My Watcher
by Tesla

So, after all the shit went down, and after we all went to the frickin' ER in the next town---mainly for the non-Slayers among us to get patched up---and Rupes was organizing the whole goin' to Cleveland lallapalooza, I slid off and went to see Wes. My Watcher.

I figured, well, someone was going to check IDs at the hospital or something, even with the cover story of the earthquake and sinkholes, or whatever CNN was calling it. It would be just my luck to have my prison escape on the record, somewhere.

I didn't want to go back to prison after breaking out. And I didn't feel like arguing with anyone, especially not B. or Rupert, or Robin, who was looking at me these days like we were a couple or something. (Personally, I know all that stuff was bullshit about me not being very experienced or not as pretty as him.)

Anyway, I think Robin has a Slayer hang-up.

Sweet guy, now, and a hell of a good fighter, but he was a principal, after all, and all those years of teaching kind of made him, well, a teacher.

(I never did well with teachers. Some people would say that I didn't do well with anybody, but that's just not true.)

Anyway, Rupert and Dawn were being all efficient, and Xander was making with lame jokes, and Willow was looking like she'd suddenly figured out why war-time romances sucked, and B.----well, B. was just shell-shocked. The others were still hiding it, but B. was stunned from losing her house and her shoe collection and Spike and her specialness as the Fearless Leader. Sounds petty, but not, really. She'd been the One and Only True Slayer, the one with the Vision and the Calling and the Mission, and now she was one of the pack.

That sounds like I'm unsympathetic, and I mostly am. I mean, I understand, but sheesh, I wish these people would just let themselves feel bad about stuff. You have to, you know? I learned it in murder therapy. And the Scoobies are always with thewise-crack. It gets old.

There wasn't a lot that had to be done to the Slayers. Slayer cells--- they regenerate quick, so it was the non-slayers who were recuping. It was easy for me to get away. I knew the city. I had to get to the one person who would--the one who knew the real me, I guess. My Watcher. Corny, huh?


I knew where Wesley's apartment was, from before, of course. He opened the door with his trademark bland expression--trademark with me, at any rate. Ever since he broke me out, ever since I saw what a bad-ass he'd become, I knew that it was his Clark Kent expression: Just a book-worm here, folks, nothing to see.

"Like you didn't already know it's all over," I said, and shocked the shit out of myself and started crying. And when I say crying, I mean, gulping and sobbing and snotting.

"Faith," Wesley said, and yanked me inside. "You look like hell."

And I meant to giggle, but another sob came out, instead. Wesley changed his grip on my arms and took me through his bedroom into the bathroom.

You know what the main thing Watchers do best? Patch up their Slayers. Wesley's great at it, turns out. I mean, he did it before, but that memory is all kind of fuzzy.

This time he didn't let me alone. He nodded, murmuring something, as I choked out shit about seeing the girls die, about the bomb, about Caleb, about Xander's eye and B. and I don't know what else. You know how you should really just shut up, when you're crying? And you're all strangled-sounding and swallowing half the words? Like that. I did that the whole time Wesley took off my boots and socks and unbuckled my belt and pulled my jeans off. I had a hell of a gash on my thigh that I hadn't even seen, and clawmarks or something across my ribs.

I felt as cold as a vampire, and Wesley's hands and the hot water of the washcloth was the only warm thing in the world. I kept crying, and he kept wiping the dried blood until he was sure I didn't have anything hurt, serious, I mean.

"It's all right, Faith," he said, "it's all over and you don't have to do it again." So I guess I had been saying that I couldn't do it any more.

And then he kissed my temple, and I clung to him. "You shouldn't be good to me," I said. "You should throw me out on my ass and send me back to prison."

"No," Wesley said, "why would I do that?"

"I tortured you," I said into his shirt. "I woulda killed you."

"I thought we got past that, last time?" Wesley said. His hands skimmed my shoulders and arms, and I clung to his blue shirt. He scooped me up and carried me back into the bedroom. He laid me on the sheets and covered me up. I lay there, not even able to wipe my face. I supposed he was making tea or something, but he surprised me. He came back in the room, and put an arm around my shoulders to make me sit up, and held a glass to my mouth.

I took a quick gulp. It was brandy.

"Drink it down," Wesley said, "there's a good girl."

And I did, but I kept sniffling. Slayers aren't supposed to get hysterical, but I was.

Wesley lay down beside me, holding the blanket around me. "So, the Hellmouth is closed. Buffy survived, I take it? Xander, Willow, Giles? All these other girls, Slayers?"

I stopped shivering. "Yes. The town's gone."

"And you came to tell me?" he asked, his voice low and rough.

"Who else?" I asked. My head wasn't throbbing too badly.

"Oh, Angel, for instance?" he asked me, and I raised my head and kissed him.

I swear I didn't think he'd kiss me back. I swear. I don't know if B. ever had any fantasies about Giles, but I had. And I'd had plenty about Wesley, because it's a Slayer thing. No one on earth knows more about Slayers than those two. And I've always wanted to fuck someone who knew all there was to know about me, which is crazy, since I never wanted anyone to really know me, never let anyone.

