Title: Judgment
Author: Medea
Email: medealives@hotmail.com
Pairing: Willow/Angel friendship, Buffy/Spike
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Willow's joyride in 'Wrecked' was only the beginning of her downward spiral.
Spoilers: Through BtVS "Smashed" and "Wrecked"; and AtS "Lullaby"
Archive: Please do.
Disclaimer: Joss created. I am not Joss. Therefore, not mine, never will be. Pity, that.
Note: A response to Kendra A's challenge to "fix" Wrecked, although I don't really feel that the ep needed fixing. There's nothing wrong with taking a character through the moral gray zone. I kinda thought it gave Willow some interesting nuances.
Note 2: This is not part of the Masters and Minions universe -- Willow is human. For Willow/Angel fans -- it comes later in the story, but it *will* come.
Feedback: Much appreciated: medealives@hotmail.com

~Part: 14~


Déjà-vu wasn't unusual for Angel. He had walked the earth long enough to realize that events and encounters often repeated themselves with little more than a change of scenery. However, a slight tremor nonetheless ran through him at the sight of the immortal demon who had served as the catalyst for his transformation.

Scarcely six years earlier, Whistler had found him in a New York alley, starving, filthy, and hopeless. A mere blink of the eye for someone of Angel's longevity, yet a lifetime ago in terms of how far he'd come.

Six years. Angel had been a vampire for two and a half centuries. What were six short years in that immense span?

Everything.

Those years held in them more than was dreamt of in heaven and in earth. They eclipsed his first two centuries, overshadowing the worthless drunkenness of his human life, the sadistic cruelty of his reign at Darla's side, and the mind-numbing despair that had been his souled existence until Whistler's appearance. In just six years, he had become something -- he'd made himself worthwhile.

So he understood more than anyone that a visit from Whistler was no casual affair.

"Whistler?" Angel repeated incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

"Hey, it's L.A.," came the demon's cavalier answer. "There are a thousand reasons'd bring a guy to this town."

"Not when the guy is you," Angel observed, folding his arms across his chest.

"Um, Angel? Who is this guy?" Willow asked hesitantly. She rose to stand beside Angel and peered warily at Whistler.

"It's okay, kid, I haven't slipped here from one of your other stomping grounds. Name's Whistler," he said, extending a hand. However, rather than shaking the proffered hand, Willow shrank against Angel and stared uncomfortably at the shabbily dressed demon.

"Whoa, so don't make with the nice," Whistler shrugged, withdrawing his hand. "Suit yourself."

"You didn't come to chat. The Powers That Be don't send their emissaries to make small-talk," Angel pointed out.

"Tell me about it. Do you know how fast I wear out my welcome, delivering message after message about an impending Apocalypse?" Whistler huffed.

"There's an Apocalypse on the way?" Angel's expression instantly grew serious.

"Nah, 's already happened. A couple of times, actually," Whistler replied easily as he perused Willow's spartan room with a smirk. "You know, this room'd look a lot nicer with a painting or two -- even a bookshelf."

"It's me...I did it," Willow murmured, eyes widening in despair. "Oh, God...Oh, God...I'm an Apocalypse."

"Willow, shh...Easy..." Angel steadied her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You couldn't have known."

Willow's entire frame was shaking, reminding Angel how fragile humans were in body as well as in mind. When he'd broken her, Drusilla's heart had raced as Willow's did now. But whereas he'd savored each anguished tremor, each tormented moan he'd wrenched from Drusilla in that dark age before his soul, it pained Angel to see Willow reduced to this state.

She turned her back on Angel and Whistler, wrapped arms around herself, and hunched her shoulders, as if to make herself a smaller target, or deny herself closeness and comfort.

"I can't write this off as an honest mistake," Willow insisted brokenly. "This goes way beyond 'oh, oops, sorry'. I could feel it everywhere, all the time. Something was wrong, because of me. The world was out of control because *I* was out of control. Each time I slipped from one dimension to another, it followed me. I brought it with me. The magic I'd tapped into was disrupting things on a fundamental level and I couldn't make it stop."

