**********

"Flush," Wesley said, putting the cards down on the bedspread. "For crying out loud, Bess, stop singing or choose a recognisable tune!"

Doyle had just been thinking the same thing but refrained from saying it. But Bess was really a bit annoying today, and awfully alert for someone who had come home at one thirty and fallen asleep on the couch because there was a middle-aged woman in her bed. The guys were more tired, but had agreed to a card game because there was no getting back to bed as long as she sat by their feet with a perky look on her face. She had all the consideration of a five-year-old.

"It is recognisable. 'Everybody tells me I don't smile enough'," she hummed.

Wesley looked up. "Is that the song? Goodness, it sounded so much better last night when sung by a Siren who could actually carry a tune."

"Oh, shut up. You can't sing either."

"I don't attempt to."

Of course, this wasn't entirely true, as Doyle could remember a few horrible shower attempts and a time at Caritas. Before he could decide whether or not it would be unsportsmanlike to mention it, there was a knock on the door. He saw Wesley stiffen considerably and wondered again if they should have left for another hotel after the Watchers found them. Wesley had spoken in favour of it, but Bess had called him paranoid.

"Can I come in?"

Even Doyle was relieved to find it was just Maureen, and he could see the line of Wesley's shoulders relax as well.

"Sure," he said, while the others chimed in with their own variations.

Her cautious look when she opened the door didn't pass unnoticed, and he wondered if old Ed had decided to show up again.

"There's a woman here to see you. She says she's your mother. Helen Wyndham-Pryce."

Now that was unexpected. Wesley had hardly said two words about his mother, and Doyle wasn't sure what to make of that. Judging from Bess's resigned grimace, it was better than the alternative.

"You were right, we should have left yesterday."

"I know." Wesley's voice was tense, and Doyle glanced at his hands. Perfectly steady.

"Stop being such a smug bastard. Okay, you can let her in."

"Why, thank you so much for that permission," Mrs. Wyndham-Pryce said from the corridor. Her voice was dry, not angry like her husband's, but Doyle didn't dare think that was a good sign. Stepping into the room, she added, "There's nothing as charming as your own daughter letting you wait at the door."

She was a tall and rather good-looking woman of about sixty, with more immediate resemblance to her daughter than to her son. This was even more obvious when Bess crossed her arms and glared back at her.

"What do you want?"

"What do you think I want? You've been making a perfect fool of yourself. Not to mention how horribly you've been treating poor Stephen. And now you're sitting there all high and mighty while this woman gets to decide if I'm to be let in or not."

"That woman is called Maureen, and the only reason she's a little bit wary is because father came here the other day with a bunch of Watchers half tearing up the house, making Doyle throw up and punching Wesley in the face."

Mrs. Wyndham-Pryce snorted, briefly letting her eyes wander over Wesley's black eye. "Well, isn't that just like him."

"I'm surprised you'd even know. You always left when the trouble started."

This was getting deeply personal, and Doyle wasn't sure if he should be polite and leave or stay to be with Wesley. He decided on the latter and glanced at Maureen to see what she would do. She didn't move a muscle. From his mother he moved his gaze to Wesley's, whose face had whitened.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't add childish tantrums to your bad behaviour."

"What bad behaviour, exactly? Falling in love with a man who doesn't fit your idiotic standards?"

"How about making poor Stephen miserable?"

"I did not."

"How you treated him was downright appalling. Not to mention the fact that you then proceeded to run off with a demon." She turned to Wesley for a moment. "And you – helping her!"

"What would you have me do?" Wesley asked in a low voice. "It was chaotic in there, with Father's spells flying around."

"Yes, mother, what would you have him do? Or better yet, what would you have me do? You wouldn't let me marry the person I loved, and I couldn't love the one I was supposed to marry. But perhaps I should just have gone along with it, taken it like a lady and spent thirty years in miserable company like you did!"

She screamed the last part, and her mother took a step backwards, but soon came back with full force.

"I never told you to marry Stephen, and I would very much appreciate if you kept my marriage out of this."