Wesley seemed to know every low and dark secret of my soul. Most guys got me off right away, you know? Wesley got me to the edge, got me so close, so many times that I was thrashing on the bed, begging for him to fuck me. He ate me out, and then stopped; he let me taste myself on his mouth, while he kept flicking my nipples and my clit. It sounds cruel but, God, it was exactly what I needed. Someone else driving.

I was dying for his cock by the time he got in me, but even then, he didn't move. Instead, he braced himself over me and said, "Kiss me, Faith. You can do better than that," and he bit my lower lip.

I finally growled and scissored my legs around him, and he laughed. "That's my girl," he said, and began moving slowly, so slowly that it makes my throat tight to think about it even now.

When I came I screamed like a factory whistle, and he was just getting started good. He rolled us on our sides, and seemed to get even deeper inside me, and when he came, I just kept coming.

We didn't let each other go for a long time.

"Faith," Wesley said, one hand on my breast, "I think I can make your legal problem disappear, so you won't be looking over your shoulder the rest of your life." He kissed my temple again.

My face in his neck, I snorted. "Yeah, you gonna call Wolfram & Hart?" I was ready to pass out from exhaustion.


But I fell into a dark velvet bag, and slept. When I woke up, coffee was in the coffee maker, and Wesley had left me a note, saying that he'd gone to the office to see what could be done about my escape.

I stayed at the apartment, which was looking a whole hell of a lot spiffier, already. He'd fixed the shower up and you couldn't see all the shit that had gone down: where he'd shot a hole in the ceiling, where I punched the wall.

I couldn't go back to that building, although Wesley said all those lawyers were gone. I couldn't figure out what was going on, with Angel and his crew taking over Wolfram & Hart, instead of blowing it up. Bothered me, too, that Wes didn't push me to go downtown with him, and said that no one had to know I was here. That doesn't make sense, Wesley---not telling Angel stuff---but that kind of fit, because Wesley always felt that what Angel didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

I can't explain what I mean. Something about that whole set-up, about Angel, and Wesley---it's like those dreams where you're trying to grab something and you never can. I kept thinking that I was forgetting something important about LA, and Angel. Every time I thought, "I need to see Angel," I couldn't remember why.

It scared me. It scared me, bad. If Wesley and Fred and Lorne and...and Gunn had all agreed to take over down there, then something was hinky. And Cordelia---something bad had happened to her, and Wesley couldn't explain it to me.

Slayers don't have memory loss. Slayers don't forget shit. And I was lying in Wesley's bed, still smelling of sex, trying to remember what had happened, exactly, just before Willow and I left for Sunnydale. And I couldn't.

I wanted to stay there. I wanted to take the whole evening and go over Wesley's body, and taste every scar he had, not just the ones I put there. I wanted to take a shower with him and lick the water from his shoulders. I wanted to ride him like a pony. I wanted to lie with his head on my belly and have him tell me things he hadn't told anyone else. Wear one of his dress shirts, like the women did in the television movies, and eat eggs and bacon.

Instead, I got out of bed, and dug around in his closet and found some jeans I could wear, and a sweatshirt with a tear in it. I was all fixed up when I heard the key in the door. He came in, looking like some college professor, carrying a manila envelope.

"Oh," he said. "Good."

"Yeah," I said, tugging at the sleeves of his shirt. "Hope you don't mind me taking this stuff."

"Not at all," he said, and handed me the envelope. "I checked into it. It seems that, rather than admit that an inmate just jumped through two Plexiglas windows and escaped, your case has been quietly marked 'paroled.' You don't have to worry."

"Oh," I said.

"Faith, we feel that we can do more good by working within the law firm---" he began, but I just closed my eyes. "Never mind, then," he said, and I felt his kiss on my forehead. "I believe that the Council of Watchers has been in touch with Giles---they've got plans as to how best to use such a bonus of Slayers."

I opened my eyes, looking up into his face. "Huh. I never felt like I was a bonus, before."

"You're a treasure, Faith," he said, and smiled at me like he meant it.

I hugged him. "You call me if you need me," I whispered into his ear."I'm your Slayer."

"Yes, Faith. You're the perfect Slayer. You do what you were born to do."

He squeezed me back, and I left. I turned around and waved at the elevator, and he waved back.

Now I'm sitting on the airplane, drinking. Wishing I'd never left him. Remembering the Beast and the kid and all the shit that we got wiped. It was like what had happened with Dawn: when I saw her, I knew she hadn't always been there. I had the deeper Slayer truth, when I couldn't remember what had happened. Wesley must have had some secret reason for taking the deal, like I know Angel must have done it for the kid. I coulda helped him. I coulda.

When my first Watcher was killed, I wanted to run and hide. When my second Watcher was killed, I was glad. When I first heard that Wesley was dead, I wanted to kill something, break windows, lay waste to everything. I guess that's why Giles sent for me, had the other Slayers take me to the airport and put me on a plane right after he found out.

I'll go to England, and I'll go kill vampires, but it's too late for Giles to find me a new Watcher.

My Watcher is dead.