As Angel listened to Willow's bitter self-reproach, a sickening hollow formed in his gut and he realized what had been stalking her through her journeys.

She had.

She was the ominous specter, bringing destruction to each incarnation in which she'd found herself.

"That's pretty much it," Whistler agreed, hands thrust casually in his trouser pockets. "You played with fire, kid."

It was a blunt statement, stark in its acknowledgment of the devastating consequences of Willow's actions. Angel's throat tightened with grief as he watched the young redhead sink to the floor in defeat. She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed quietly. As her tears fell Angel recalled a painful night in the woods of Roumania. The ground had been cold and sharp with twigs as he'd knelt, crying out from the depths of his newly restored soul. The force of guilt had crashed down on him so fiercely he'd pulled out his own hair until his scalp was bloody.

"So that's it?" Angel whispered, aghast. He tore his eyes from Willow to stare expectantly at Whistler.

"What?" came the bemused reply. "Angel, man, you've gotta stop being so cryptic." Whistler ambled toward the desk, opened the drawer and frowned in disappointment. "What is this, a prison cell? Even the dives I stay in have a Bible or a phone book in the nightstand."

Angel snorted in disbelief. Cryptic?! Whistler was one to talk...

"Have the Powers started sending you out to condemn people? Is that what this is about? You're just going to rub her nose in it and leave?" Angel demanded, gesturing toward Willow, who huddled despondently at their feet.

"Hey, cool down, already," Whistler raised his hands, giving Angel the brush-off. "No one's passing judgment on anyone yet...well, except the kid there. She's beating herself up something good. When she snaps out of it, you can tell her the Powers did her a favor."

"A favor?"

Whistler shrugged. "Yeah. See, she wasn't far off the mark -- she was an Apocalypse, six times over."

"Willow kept saying something about seven worlds," Angel interrupted.

"One of those wasn't her fault," Whistler replied. "Anyway, it's too big for the Powers to ignore. Something like this isn't just going to work itself out. One Apocalypse, sure -- maybe two. But not six. She's gonna have to fix it."

"Fix it?! How can...are you saying Willow is powerful enough to undo an Apocalypse?" Angel demanded incredulously.

He looked down at the silent, withdrawn woman whom he still thought of as a girl. A helpless girl he'd terrorized more than once. She'd been so frightened, so unsure of herself.

And the Powers expected this little one, this timid, troubled soul to tip the balance? Surely it was too much weight for such slim shoulders.

"Let's just say she's made a big splash. There are plenty of parties who are going to be real interested in what she can do, real soon. She's already had one offer that I've heard of. But this is big enough that she's got some help. Like I said, the Powers did her a favor."

"What did they do?"

"Put the worlds somewhere she can fix them. Trouble is, she's going to be afraid to try. That's where you come in." Whistler gave him a nod.

"Me?" Angel frowned.

"She'll need a coach. You know: 'Get in there and give it your all, champ'; 'Up and at 'em, slugger'; 'Go team'. That kinda stuff."

"Why me? Wouldn't her friends be better at that?" Angel protested, daunted at the prospect of shepherding Willow through something as arduous as undoing an Apocalypse.

"Her friends? Jeez, what do you think *you* are?" Whistler chided him with an impatient, sidelong glance.

"I only meant..." Angel began, pausing awkwardly as he struggled to characterize his relationship to the young woman who had known him back when he'd taken his first steps toward redemption. "Of course I'm her friend, and I'll help however I can. But she has other friends who are closer to her. How could I possibly know how to help her better than they would?"

"Use your best judgment. Talk to her. You'll find out you've got more in common than you think. In the end, you pretty much use what you've got," Whistler shrugged. He glanced down at his watch. "Will you look at that? Time to go. Well, take care of her. Hope you work it out."

He started for the door.

"Wait!" Angel nearly yelped, more confused than ever. "You've got to give me more to go on than this. How am I supposed to help her work this out? You said the Powers put the worlds where Willow could fix them. What does that mean? Where?"

"Her head," Whistler grinned, nodding toward Willow and tapping his own skull.