"Why should I? Because you're the only one allowed to make a mess of things? Don't you think it affects anyone else when you smile at the world and harp at your family? Why the *hell* didn't you get a divorce?"

"I won't have you talk like that! It's all water under the bridge anyway, and you're only trying to..."

"The hell it is!"

There was a pause in the shouting when the two women stared at each other. Wesley looked absolutely shell-shocked, and Doyle chose this moment to slip a hand in his.

"It's not water under the bridge. It could bloody well be the reason it took me twenty-four years to find someone I could trust and had to hide it when I did. And from what I can tell, it's the same for Wesley."

Mrs. Wyndham-Pryce turned her head to look at Wesley, and Doyle contemplated taking his hand away, but it was too late for that. And in any case, her husband was bound to have told her.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" she asked. Her voice was still cool and dry, but she sounded very tired. "I don't think my mistakes excuse yours, and I really don't see how anything I could do would make a difference."

"Divorce him."

"Don't be silly."

"I'm not being silly. Divorce him. You hate him, why shouldn't you?"

"I will not make a spectacle of myself."

Doyle noticed that she didn't object to the idea that she hated her husband, and it seemed Wesley was ready to take the statement at face value as well. So, new piece for the puzzle that was the Wyndham-Pryce family. If he had known about this when he'd been to college, he probably wouldn't have claimed that Ingmar Bergman had to be lying in his autobiography, nobody's parents were that weird. He desperately didn't want to be there listening to this. Didn't want it to happen at all, with Wesley in the middle of things.

Bess laughed quietly. There were tears in her eyes. "That's always the point for you, isn't it? It has to be perfect, and maybe if we all pretend it is, it'll come true! If we just say we're above all other families, we don't have to notice the fact that they *like* each other, and if we say the children are doing their homework..." She started sobbing, and Wesley's fingernails dug deeply into Doyle's hand. "Then they won't be locked into some cupboard. You know what the worst part was? Thanking him. Every time, I had to thank him for punishing me. Did you know that? You were never around for that part."

Her mother closed her eyes for half a second before replying, "He was the head of the family."

"Says who!?" Bess had been keeping her voice low for the latest parts of the argument, but now she shrieked her question. "Your friends? Tradition? Some prenuptial? I don't care! I want to know why you never did anything. You saw what he did to us! God, mother, did you ever even love us?"

The question hung in the air until Mrs. Wyndham-Pryce raised her head, her eyes meeting her daughter's. "I tried very hard not to."

"God, mum." The term of endearment struck harder because Bess's voice was now down to a heartbroken whisper. "Just.. leave. Please."

Without another word, the older woman opened the door and disappeared down the corridor, shoulders slumping. Bess remained in the middle of the room with her hands closed into fists, but Doyle quickly stopped paying any attention to her as Wesley sank down on the bed. Sitting down as well, Doyle wrapped his arms around him, trying to counter what just happened. In the corner of his eye he could see Maureen patting the back of Bess's head, and he was grateful for that. Someone should be there for the girl, and he had other priorities.

"Poor woman," Maureen said with an absent-minded sigh.

Doyle assumed that she was speaking of Bess and didn't react until Wesley lifted his gaze from his lap and stared with hurt surprise at Maureen. So she'd meant their mother.

"Say what?"

"Well, I'm certainly not taking her side... but she seems awfully lonely."

That was a peculiar thing to say at a time like this, and Doyle watched his mother carefully, trying to understand. He was well aware that this was the family reunion from Hell, but he couldn't see where that made Wesley's mother a victim. She'd been the one to desert her kids when they needed her, not the other way around.

And then it struck him just why Maureen sympathised so much with the other woman's situation, and it was loyalty to her, more than sympathy for some rich bitch he'd never met before in his life, that made him place a quick kiss on Wesley's lips and stand up.

"Got to go," he said, hoping he was doing the right thing.

