Wesley’s arm aches. He feels lightheaded. Drained. The term is so appropriate it makes him chuckle grimly.

“What?” Justine demands. She’s still a bit wild-eyed, and he can tell she’s still afraid he’s going to feed her to Angel. Not a bad idea, really, but the thought of Justine’s blood filling Angel’s starved body makes him ill. Angel deserves better.

He turns to look at her. “You’re still here.” There is mild surprise in his tone. She is utterly irrelevant to him.

“Of course I am.” She rattles the handcuffs. “Where the hell else would I be?”

In response, he gets to his feet and walks toward her. She watches him, fear shimmering in her eyes. He thinks she truly doesn’t know what to expect from him anymore. He unlocks her cuff and pulls her to her feet, forces her up the stairs and onto the deck, where he cuffs her again to the stair rail. It’s raining in a chilly, uncomfortable mist. He leaves her in it and returns below decks to Angel.

Angel is pale, his skin cracked and dry from lack of nourishment. The blood Wes gave him has helped a bit, smoothing some of the lines in his skin, but he’s obviously still not healthy, and an odd smell hangs around him.

Wes touches Angel’s face gently. Angel still looks absent, dazed, no recognition in his eyes, no expression on his face.

“I’m sorry.” Wes’ voice is barely more than a breath. “I’m so sorry.”

His fingers brush over the strong bones, feeling the eyebrow ridge, the wide cheekbones. Heat rises in his own eyes, his sinuses burning, and he registers the sensation dispassionately. It fades. He’s not really capable of crying. Not now.

Softly, he lays his head on Angel’s chest. If Angel weren’t so obviously incapacitated, he wouldn’t dare.

Angel is cold. Sea-water cold. Too cold to be alive, but of course he isn’t. Wes closes his eyes, one hand reaching to cup Angel’s arm as he lies there, nestling against the broad, cold, silent chest.

The smell is suddenly overwhelming, but Wes doesn’t draw away. He just breathes it in, a clinical part of his mind wondering what’s caused it. It’s strong and strange, undoubtedly a side effect of lack of nourishment.

Suddenly Wes needs to get rid of it, or try to. Needs to tend to Angel as much as he can, while Angel is helpless and broken. He lifts away from him, looking down at the still, empty face. He brushes his hand over Angel’s hair.

“I’ll take care of you,” he murmurs. “You’ll be all right.”

Angel just looks at him through vague, seemingly unseeing eyes. Gently, Wes begins to unbutton his shirt.

“What happened is this.” He begins to relate the story matter-of-factly, in bare bones details, as he undresses Angel. Tells how Holtz convinced Justine to stab him in the throat, to make Connor think Angel killed him. How Justine and Connor then teamed up to dump Angel in the ocean. He suspects Angel knows something of this already--who dumped him, at the very least, if not why. Particularly not how Connor was persuaded to go along with it.

He moves Angel’s shirt back, off the wide, cold chest, and sighs. Angel reacts not at all--it’s as if he’s completely shut down. Even his open eyes register little reaction to his surroundings.

His skin feels taut, dry, but there’s a layer of something on it, something powdery and unpleasant. Wes isn’t sure what it is. He’d think perhaps salt, from the sea water, but Angel was dry when Wes took him out of the box. It must be something else. Wes doesn’t want to think about it too much, but his mind worries the problem, anyway, even as he goes to draw warm water into a bowl, and to wash the odd substance gently from Angel’s skin.
Sweat, he thinks. Profuse sweat, which has dried and left salts and minerals behind. But Angel is so cold--and do vampires sweat?

Of course they do. The answer comes to him in a flash--Angel’s sweat-slicked body sliding against his. The memory is so tactile he has to close his eyes to collect himself. He bends closer, taking in the acrid scent. Body salts, minerals, excreted through the skin, then collecting there in a soft layer as Angel’s body wasted beneath the ocean. In his head, it’s all very scientific, but his heart suddenly compresses inside him at the surge of emotion. His hands begin to shake as he softly sponges Angel’s belly. The water pools in his navel, rivulets running down onto his flanks. He feels tears gathering in the corners of his eyes and tries to fight them, but this time he can’t. They run hot down his face as he gently sponges Angel’s stomach dry.

“You see,” Wes begins again, haltingly. “You see, I didn’t know. I didn’t know when I saw the prophecy that it wasn’t real. All I saw was that you were meant to kill Connor, you see. And I knew if that happened it would be too much, that you couldn’t take that, love--“

He breaks off, realizing what he’s said, and swallows hard. Focusing his attention firmly again, he carefully opens Angel’s trousers, easing them down, continuing to clean Angel’s skin. The powdery residue is everywhere.
“I was trying to protect you, you see. I thought it would happen, and no one could stop it.” He stops, staring blindly at Angel’s crotch as he gently cleanses the thick, dark pubic hair. “I was going to take him.” He can barely speak above a whisper. “I had no intention of letting anyone else have him. Certainly not Holtz. I was going to raise him as my own, be sure he was safe. And one day I was going to tell him about his father. His wonderful father, who was good and kind, and who had a soul, and a heart bigger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

He stops again. He simply can’t make any more words. Gently, he continues his ministrations, until Angel is clean enough to suit him. Then he realizes he has little choice but to put the dirty clothes back on him. He doesn’t have any extra clothing for him, and he can’t take him back to the hotel naked.

The hotel. He needs to call them, let them know he’s found Angel. He doesn’t want to. Part of him wants to keep Angel with him as long as he can.

Angel makes a brief, strangled noise. Startled, Wes looks at him. His expression is still frighteningly blank, and he is swallowing in spasms. Wes moves toward the table and slowly unfastens the bandage from his arm.

As Angel’s mouth latches onto the wound, and the sick, slow, dizzy feeling begins to spin through his body, he can think of only one thing.

Angel is alive.