Numb and Number: Chapter One

[jesterladyfic]

Chapter One


35 years earlier


Oz gunned the van into fourth gear as they raced down the autostrade to escape the blast emanating from the city behind them.

“Get a move on, Dog-Boy!” came a shout from the back. “I’m bloody losing him back here!”

“We’ll get there,” Oz replied calmly as he shifted into fifth.

He pulled into the circular drive of the emergency section of the hospital just outside the blast zone and leapt
out to help the irate vampire carry their comatose friend into the waiting room.

“We need help. Now!” Spike announced to the waiting room. A nurse looked up from the desk and blanched at
the sight before her. The man Spike held in his arms had black and red marks spider webbing from his neck down
and on his arms and presumably over the rest of the body. The skin beneath the marks had turned blue, but the
most horrifying part was the vacant look in the man’s eyes.

“Move it, bint!” Spike growled as she stared at him and his burden. She pressed the intercom button and practically
screeched into it in Italian, and they could only just manage to understand her.

“I need a full team to the waiting room, stat!” She turned to Oz and asked in halting English, “What his name?”

“Wesley Wyndham-Pryce,” he answered. She handed him a clipboard to fill out as the team came rushing into
the room and relieved Spike of Wesley and wheeled him away. Spike and Oz watched him depart, the adrenaline
leaving their bodies as the situation left their hands. They waited.


5 years earlier


He had never known such rage or such pain. Each jab, each burning memory, each was his own fault. He didn’t know if he could contain it. But he would, because that’s what he did.

Oz set the empty glass down on the table and stared at the smooth surface beneath his fingers. His face showed no
emotion but his silence spoke eloquently enough. Heels click clacked on the tile floor coming toward him.

“Can I get you another one, honey?” the waitress asked him.

“Sure,” he answered, not looking up. She nodded and took his glass.

“Can I help?” a voice asked him. He looked up. The visage he beheld hit him like a blow, but only his jaw
muscles clenched tightly. Standing there was a young girl about his age with short, feathery red hair, an eager
smile, a slight build and big brown eyes. But she wasn’t her.

“No thanks,” he replied. She nodded but offered once more, a real desire to help evident in her words.

“I’d do whatever I could.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I’ll be over here.” She turned and walked back to her table. He watched her go, emotions and memories
pouring over him in waves. But she wasn’t her.

She opened up the paper and read it along with her coffee. He watched her read, studying her movements and
expressions. She had a frown on her face while she read the front page, though it lightened when she got to the
comics. Her whole body moved forward eagerly at the sports section. She wasn’t her.

Oz finished his drink the waitress brought him and left a few bills on the table. He went into the restroom and
leaned against the sink looking into the mirror. His face was haggard and weary and his body sagged as though it
could barely hold up his tiny frame. A vicious red claw mark and a slightly less discernable surgical incision showed
on his neck as he bowed his head. They would be with him always. But he didn’t need a reminder. He already
knew she was gone.

He clutched a talisman he wore on a bracelet around one wrist and a small moment of peace ran over him. He
swallowed hard and walked out of the restroom toward the exit.

She glanced up at him as he left.

“I’m sure she really loves you,” she offered. Oz paused, his back to her and his hand on the door handle.

“She does,” he said quietly and then walked out the door into the sunshine. She looked after him thoughtfully,
the sun flowing through the window and lighting her hair up like fire. But she wasn’t her.


3 and a half years later


Spike stormed into Wesley’s office cursing and pacing, saying words that Wesley looked surprised he understood and a little ashamed he did. Spike stopped abruptly when he realized he’d interrupted Fred and Wesley in the midst of a meeting or perhaps love fest more accurately described it.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Angel’s just…” he trailed off. They nodded in understanding. “I’ll get outta your hair.”

“No, Spike,” Wesley told him, “it’s okay.” He turned to Fred. “I’m sorry, but I just remembered an appointment I
had with the head of that new demon cult that we’ve been negotiating with. It’s rather important.”

“Then you’d best get going.” Fred smiled at him. Wesley’s face softened and he treated himself to a kiss
before going out the door. Spike snorted but seated himself comfortably in Wesley’s desk chair with his feet on the
desk.

“I envy you, you know,” he said conversationally. Fred perched on the edge of the desk.

“Why’s that?”

“You know what you want and you went after it and got it,” he replied. Fred nodded.

“Is this about Buffy?”

“No! It’s about Santa Clause!” Spike exploded. “Cause all I’ve ever cared about is a jolly fat demon who goes
around eviscerating children!”

Fred jumped and then said sternly,

“I’m just trying to help, Spike! That’s no call for biting my head off.”

“I’m sorry, pet,” Spike said, chastened.

“Is Santa really an eviscerating demon?”

“Sure thing, luv,” he replied. “Been around for years.”

“So did Buffy slay him?” she asked. Spike snorted again.

“Nah, bloke never leaves his igloo. But she’s gotten plenty of other nasties in her time, including me. Dropped
an organ on me once.” Fred chuckled a bit and they sat in companionable silence while Spike waited until she
worked up her courage to broach a subject that hadn’t met with much success the last time she’d tried. She did all
too soon.

“Why don’t you go to her, Spike?”

“Because who’d have me?” he asked. “I don’t know. All I’ve ever wanted was her, but I don’t know who I am
anymore or why I’m back or what the bloody hell is going on in this world. And someday I’ll search heaven and earth
to find her, but not yet. Gotta figure out just what William the Bloody Spike is yet.”

“Until then?” she asked quietly.

“I miss her like hell.”


3 months later


He sat there looking out into the back alleyway, the alleyway filled with blood and gore and rubbish and corpses.

Spike sighed as he looked at Wesley and thought back over the last few months and the events that had
brought the former Watcher to his present state of indolence. The blank face of the man staring out the window was
the face of one dead, dead because of a girl.

Angel had been furious when Fred had been killed. His grief was overwhelmed by rage that one of his own had
died and died under the roof of Wolfram and Hart. He’d told them to get out, to leave their work and he would follow.
They’d done so and all of hell had been unleashed upon them.

Wesley had died when Fred left them. Angel’s anger choked his actions and he was completely irrational, but
Wesley’s mind had no rationality to begin with. Gunn’s guilt had driven him to almost complete silence, but Wesley
never spoke a word to anyone. Lorne’s drinking had grown constant and he never left the bar, but Wesley didn’t need
alcohol to drive him over the edge. Spike’s heart had been broken by the death of the person who tried to save him,
but Wesley’s heart had disappeared when she did.

Legions upon legions had rushed against them down in the alley behind the Hyperion. Spike fought them all,
Angel fought them all, Gunn fought them all, Lorne had left town, completely despondent, but Wesley fought them
all. He fought though he was dead.

When it was over they stood victorious, victorious being a subjective word in this case. Gunn was dead. The
tide had been stemmed but not broken. They would be hunted for the rest of their lives. Illyria had stood and
watched and when Spike and Angel had lifted Wesley’s body from among the carnage and moved a small spark of
what looked like life into him, she walked away with Fred’s body leaving four dead men behind her.

Spike looked back at Wesley again who had still not moved, nor spoken, nor eaten anything of his own volition
from that moment on. He just sat there. He sat there because he was dead.