He grabbed his jacket and stuck his feet in his shoes. Waiting for the elevator he put them on properly, and on the way down stood drumming his fingers on the wall. His three fellow passengers looked at him strangely, but he didn't care. When he reached the ground floor he had half decided this was a bad idea, but he still ran through the lobby and out into the street. Mrs. Wyndham-Pryce had only reached the next block. Thank God she was walking.

"Hey," he said when he came up to her, and she looked at him with irritation before recognition crossed her face.. Then it changed to caution and something resembling disdain. She shook her head and returned her gaze to the street, still walking.

"What do you want?"

"I was thinking we should talk. We're practically in-laws anyway."

He wouldn't have expected a lady like that to be able to stumble over her own feet, and it was strangely reassuring to see it.

"Was a joke? Because it makes a remarkably tasteless one."

"Not a joke." She was really a freakishly tall woman, and walking so quick he had to take double steps to keep up with her. Served him right for saying he liked tall brunettes. But it didn't matter if he liked her or not. With Wesley in his life he couldn't pretend like she didn't exist.

"Do you honestly believe," she said, hurrying her steps even more, "that just because you and my son have some... affair, this has anything to do with you?"

"Yeah, I do. See, I love Wesley, and from what you said about trying very hard not to, I'd say you love him too."

Although she didn't slow her steps, she finally looked at him. "Is there a point to this?"

"Yeah." Doyle licked his dry lips, trying to remember exactly what the point was. "You're going to end up alone. And I wouldn't care - except I know that Wesley would. See, it's like this. If you can't forgive people you care about you're going to feel like shit if bad things happen to them."

He stopped to think about that, stunned that something so like a philosophic statement had come from his mouth. It seemed to have surprised Mrs. Wyndham-Pryce as well. For a moment her face seemed almost pitiful.

"So you think I should go back and apologise to make Wesley feel less guilty?"

"You could do it for yourself too," he suggested. "Listen, I'm partly selfish here. I live with this guy. Helping him with his problems makes my life better, too."

She stopped and turned, staring into his eyes. Right then, she looked like Wesley in some undefinable way. "What do you do for a living?"

That was just so completely out of the blue that he stood there open-mouthed trying to recall if this was some absurdist play and he'd forgotten his script.

"What?"

"Do you have a job at all?"

"Sure I do. Uh... at the moment I work for a tailor. Doing his finances, mostly."

"You're an accountant?" The shock in her voice would have been more amusing if he hadn't partly recognised himself in the picture she seemed to have made of him.

"No, not really. The guy needed someone for the job and I stepped in." Because it was as hard to find an accountant willing to work for a demon as it was for a half-demon bum with an unreliable mind to find places to work. "I used to be a teacher. Third grade."

The shock disappeared, but the way she looked at him had still changed slightly. "Why did you stop?"

Damn. He hadn't realised she wasn't aware of what he was. Lying wasn't really an option, but telling the truth could only get him and Wesley both in trouble. He hoped she didn't carry spells around like her husband did. "My demon side manifested."

He had to hand it to her, she had the ladylike style in complete control. The steel rod didn't for a minute leave her spine although her eyes filled with loathing and fear.

"Demon? You're a demon?"

"Part demon. Once I found out about that, being around kids wasn't a top priority."

"I see. So, both of them, then. All that rubbish Edward filled them with, and this is how it ended up."

At that moment, he could see what his mother had seen, and he felt sorry for her. "Could have been worse," he pointed out gently. "What with the habits Bess had... I've met the bloke. He's nice enough."

She didn't reply, and he slowly started to walk back to the hotel. He'd said what he'd come to say. Anything now was up to her.

"Wait."

She didn't take a single step towards him, trusting that her voice would be enough. And of course it was, not because she knew how to command people but because he needed to make this work, for Wesley. He turned around.

"What's your name?"

"Doyle."

"Doyle... I'm Helen."

There was a shadow of a smile on her face for a split second that almost made her seem shy. Then she hurried off.

