Title: Equivalent Exchange (6/6)
Day/Theme: October 11. no place like home
Series: Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Character/Pairing: Angel, Wesley, Connor, Buffy, Fred, Gunn, Lorne, Spike; Fred/Wesley, Buffy/Angel, Spike/Buffy mentions of Angel/Cordy, Connor/Cordy, Spike/Connor UST if you want to read it that way.
Rating: PG
Summary: To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. Unbeknownst to Angel until destiny caught up with him, the true price for Connor's new life was Dawn Summers'.
Notes: Takes place post Damage with Angel, with some references to what happened in You're Welcome.

Gunn dropped a file on Angel's desk. "I can get us out of here without too much hassle." He paused then added. "At least for now."

Angel folded his hands together and asked, "What changed your mind about leaving?"

"Funny how finding out your memories were modified and a friend dying can change things," Gunn told him.

Angel didn't open the file just yet. "Did you always know how to get out of here?"

"Like I told you before," Gunn said and then tapped his forehead, "Wolfram & Hart just upgraded what was already there." He shrugged. "I didn't need an upgrade to find a loophole or two."

"You're losing what they put in you," Angel said.

"And I could find a way to get it back," Gunn said, not without sharpness. "I'd be getting out even if I wasn't losing it. I'm not doing anyone any good here. Wes, Fred, Lorne, Cor -" his eyes flickered, "they follow you. That's never been why I'm with you."

"Going to join Spike?" Angel asked, folding his arms. "Apparently he's the new Champion for The Powers."

"And we were just talking about me making smarter choices," Gunn asked, shaking his head and turning around.

Before he could leave the room, Angel said, "I'll leave if they all want to. I'm not leaving anyone else behind."

"Did you hear a word I said?" Gunn asked and turned around again in order to walk out of the room. "Give me a week and I'll get us out."

"So," Fred said as she folded her hands behind her back and rocked forward, closer to Wesley. "No more work." She was, indeed, correct. They'd already left Wolfram & Hart and arrangements for Cordelia's funeral had been made. "It's kinda freeing, isn't it?"

It was, in a way. But Wesley much preferred to have something to focus on. If things had been slightly different, he would be helping Angel set up Angel Investigations again. But things weren't that way and they hadn't talked properly in over two weeks.

Even after Cordelia's funeral, when they spent the entire day together, few words were exchanged.

Fred plopped down on the bed, catching Wesley's wrist in her hand and pulling him down with her. "You should stay at the hotel with us for a few weeks. Wolfram & Hart aren't really known for being reasonable." She looked directly into his eyes. "Safety in numbers, right?"

Wesley fiddled with his hands and tried not to think about the fact that he could smell her perfume and they were so close their shoulders were touching. "Gunn insisted that I didn't go back to my apartment until he was sure it was safe for me to do so."

"I'm glad he convinced you to stay," Fred said. "But I'd be lying a whole lot if I didn't say that I'm a little disappointed. It would have been fun to convince you to stay myself."

"Do you think that Wolfram & Hart would go after you specifically?" Wesley said, the thought just occurring to him. "Surely they've must have observed that you - "

Fred grabbed his face with both of her hands. "Talking isn't getting us anywhere." Then she kissed him.

She had pushed him down on his back and was licking the roof of his mouth when Wesley forced himself to pull away to ask, "For clarification, does this means we're together?"

"If you have to ask, I'm not doing my job right at all," Fred said as she kissed down the line of his jaw.

"I'm suppose I'll have to let you make your point," Wesley murmured and his heart skipped a beat when Fred took that as invitation to unbutton his shirt.

"Can we not have any more funerals ever again?" Connor asked.

Buffy sat down next to him on the bed. "We can try."

"I thought Cordy was the only one who loved me," Connor said, abruptly. "Part of me still feels that way." He was glad that Buffy wrapped her arm around him. "It's also kind of creepy because she was also into Angel." He turned to look at her. "Do you want to know the creepiest part?"

"No," Buffy said. "But tell me anyway."

"I think she was also like a mom to me," Connor leaned against Buffy some. "I can remember her holding me when I was a baby."

Buffy apparently had no words for that or else Connor knew she would have said something.

"The bright side is that is that I find it easier to cope with the fact that my sister had sex with my father with that in mind," Connor said.

"Don't joke about this," Buffy said, tightening her grip around him.

"Everything is jumbled up," Connor said. He brushed his fingertips across the blanket that covered his hotel bed. The blanket he remembers having his entire life didn't make it out of Sunnydale and the ratty one he found in the dumpster in another set of memories is probably long gone. "Let me just do this my way while I try and sort everything out."

"I can do that," Buffy said.

Connor moved out of her arms in order to stretch out on the bed on his back. "You should also reconsider not talking to Angel forever."