"But that's im--" Angel stopped mid-protest, dumbfounded. Six worlds in her head? He stared at her, brow furrowed, for several moments before turning back to Whistler...

...who was no longer there.

Angel closed his eyes and groaned inwardly. Great.

Just once, couldn't the Powers give clear instructions? No visions, no visitations from demons whose curse was to be always misunderstood -- just some nice, straightforward clues about what they wanted from their Champion. Was that too much to ask?

Grimacing uneasily, the dark vampire lifted his gaze toward the ceiling and thought, '*Don't answer that...*'

"I suppose it was too much to hope for straightforward dealings from the Council," Giles remarked. He took a sip of tea, then set the white china cup back down on its saucer. "Still, it was a rude awakening to discover how far my sense of my mission diverged from the Council's."

The ex-Watcher's observation was met with nods of agreement and grim resignation from the others who sat with him in the office. Oddly enough, it gave him a sense of solidarity, an inner peace he hadn't had since he'd left Sunnydale so many months earlier. Truly, the people in this room were his colleagues, his peers, far more than the Watchers Council.

"Giles...please don't take this the wrong way," Buffy said, her eyes glimmering with a volatile mix of hope, uncertainty, and sadness. "I'm glad you're back -- you have no idea how glad. But I thought you'd decided this wasn't your mission any more."

A lump rose in his throat, and it was a moment before Giles could speak. Xander and Tara glanced at him furtively from their seats on either side of the Slayer, their expressions mirroring Buffy's halting stoicism.

"I never abandoned my mission, Buffy. I just lost sight of it," Giles softly voiced his regret. "I thought I was holding you back. I no longer knew how to guide you. In all the years I've worked with you, you've been...remarkable. You shattered everything the Council had trained me to believe about the Slayer -- no Slayer has ever been quite like you."

He paused, fixed his gaze pointedly on Buffy, then added, "Or so I had thought."

"How exactly did you learn about the other Slayers, about their...sense of fellowship with vampires?" Wesley interjected from his seat by Cordelia's desk. He leaned forward, his brows knit in intense concentration. "You've told us how uncooperative the Council was upon your return. For the love of mercy, Rupert, they tried to kill you."

"I know," Giles agreed, pursing his lips thoughtfully. He closed his eyes and shook his head, still finding it difficult to come to grips with all he'd experienced in the past few months. "However, I think you know as well as I do that the Council is usually at its most revealing precisely when the hierarchy is trying to obstruct someone's path. Their response to my initial research on past Slayers who survived into their twenties exposed some particularly damning truths...."


//...Two Weeks Earlier...//


Giles shook with pain as he reclined against the cold, tiled wall of the Metro tunnel and struggled to tighten a make-shift bandage around his bleeding arm. A cursory self-examination gave him hope that the bullet had passed clean through the flesh, but he was by no means out of danger. He was losing blood at an alarming rate. He needed proper medical treatment, but alerting the Council to his whereabouts by visiting a hospital could prove fatal.

He cursed himself for not having anticipated such an ambush.

Quentin Travers had been uncharacteristically gracious in directing him to a reclusive demon scholar in Paris. Indeed, he'd been *too* forthcoming with information, especially given the scarcely masked alarm that had flashed in his eyes when Giles had asked him about vague references in the Watchers' Diaries to a Spanish Slayer in 1809. That alone should have set Giles on guard.

But Giles had been so eager to follow up any lead that might help him understand what Buffy needed, how he could help her, that he'd let himself get careless.

Now he was paying the price for that lack of caution.

Giles gritted his teeth and clamped his hand down over his throbbing arm. Ruefully, he thought back to the terrible moment when he'd arrived for his rendez-vous with the demon scholar and discovered his unfortunate semantic error. Ramon Diaz was no scholar *of* demons and demonic lore, he was a very learned demon.

A vampire, to be precise. A very old and powerful vampire.

And very, very deadly.

Giles had escaped only through blind luck and the arrogant miscalculation of the Council itself.

"You managed to get further than I would have expected."