**********

Wesley looked at Doyle, who was lying on the bed with his shoes on, reading "The Tale of the Unknown Island", clearly aware that he was being watched, but making no sign to admit it. He had flipped down the moment he came back from wherever he had gone, and had lain there staring at the ceiling for so long Wesley had begun to fear another hallucination was coming on. Eventually he'd picked up the slim volume, and now he was more than halfway through it.

Wesley sat down and stroked Doyle's hair, and was rewarded by a little smile that nevertheless was a bit too dismissive for his liking.

"I don't understand why you don't like this book. It's really nice."

"Doyle, please." It wasn't like him to be this teasing. "What did you say? What did *she* say?"

Doyle sighed and rolled over to face him. "I don't know. It was a weird conversation. I told her to make up with you two, but I don't know if she'll do it."

The thought of Doyle pleading with Wesley's mother to go back was heartwarming in a way, but it was also deeply humiliating. Particularly if it didn't work. Wesley frowned. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes I did. You get hurt, I want to fix it. That's the way it works. You can't tell me you don't feel the same."

Wesley thought back of the many books he'd gone through looking for mind-healing spells and didn't argue.

"Then what?"

"I told her of my demon side."

That was bad on so many levels. Wesley felt his hands go clammy. "What did she say?"

There was a short pause, and then Doyle said, with an odd expression on his face, "I think she blamed your father."

That was so ludicrous Wesley almost burst into laughter. Of course he should have expected it. His mother never missed an opportunity to blame every flaw in the world on his father, and quite often she had a point. In this case, though... well, she could have taken it a lot worse, he supposed. But then, it would have been utterly unlike his mother to start screaming or have any of the expected reactions to such a discovery.

"And then what?" he asked, now more curious than anything else.

"She asked what my name was. I said Doyle, she said Helen, then she left." Doyle smiled at him. "I told you it was weird."

Entertainment value was suddenly gone. "She told you to use her first name?"

"Well, I already knew her last one." Sensing Wesley's discomfort, Doyle continued, "What's wrong with that? You're on a first-name basis with my mother."

"It's not the same." And it really wasn't. Apart from family members, hardly anyone used his mother's first name. Even her friends called her by her surname. And now she'd offered it to a man she'd only met for ten minutes - and a half-demon man on top of it all. She must really have liked him. Wesley felt ashamed of himself for being so jealous.

Maybe Doyle understood some of this, because he reached out a hand and pulled Wesley down next to himself, his mouth seeking out his lover's collarbones. Wesley closed his eyes, trying to enjoy the situation and forget everything else.

"Hey, you," Doyle said with great enthusiasm.

"Hey." The day was beginning to brighten up.

Then the phone rang.

Both men sat up abruptly, sharing a disappointed sigh. It obviously had to happen right now. Wesley untangled himself from Doyle and walked up to the phone, hoping it would spontaneously combust before he reached it.

"Hello?"

"You have a phone call from a miss Cordelia Chase, do you want to take it?"

No, he most certainly did not. "Yes, please."

"Wesley?" Cordelia's voice was exasperated. "I had a vision that looks English, I thought maybe it concerned you."

How on earth could a vision look English? Probably better not to ask. Wesley picked up the hotel pen and note pad. "Okay, shoot."

"There's this demon in danger. Big, black guy with wings..."

"That'd be Raja." In danger? Well, that was hardly unexpected with the Watchers on the trail. The sooner the loving couple was out of the country, the better.

"Raja?"

"He's... a friend. What kind of danger is he in?"

"Hang on, Lorne is babbling something."

He heard talking in the background, and then Lorne's silken voice was in his ear.

"Did I hear right, pumpkin? We're actually talking about the Raja?"

"I don't know about 'the' anything. His name is Raja, he plays the saxophone in a nearby club..."

"Oh my goodness! I knew that description sounded familiar. You've gone and made friends with the Raja? With the world's leading demon musician?"

"Well, he's certainly good," Wesley said.

"Not just good. He's the leader of us all. Music is what we worship, but we answer to him. They say he's better even than Rani Bubu who reigned before him, but that was five hundred years ago, so I couldn't say."

