, as if speaking to someone else.  “Bloody hell.  He’s not there, angel.  Can I hang up now?”  Then it became louder again.  “Yeah.  Well, buggar this.  I’ll find you one way or another.”

Wesley didn’t like that last one.  The voice was not familiar, but it spoke with such familiarity, he couldn’t help but wonder if he knew the guy.

“Well, first things first,” he thought to himself as he padded to the kitchen in search of some whiskey.  But before he could find a bottle of the swill, there was a knock at the door.

‘Great.  Just bloody great.’  He thought to himself.  Wesley traipsed over to the door, and peered through the peephole.  Inside the small device, the distorted image of a woman fell into his sight.  She was average looking, with no weapons in plain sight, and a look of urgency upon her kind face.  “Who is it?” Wesley shouted with some frustration.

“You don’t know me Wes…er, Mr. Price.  But I’m here to help you, okay?”

His first reaction was to tell the git to run off and tell her boss to find another way of getting to him, because this just wasn’t going to work.  But something in her eyes made him curious.  After several seconds of contemplation, Wesley decided that perhaps dying wasn’t such a bad thing after all.  He could risk it just this once.  What did he have to live for anyhow?  No friends, no family, no job, no skills.

The girl was just about to back off and leave when she heard the opening of the lock.

As the door opened, incandescent light flooded the poor, desolate room.  The girl walked in, stepping just over the threshold.  “Oh Wesley.  You poor dear.”

“You know me?”

“I know of you, yes.  See, I have this little weakness for the underdog.”  She giggled, which struck Wesley as quite out of place for this place and time.

Finally remembering his manners, he stepped aside, his body language begging her to come in further.

“Um.  I brought a visitor.”

‘Ai.  And now’s when I meet my doom, I suppose.’

“Don’t be silly.  I told you I wasn’t here to hurt you.”

“How did you…?”

“Yeah, I can read your mind.  That’s what we angels do.”

Wesley looked at her with disbelief.  “Y-you’re my…angel?”

Her face lit up and a guffaw escaped her lips.  “No, silly.  I’m William’s angel.  But in light of recent events, I thought I would -- you could say -- expand the business.”

“William?”

“Now, I don’t want to go through this song and dance with you, okay?  So, I’ll just come right out and say it.  My name is Danielle.  I am the appointed guardian of William Walthrop, also known as William the Bloody, also known as Spike.”

Wesley’s formerly soft face changed to one of horror as he gained understanding.  “A vampire?!  You, a creature of Heaven, were sent to earth to help a vampire?!”

“Well, isn’t that really what you do, Mr. Price?”  Danielle smiled warmly, turning her attention to the kitchen.  “Mind if I call you Wesley?  And do you have any chocolate in there?”

His eyes followed her into the kitchen, staring in awe.  Finally, he broke himself of the trance, and continued his questioning.  “So, why are you here and who do you have with you?”

“Oops. Almost forgot.”  She looked up at him with a frustrated look on her face.  “What do you eat, man?  This place is totally empty.  No wonder you’re so skinny.”

He stared at her.

“Oh.  Yeah.  Business.  Well, I need you to invite him in, okay?  He’s got this chip in his head.  He can’t hurt humans, okay.  Well, not you at least.”

It was all a bit too much for the man.  “What!?”

“Look, William and I need to talk to you.  We have a proposal to make, don’t we, Will?”  At the end of the sentence, she was shouting out the door.

Wesley’s attention turned toward the door, where what he saw shocked him.  A 5’10” vampire with white hair and a long, black, leather coat.  “Yeah.  Invite the vampire in for dinner.  I don’t think so, mam.  Now, please, just leave me alone and…”

The vampire finally spoke.  “I told you, girl.  This was a bloody stupid idea!  Can we just go now?  Come on!”  He held out his hand for the girl, but she just scoffed at it.

Danielle pleaded with her host.  “Will you invite him in already?  He won’t wait forever.  He doesn’t have much patience these days.”

Wesley eyed the vampire warily.  “You say he can’t bite me?”

Instead of hearing Danielle’s affirmation, the loud, obnoxious vampire spoke.   “Yeah, like I’d want to eat you, you spindly little git.”

“Oh, what the hell!  Come on in…Spike.”