The cool, smooth voice sent a white-hot bolt of fear coursing down his spine. Giles scrambled to his feet and desperately scanned the vicinity for a stick, a pencil, any fragment of wood whatsoever. Unfortunately, his luck had run out.

Unarmed, he braced himself and raised his eyes to look at the calm yet predatory face of Ramon Diaz.

"Apparently...not....far enough," Giles bit out, wincing at the pain that radiated from his gunshot wound.

The immaculately groomed vampire arched an eyebrow. Like so many of his kind, his sartorial preferences ran toward dark colors and sensually pleasing fabrics. Yet though his attire was that of a contemporary businessman, right down to the tasteful, navy silk tie and tailored, charcoal gray suit, Diaz had the look of a Roman centurion. Raven hair adorned his brow in short, clipped locks, and timeless, dark eyes stared out from stern, proud features.

"Yes. It would have had to be much further," Diaz allowed with genteel grace. He stepped closer, but paused when Giles stiffened defensively. With a slight smile, his eyes narrowed and he asked, "Who are you, that the Council of Watchers would not only misdirect you to a vampire's lair, but have its best marksmen follow to finish the job in case the vampire himself didn't kill you?"

"Obviously a very dangerous man," Giles bluffed, fixing Diaz with what he hoped was a steely, menacing glare. "Too dangerous, perhaps, for the likes of you."

A sly grin stretched across Diaz's face. "Ahh...false bravado. So, you're a Watcher, then." The vampire turned his back on Giles, dismissing the bleeding human as a threat, and strolled toward the edge of the platform. Staring out into the darkened tunnel, he said, "I have no use for Watchers. After the last fifty I killed, I would have thought they'd learned to respect my privacy."

Turning back to Giles, he arched an eyebrow and murmured, "You, however, are a curiosity."

"It intrigues you that the Council would murder one of its own," Giles surmised. No doubt the vampire saw this as a welcome sign of weakness.

However, to Giles' astonishment, a brief spark of pain -- almost human in its vulnerability -- flickered in dark eyes before fading to contempt. "I am well aware that the Council has no scruples about killing its own. Probably more so than you."

The remark was laced with such iciness and velvet rage that Giles shivered involuntarily. His body's self-betrayal did not go unnoticed. Diaz smirked back at him.

"So, Watcher, why does the Council want you dead?"

"I haven't figured that out yet," Giles answered guardedly. He felt his limbs trembling, and realized that it was not solely due to fear. The evening's events were taking their toll. His agitation seemed to run cell-deep, and he'd been unable to steady his shaky breathing and his rapid pulse. His system was showing the classic signs of hypovolemic shock. Grimly, he acknowledged that the Council might get its wish after all.

Diaz nodded thoughtfully, clasped his hands behind his back and paced slowly along the edge of the platform. "Their motivations are often clouded. Petty, base..." He glanced coolly at Giles. "Human."

The well-groomed vampire paused and frowned slightly. "Why would they bother to send you to me, though? They could have killed you more efficiently a dozen other ways."

A grim truth Giles understood all too well.

Fighting light-headedness, Giles remarked, "Why does it matter to you?"

Another arched eyebrow. "As I said, you're a curiosity." Slowly, a cruel smile spread across the vampire's face. "More importantly, the Council fears you. I would be interested to know what it was that had them so threatened they would seek to kill you."

"As would I," Giles agreed weakly. His knees felt wobbly and he swooned against the wall. "However, I haven't yet...figured...that out... either"

No longer able to stand, Giles slid down the wall. Diaz knelt before him, his human mask having given way to demonic ridges and fangs. Once again, Giles was taken aback by the vampire's actions. With consummate skill, Diaz undid the bandage around Giles' arm, provoking a fresh trickle of blood. Then, biting into his own wrist, Diaz sprinkled a few drops of his blood on the poorly dressed wound. Giles felt a warm, burning sensation in the surrounding flesh. He glanced down and saw that his arm was no longer hemorrhaging.

"That should speed the healing. Or, at the very least, prevent you from dying before you can answer a few more questions," Diaz noted with satisfaction. He rose to his feet.

