Finding Answers. Or maybe just more questions.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Continued from here.

The world reeled, and Wesley reeled with it. Everything -- well, whatever had been in the canister -- spread through his brain, moving like a tidal flood, sweeping away most of his consciousness with it. He wasn't aware of his hand letting go of the delivery device, but he did hear it hit the floor, the sound echoing slightly as steel hit cold tile.

He waited for the darkness to swallow him up, or at the very least to feel himself hitting the floor as well, but instead someone with strong arms caught him.

There were two sets of memories -- one real, one artificial -- and a voice in the back of his head.

Comments

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike touched Wesley's shoulder but got no response. "Wesley," he said, getting increasingly worried. "You've got to snap out of it. Talk to me."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley heard someone speaking, but he wasn't sure if it was real. He felt utterly overwhelmed, as if he'd suddenly sped through several years all at once, everything rushing over him, no, through him.

Hard hands. Something held over his face, and he couldn't breathe, and whoever was touching him shouldn't be, and there was shouting and...

"Oh God," he whispered, needing to hear it but unable to bear it at the same time. "What did you do?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

A vast array of emotions flickered across Wesley's face, and he tensed beneath Spike's hands. Spike could hear his heart pounding and his breathing becoming harsher. "I didn't do anything. It's okay. You're okay," he assured him, hoping that he was speaking the truth. "You've got to focus. Remember where you are."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

It was too much, too much. Wesley moved away from whoever was touching him blindly, not trying to get away as much as break contact. There wasn't enough air in the room.

"I'm all right," he said, not knowing who he was talking to but sensing that reassurance was required. The surface under his hands was cool and his mind was racing.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Watching helplessly, Spike sat back as Wesley pulled away. "Right," he said automatically, all of his attention focused on the other man.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I took his son," Wesley said in disbelief.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"What are you talking about?" Spike asked.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley twitched, then looked at Spike, actually aware of his presence for the first time since... God, how long had it been? Hours? "I took Angel's son," he said, hoping that it wouldn't sound real even though he knew it was, painfully so. "It didn't matter that I was trying to... and then..." His hand flew to his throat.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

It was obvious to Spike that Wesley was still confused by what had happened. "Angel doesn't have a son," Spike said very calmly. "He's a vampire, remember?"

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"He did," Wesley said. The 'real' memories, if that's what they were, seemed to be growing stronger. More convincing. "He and Darla. They had... a boy." The last two words echoed, catapulting him back in time to a place where he'd watched an ultrasound on a hospital screen. "A son."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Angel and Darla?" Spike shook his head and laughed. "Think you need to lie down for a bit longer, mate. Two vampires having a child? Not possible. Unless they turned one, but Darla always hated children, except for dinner."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Uncertainly, Wesley looked at Spike, part of him wanting the vampire to be right, for these memories to be some sort of illusion. But, "They had a son," he insisted, pushing himself to his feet and then finding it necessary to lean against the wall. "And I was trying to protect him, and I took him. And Angel tried to kill me."

A wave of dizziness washed over him.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike was at Wesley's side in an instant, not touching him but standing close enough that he could easily keep him from falling. "Take it slow," he said. "All of it."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"Angel has to know," Wesley said automatically, but that thought was followed closely by the realization that Angel did know. "Oh God. The Father will kill the Son."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"What does that have to do with... Is that why you took the kid? Because of a prophecy?" Spike asked, bits of past conversations beginning to click into place.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"Because of a false one," Wesley said. "I don't..." He turned so that his back was against the wall, let his head rest on it as well. "But Angel still remembers."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Are you sure?" Spike felt like he was trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what it was a picture of, but he had to trust what Wesley thought was true. If Angel remembered and the others didn't, if he knew that their memories had been tampered with and hadn't said anything... "Let's go find the bastard. Right now."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley had latched onto the first thing Spike had said. "He said it. The Father will kill the Son. And when I asked him about it, he tried to..." His hand went to his throat again, feeling unblemished skin, no scar tissue. "It's not there."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"What isn't?" Spike looked at Wesley's throat but saw nothing out of the ordinary. "Wait, you said he tried to kill you. D'you think he bit you?" He scrambled to make sense of it all. "These new memories can't be bloody real."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"No," Wesley said. "No, someone else slit my throat and took Connor. Angel..." The memory of Angel's speech, smooth as silk, flowed over him, then was viciously replaced with a pillow held down over his face.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Wesley flinched, pain and confusion clear in his eyes, and Spike had no idea what to say. If these memories were real, they were worse than he could have imagined.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