“That’s more like it, mate.”  And with that, Spike stepped over the threshold.  “Have any blood stashed away?  Maybe some that you saved for nancy-boy?”

Off Wesley’s confused look, Danielle explained, “Yeah, Spike is a descendant of Angel’s.  They hate each other.  End of story.  Can we move along here?  I really need to go get some Ho-Ho’s or something.”

The ex-watcher looked up at the ceiling and sighed.  ‘Could this day get any worse?’

Danielle crossed the room to put an understanding arm around his shoulder.  “It’ll be alright Wesley.  See.  You and William have a lot in common.  Sit down and I’ll explain.”

*********

After each person had found a somewhat comfortable place to sit, the angel began.

“See, it’s like this.  William here…”

“Will you please stop calling me that, luv?  I haven’t been called that for centuries.”

“Oh, please.  You’re not a day over 127.  And stop telling people you’re over 200…liar.”  She turned her attention back to Wesley.  “Anyhow, *William* here has had quite the go of it in good ‘ole Sunnydale.  He got this little microchip implanted in his brain over two years ago, making it impossible to feed off of humans.  One thing led to another, and he ended up helping out the old gang.”  Wesley opened his mouth to ask one thing or another, but she wouldn’t have it.  “Please.  Save all questions for the end.  I’m on a roll here.”  She took a deep breath then continued.  “He fell in love with Buffy, then…”

“Hey!  No fair going into private things, there, angel.”

“And I’m fairly sure I said there would be no interruptions until the end.  Are we all clear now?”

Spike just grumbled, then fished out a cigarette.

“Good.  Now, where was I?  Oh, yes.  *Spike* here fell in love with the Slayer.  She died.  Willow brought her back.  Buffy fell in love with him (in *my* estimation), but refused to treat him as a human.  And no comments from you Price.  Yeah, he’s a vampire, but why can’t he be treated like a human too?”

“Yeah.”  Spike said around his fag.

“She verbally abused him and physically abused him.  All this after he played the part of sounding board, giving her back what she had been missing since she was brought back to life.  The girl has no scruples, I tell yah.

“Then, poor William was also abused by her friends.  Her ex-boyfriend came back and they blew up his home!  And all this after he had helped with patrolling and raising Dawn over the summer.  The lot’s got some short memories, that’s for sure.

“Now, you, my dear Wesley.  I’ve been watching you.  Anyone who has to work with that git, Angel, needs some back up.”

“Huh?”

“I said no questions.  Now, you came to L.A. after being treated like shit in Sunnydale.  Now, granted, you deserved it back then, but then again, so did William.”

“Hey!”

“Hey nothing.  Now shut up and smoke your cancer stick.”  She returned to the question of Wesley.  “You became great friends with the Big Poof and even had to endure his terrible evil mood swings.  He fired you and Cordelia.  Turned his back on the human race, really.  But what did you do?  Forgave him.

“Now this shit.  You tried your best to avoid the prophesy that Angel would kill his son.  You made some mistakes.  You should have told them what was going on, but that’s all water under the bridge.  The underlying point is that you were trying to save the little tyke.  But they didn’t understand that, did they?  Angel tried to kill you and the rest of your friends alienated you.”

Spike looked over at Wesley, a look of sympathy in his blue eyes.  “That bloody bastard!”

Danielle stopped talking and just stared at Wes.  The silence became unbearable to the man.  “So?  What are you here for, then?”

“Don’t you see?  You both have nothing left.  Nothing.  You’re living in a place that doesn’t want you.”

“Gee, thanks, Danielle.  I think I could have figured that out on my own, though…*without* inviting an infamously dangerous vampire into my home!”

Spike smiled an evil grin.  “Infamous, eh?”

Danielle’s arm shot out and smacked him in the gut.  “Shut up fang-boy.”

“William and I are going on a journey.  We’d like for you to come with.”

“What are you talking about, girl?  It’s not ‘we’, it’s ‘you’ and you bloody well know that!”  Spike had stood up, ready to walk out.

“Okay, okay.  *I* want you to come with.  Get out of this town for a while.  Let things die down.  Take in some African culture.”

“Africa?  You’re going to Africa?  And you want me to come with?”

“Yup.”

Wesley thought for a second, trying to find the right words to say, ‘no way in hell’, but then gave in.  “Sure.  Whatever.  Beats the hell out of this damn place.”