"Might've spared yourself. I haven't any answers to offer...only questions of my own," Giles murmured absently. He stared, intrigued, at his rapidly healing wound, brushing it experimentally with his fingertips.

"Don't poke," Diaz reproached him. Folding his arms across his chest, he prompted, "Tell me your questions, then. What were you so eager to learn, that you let yourself be fooled so easily by the Council?"

His pride wounded, Giles scowled crossly and said nothing for several moments. Patiently, Diaz reached into his breast pocket and withdrew an elegant, silver cigarette case. He slipped one between his lips, returned the case to his pocket, then raised a lighter and ignited the end of his cigarette.

The vampire inhaled, then gently expelled the warm smoke from his mouth. Still, he made no move to harm Giles or coerce him into speaking.

Perhaps it was Diaz's apparent lack of interest in killing him, or his undisguised contempt for the Council; or maybe simply that his quiet, unhurried enjoyment of a minor vice was reassuringly familiar, reminding Giles of an irritatingly arrogant, blond vampire who, contrary to all expectations, had proven himself an ally. Then again, it could have been the massive blood loss, clouding his judgment. Whatever the reason, Giles found himself opening up to his unlikely demon confessor.

"For the past few months, I've been researching past Slayers who survived into their twenties, to determine whether their needs changed as they entered adulthood, whether they had difficulty adjusting."

Diaz chuckled and tapped his cigarette, shaking loose the ash that had accumulated on the end. "That is what the French would call 'une question mal posée'. You think like a human of the twentieth century. For the majority of my years, a Slayer, like any woman, was already an adult at age fourteen." He took another thoughtful drag, then inquired as smoke filtered out from his mouth, "What interests you in these matters?"

Bowing his head slightly, Giles stared at his shoes and murmured, "I have nothing left to offer my Slayer, nothing that I can teach her. She's faced the impossible...countless times, now...nothing has beaten her. Not even death."

Giles raised his eyes to find Diaz watching him intently. Again, the Watcher was startled by the depth of emotion he saw in the vampire's steady gaze.

"I realized I was holding her back," Giles continued. "She let herself rely on me for things she could handle herself. It was easier, I suppose. So I left. But each day thereafter, I felt like I'd betrayed her, failed her somehow. I began to scour every record left behind by previous Watchers about their Slayers. It was after I'd come across a reference to a Slayer in 1809 that the head of the Council sent me looking for you."

Diaz had turned away from Giles. He said nothing for a moment, merely stood, motionless and silent. Then, in a soft voice, he said, "Jacinda...Jacinda Santos."

"There was no mention of her name. In fact, there was surprisingly little about her at all in the Council's archives," Giles admitted.

"Not surprising at all," Diaz countered, his back still to Giles. Ignored, the vampire's cigarette slowly burned down to a column of ash between his fingers. "Undoubtedly, the Council wanted to purge all traces of her from their history. Jacinda committed the cardinal sin."

The cigarette fell to the ground. When Diaz failed to elaborate, Giles prompted apprehensively, "What did she do?"

In the silence, Giles heard the rats skittering across the tracks.

"She loved a vampire," Diaz said simply.

Neither man nor vampire spoke for a while. Then, Diaz turned half-way toward Giles, cocked his head, and observed, "This does not surprise you."

"No, it doesn't," Giles sighed. At this admission, Diaz slowly brought himself around to face the reclining Watcher head-on. Comprehension dawned in his eyes -- and something more.

Respect.

"Your Slayer, too. She loved one of my kind." A statement, not a question. When Giles nodded, Diaz fixed him with a sober, unwavering gaze. "It is more common than the Council wishes to admit. They fear the truth."

"And what is the truth?

Diaz narrowed his eyes and smiled the sinister, toothy smile of a predator. "That familiarity does not breed contempt, but fosters a sense of kinship...awakens a longing for those who walk the same path in the shadows." Absently, the vampire traced his thumbnail over the tip of his index finger until it drew blood. "Kindles the flame of passion."

For the first time since he'd initiated their conversation, Diaz closed his eyes. To Giles, it looked as if the vampire were miles away, lost in another place, another time. When Diaz opened his eyes once more, he stated bluntly, "Jacinda was not the first. Your Slayer will not be the last."