His heart was beating too quickly, and Wesley was beginning to think that perhaps Spike had been right -- maybe he should have tried to get more information before taking back what had been stolen from him. Grateful for the wall at his back, he slid down onto the floor, trembling. "I'm all right," he said again, hoping to convince himself. "This is just..."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Spike squatted in front of him, never taking his eyes off of Wesley's face. "Take some deep breaths," he said. "No way you can make sense of it all at once."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"More than a year," Wesley said, raising his eyes to meet Spike's, searching them. "Everything... altered. Changed." Another thought struck him. "God, what if... what if there's more? How would I know?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"One thing at time, mate. Still don't know what went on here," Spike said. "But I know who's got some answers, and I know just how hard to hit to get 'em."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"He definitely knows something," Wesley said, wishing it weren't true. "And he knows the rest of us had our memories altered, or else why the song and dance this morning?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"What happened this morning?" Spike asked.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"I asked him about it -- the prophecy, because he'd mentioned it and I had no idea what he was referring to. He got flustered, tried to tell me that there are millions of prophecies, half of them untrue, and that he can't be held accountable for stupid things that he says." Wesley rubbed at his temple as if doing so might erase the worst of the memories, new and old both.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"So he's deliberately - but badly - hiding what he knows. Don't suppose you remember anything about what happened right before your memories were taken, do you?"

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to sort through which memories were which, trying to figure out where the newer, false ones began. "Connor killed Jasmine, then... ran off. Angel was very concerned about him. And then Lilah showed up and offered us Wolfram and Hart."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Wait, Connor is Angel's son? The child you stole? But he killed Jasmine? And wasn't Lilah dead?" Spike shook his head. "Explain it to me later. Your memories changed when you started at Wolfram and Hart?"

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley thought hard. "I think so. But if Angel's known all along..."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Why didn't his memories get taken, too?" Spike asked.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"He probably set it up," Wesley said flatly, the realization making him feel ill.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Bugger this," Spike said, shifting his weight to rise to his feet. "Let's go see what he has to say for himself."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley stayed where he was. "What's the point?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"To get some answers, to find out what the bloody hell is going on," Spike said. And maybe, if things work out, to bash my know-it-all of a grand-sire into a pulp.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

"He's going to deny it," Wesley said, getting slowly to his own feet. "If he's kept it from us all this time, he's not going to come clean now. Not unless we have some sort of proof."

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"This isn't proof?" Spike gestured to the room.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Wesley just shook his head, not sure he wanted to put into words what the thought of seeing Angel right now did to him. How it conjured up some memories that, honestly, he would have been happier not to have returned to him, and how at the same time it made him feel a hot, searing anger toward Angel for having them taken.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Okay, then." Spike knew that it wasn't his battle to fight, as angry as he was on the others' behalf, so he forced himself to give in to Wesley's wishes. He surveyed the room with its open cases and fallen equipment. "What do you want to do with the other canisters? Put yours back and hope no one notices it's empty? Take your friends' so you can set them right?"

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

With two sets of memories separating and converging in his head, Wesley could see more clearly than ever before how each decision came with so many potential results. His mistakes were lined up for him to look at, and the fact that he could see how they'd been made didn't give him any consolation at all.

"I can't..." He swallowed, looked from the canisters to Spike. "What do you think?"

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

"Guess the first question is," Spike said, picking up the delivery device, "whether whatever you just put into your head is real. I know it feels like it to you, but it could've been whipped up to drive all of you apart later on. Angel could already have been mucked with to make him say things that would make you suspicious. Why would he have let you lot get zapped? You're his friends."

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

All Wesley knew was that it felt real. The possibility that he might have just walked himself into a trap... "I don't know what to do," he admitted in a whisper.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

Continues here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/reality_bends/7571.html).