Buffy's entire body tensed up. "This isn't something we're going to discuss, ever."

Connor rolled over on his side. "Just because the part where I had sex with my mother figure creeps me out more than you having sex with Angel doesn't mean I'm not creeped out at all. So it's not like I'm all that interested in reading your diary entries on him anymore. So listen to me, okay?"

The tension in Buffy's muscles didn't melt away. "I'm not going to pull away from you again."

"It's not that," Connor said and it wasn't totally a lie, because that wasn't the thing he was worried about the most with his sister. "It's just that you're in pain."

"Kinda late for a walk, isn't it?" Spike said.

"I could be on patrol," Buffy said.

"I've seen you patrol," Spike said, "so I know when you're not doing that. For one, you don't have a stake."

Buffy faced him and folded her arms. "Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there."

"You think I lived this long without being able to tell when a Slayer is out for a kill?" Spike asked.

Buffy walked over to a nearby bench and sat down in it. When Spike didn't move from where he was standing, Buffy motioned for him to sit next to her with her hand.

"Do you want to talk?" Spike asked, and he was facing forward and away from her.

Buffy looked at him in spite of that. "You promised me that you would protect Dawn," she said.

"And Connor," Spike agreed. "Meant it too. With both of them."

"I don't think I'm every going to get used to that," Buffy said. Part of her wanted to rip off his clothes and demand sex on the small change that it could help her forget, if just for a second. But Connor and Dawn deserved better. Spike, too.

"Probably not supposed to," Spike told her.

Two years ago, he would have, at the very least, set his hand on her shoulder. Last year he would have tried to before jerking away. Now, he was completely still.

"No, it's probably not," Buffy agreed. She set her hand on top of one of his and briefly squeezed it before standing up. "Thank you."

"I remember when Cordelia made these cards," Angel said. He didn't look up from the business card he was looking at. He traced the crudely drawn Angel on it with his index finger. "I don't even know where she got these done. I wanted to - " he stopped abruptly.

Angel heard Wesley walk fully into the office and shut the door behind him. "If you're still brooding about it, I need you to understand that you didn't."

Now Angel looked up at him. "I didn't what?"

"Kill Cordy," Wesley said.

Angel slapped the card down on the top of the desk. "I might as well have. I should have - "

Wesley cut him off before he could continue. "How could you have possibly known that Cordelia was going to be possessed and that she'd always been destined to?"

"There are things that I could have done," Angel said.

"Like I did, with Connor?" Wesley asked. His eyes didn't flicker away, but Angel's did. He heard Wesley walking over to him and piling some papers on the desk with care in order to make room for him to half-sit on the desk. "Some things cannot be prevented. In your case, that's something that is especially true."

Angel said nothing.

"I spent quite a bit of time looking over the files Wolfram & Hart have on you," Wesley said. "Everyone who becomes important to you or will become important to you will ultimately suffer for it."

Angel has known that since Buffy told him to close his eyes before sending him to hell.

"For you," Wesley continued, "hope will forever be something you must strive for harder than anyone else to have because things like what happened with Connor and Dawn don't just happen - they were destined to."

"What the hell am I supposed to do then?" Angel said, putting all the violence that he was feeling into his voice and looking at Wesley in the eyes when he did so. "Send everyone away again? That always turns out well."

"Carry on in spite of it," Wesley said. "Life is painful for everyone, no matter the circumstances in which they live. But with you - the ones who chose to follow you - have something many people don't: meaning."

"Why the turn around?" Angel asked, remembering Wesley's words to him a few weeks ago.

"Not all change is bad," Wesley said, flushing slightly. Angel didn't need to smell the sex on him to know he was talking about Fred. "Perhaps I am the the person who'll sacrifice anything to protect the people around me, but you're the one who'll do anything to save the people around you, no matter the price you must pay to do so. That is something I now understand about you."

Angel looked back down at the business card. "That's only one way of looking at it."

"The only way you can be certain of that is if you talk to Connor and Buffy," Wesley told him.

"Buffy doesn't want anything to do with me," Angel said and covered the the business card with his hand.

Before Wesley could say anything, the door opened. Wesley and Angel both turned around.

It was Buffy.

Wesley made his leave and made sure to close the door behind him, but Angel hardly noticed. He tucked away the business card and motioned for Buffy to sit down.

Instead, she walked over to Angel so she was standing in front of him. "Part of me wants to thank you because I have Connor now. Another part of me hates you so much because you took away Dawn."

Angel watched her, made sure that there was nothing else she wanted to say, before speaking. "I never wanted it to end up like this. I know what she means to you."

"No one else mattered to me, not like her," Buffy said. She set one hand on the desk, as if it steady herself. "Not even you. For the longest time, she was the only part of me I could - " Her head inclined to the side so that she wasn't looking at Angel anymore, "and now it's him."