Giles had a disturbing feeling that it would be dangerous to press Diaz any further on this matter, but his curiosity somehow managed to override his better judgment. Leaning forward, he asked, "What happened to Jacinda?"

The murderous look that seized the vampire's face and the barely controlled rage that tensed his entire frame told Giles that his instincts were correct. Instantly, the Watcher regretted his question. However, Diaz regained his composure, and began to speak in a faraway voice.

"Her vampire...loved her as deeply as she loved him. He offered her immortality. And she *accepted*...she was ready to walk beside him as his mate. She would have been his most glorious creation." Diaz paused and clenched his jaw. "For this, the Council killed her. Their assassins surprised her as she was confessing her intentions to her Watcher, and murdered them both. Her lover found them, beheaded and staked through the heart -- a precaution taken by men who considered the union of Slayer and vampire to be an abomination."

"Dear God," Giles whispered, aghast. He wasn't sure whether he was more horrified by the Council's brutality, or by the fact that he knew full well that the Council was capable of such actions, and even worse.

"Your *dear* God had nothing to do with it, did nothing to prevent it," Diaz spat bitterly. "As I told you, Jacinda wasn't the first. So you see, Watcher, I do know how easily the Council will kill one of its own."

Grimly, Giles realized the terrible extent of his dilemma. If Buffy hadn't been in danger before, his unintentional trespass into the Council's darker secrets had now most likely placed her in serious jeopardy. And he was gravely ill-equipped to warn her. If he didn't die at the hands of the vampire who stood before him, and if he survived his gunshot wound, the Council would most likely find him and kill him before he could reveal what he'd learned.

With uncanny intuition, Diaz seemed to anticipate his concerns. "Do you have a name, Watcher?"

Giles blinked momentarily, then replied, "Giles. Rupert Giles."

"Keep yourself alive for the next twenty-four hours, Rupert Giles," Diaz instructed. Calmly, he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a black leather wallet. Thumbing through various business cards, he finally extracted one and handed it to Giles. "Tomorrow night, go to this address. Someone will attend to you until you are able to return to your Slayer."

Although Giles suspected he knew the reason for Diaz's generosity, he thought better than to ask the vampire why he was offering sanctuary to a human, and a Watcher no less. Lifting his eyes from the card, Giles acknowledged his benefactor with a solemn, "Thank you."

Diaz regarded him impassively, then turned to leave. As he walked away, he said, "I do not do this for your sake."

Nodding, Giles murmured to himself, "I know."


//...The Hyperion, Present Day...//


Wearied from the emotional tale, Giles reached for his cup of tea and took a sip. As the soothing warmth slid down his throat, he surveyed the deeply troubled faces before him. Xander grimaced in confusion and clutched Anya's hand. Although she appeared least worried of the group, Anya nonetheless frowned in sympathy and patted her fiancé's hand. Wesley had removed his glasses, shut his eyes, and now rested his forehead against a tightly clenched fist. Tara breathed shakily as tears ran down her cheeks.

Buffy sat very still and stared, unblinking, at the floor.

Slowly, she raised her head and looked at Giles. "I think we need to talk."

"I think we do," a voice agreed from the doorway.

Sheepishly, Giles realized he'd been so wrapped up in recounting his experience that he was unaware how long Angel had been standing there.

"This conversation should wait, then, until all interested parties are here," Giles suggested, knowing that a central figure in Buffy's life had elected not to return to the hotel that night.

Nervously, Buffy averted her eyes. Angel said nothing, but acquiesced with a curt nod, then looked away.

"You're not seriously gonna sleep on the floor, are you?" Dawn demanded as she settled herself beneath the airy comforter on the Host's bed.

Spike snorted. "Anything's better than the work-out mat in the Poof's basement. Don't trouble your head over it, Niblet. This'll do fine. Now, lights out, already."

"Yes, *Dad*," Dawn grumbled as she flipped the switch on the wall.

"Drop the attitude, pet," an irritated growl carried through the darkness.




Next Chapter