Forcing himself to look at her even she couldn't or wouldn't look at him, he said, "I know what that's like. So long as he's alive, so will I."

"Do you ever wish it would snow again?" Buffy asked. She wasn't looking away from Angel any longer.

"Yes," Angel said.

Suddenly she was in his lap and he wasn't sure if he grabbed her or if she crawled on top of him and when their lips came together he was pretty sure that he didn't really care how it happened.

She still kissed him like he was the only thing that kept her from sinking and he still kissed her like it was the last time he would ever get the chance.

After Buffy didn't come back to the hotel they were staying at, Connor made his way over to the Hyperion - he knew where it was from memory.

The lobby was empty except for Wesley, who was looking through some books on the counter. He looked up when he heard Connor enter and said, "Your sister should be down in a few hours."

As he walked across the lobby and over towards Wesley, Connor asked, "Aren't you going tell me what she's been up to?"

"I thought I'd spare you the knowledge of things I imagine you'd rather not know," Wesley said as he marked and closed the books he had been reading with care.

A thought struck Connor. "What about his soul?"

"Considering the circumstances, I don't think perfect happiness is a risk he's taking," Wesley said. He looked down at his hands. "Speaking of which, I suppose I should apologize to you. I did have a role in all of this."

Connor walked behind the counter to sit down. He didn't have an answer for Wesley's apology, but he did have a question. "What did you plan to do with me?"

Wesley sat down across from him. "My plan was to raise you as my own. I'm afraid I didn't think it all completely through, however. I - I had limited time plan."

Connor nodded at that. Then he asked in a slow, hesitant voice, "Does it feel real to you?"

Wesley leaned back in his chair and gave Connor a thoughtful look. "Yes. However, since it was a memory that changed me so completely, it's sometimes difficult to process."

Connor didn't get to say anything before Angel walked down the stairs. Glancing at him and then back at Wesley, he said, "Can we..."

"Of course," Wesley said as Angel walked over to him.

Connor watched them exchange a look before Wesley got up and left the lobby without a word. Connor watched his disappear up the stairs before turning towards Angel, who was now sitting where Wesley had been.

"You probably have a lot of questions for me."

"Not really," Connor said. "I get what you did."

"It wasn't - "

Connor cut him off. "Can we just not talk right now?"

Angel didn't say anything else and Connor didn't leave his side for a few hours.

Connor was putting the last of his clothes into his suitcase and wondering how he and Buffy somehow ended up moving in with Angel and if the weirdness of it all was something he'd ever get used to when someone spoke:

"Need any help?"

Connor looked up from his suitcase and to Spike, who was standing in the doorway. "Not really. Don't have a lot to pack." He zipped the suitcase up and sat down next to it.

"I'll make sure to warn you next time," Spike said.

"Or you could just not explode again," Connor said. He pulled at a stray strand of string on his suitcase.

"Can put it on my list," Spike said.

"Good," Connor said. He still refused to look at Spike. "I'm tired of people dying."

"Done," Gunn said, singing a the last piece of paperwork to finalize leaving Wolfram & Hart with a flourish. "We are officially through working for them."

"Can't help but notice you didn't say we were done with them," Angel said. He was sitting in the office desk, across from Gunn.

Leaning against a wall doorframe with his arms folded, Wesley rose an eyebrow. "Surely you realize that the hard part is just starting?"

"I think I'm past the hard part," Angel said, "and on to the annoying part."

"Wolfram & Hart are not to be taken lightly," Wesley chided in a mild tone.

"Stop being a party pooper. This is the last night everyone will be her for awhile an we should enjoy it." Giles, Willow, and Xander were going back to England to make arrangements needed to move Buffy's base of operations to L.A. later that night. Wesley turned around, startled, to face Fred, who planted a brief kiss on his cheek. "And help me prepare for dinner."

"But we're ordering in," Wesley said, his face shifting into confusion for a moment before his eyes widened slightly and he said, "oh, of course."

Lorne took his place, drink in his hand, as Fred led Wesley to her room and shook his head. "Well, at least he's starting to catch on."

"Food's here and everyone's - " Connor's voice faded away when opening Buffy's door revealed to him that she and Angel were kissing.

"We were... unpacking," Buffy said as she and Angel pulled away from each other. "And got distracted."

"You do know I'm so going to say I was 'distracted' next time I break curfew," Connor told her.

"You'll still be grounded," Buffy assured him.

"You know, technically I'm nineteen," Connor said, but he knew this was an argument he wasn't going to win by the look on Buffy's face. He still gave Angel a pointed look.

"I'm pretty sure this is one of the things I'm supposed to stay out of," Angel pointed out.

"You are a coward," Connor told him as he led the two them out of the room and down the stairs into the kitchen where everyone was waiting for them.