"Reigned?" But of course, that was what Raja meant. He should have thought of it earlier. The wings, the Muse mother - of course this wasn't just any musician. "Lorne, are you a Gandharva?"

"Well, not technically. I applied for membership, but I'm still in training. These things takes years, you know."

"Do you know how many others there are? Gandharva, I mean?"

"Oh, there must be millions of them. But the Raja only reigns over this dimension, and I think we're about fifty thousand. But that's still fifty thousand depending on you to save him, now!"

"Save him from what, exactly?"

"Didn't Cordelia tell you? There's some guy out there who's going to shoot him."

**********

"What guy?" Doyle asked for the umpteenth time as he gathered the few belongings he had brought to the hotel room.

"I don't know." Wesley didn't mind the tedious conversation, because he could understand the sentiment. Things just never worked out easy. At least now they were finally leaving the hotel. Bess hadn't taken the threats to herself seriously, but she'd obliged right away when it was about her boyfriend. Maybe this really was true love.

"But it wasn't your father?"

"According to Cordy's vision it was a young man. Would you call my father young?"

"I wouldn't call your father at all."

This actually made him laugh. His shoulders were tense, and he was building up a headache, and the laughter made him feel better. And that was why Doyle had done it, of course. They'd both been badly affected by the situation - hell, Doyle had been hallucinating three times in the past forty-eight hours, and short as they had been, it was high enough above his average to be scary.

"God, no, me neither."

Someone knocked on the door. They looked at each other.

"Your fault for bringing him up," Wesley said. But he knew it wasn't his father. The knock was too hesitant, too weak, and his stomach tied up in something that could have been anticipation. And he didn't know if he was happy or sad, frightened or reassured to open the door and see his mother there.

"Hello," he said. Stupid, brainless, but safe.

"I just wanted you to know..." She halted for a moment, eyes drifting behind him - to Doyle, he knew - and then back. "I apologise. I'm very sorry for all that has happened."

How very formal she sounded, as if declining a dinner invitation. It was endearing, in a way, but he noticed this almost distantly. He should be feeling something. He *was* feeling something, but what on earth was it?

"Apology accepted," he replied, because it was clear she meant it, and who was he to make her unhappy?

"And I do love you."

That should have made him happy. He *knew* it should have made him happy, he'd been hoping for it ever since Doyle came back with laboured breath and a puzzled expression. But all he could feel was "oh no". Not now, not here, he couldn't take all this. What he wanted was to get his baby sister out of the country with her otherworldly lover, preferably without anybody getting shot, and then get the hell out of there himself, with his otherworldly lover.

"Mother, please, we have things to do."

"I see. Yes. You would have. Um..."

Had she just ummed? His mother didn't um. She loathed people who did, found it sloppy.

"About this demon business... I can't say I'm happy with your life choices. But they're yours to make, and... It's not as if I'm going to have any sons in law that aren't demons. Or aren't sons, for that matter. So I suppose I have to accept what is."

"But I'm not sure I do." And now he knew what it was he felt, and that red pit in his stomach wasn't dangerous, it didn't have to be subdued. He could let it free, and that knowledge made him feel so damned *good* that he didn't have to lash out, he could stay calm and even friendly as he told her, "I'm not even sure I want to forgive you right now. And I certainly can't. Not just like that."

He stopped for a moment, staring at the wallpaper as if it could provide him with some answers.

"Bess is right, isn't she? You do believe that if you say everything is all right, it will be. Well, that's not the way it is. Coming in here today doesn't make up for the past thirty years. No matter what comes in the future, those years still happened."

She had the oddest look on her face. It was half-hidden between the stiff surface, like her emotions always were, but that wasn't what made it hard to read. After all this time, he'd learned how to make out her moods from her face. No, there was something else. He didn't recognise the expression, or was misreading it somehow...

"You won't forgive me?"

"Not for the time being, no."

"Thank God for that." Her wrinkled hand touched his cheek for a split second. "I'll call you."

The door closed, and only then did he understand. It was pride. He'd been seeing *pride* in his mother's face, the first time he'd met her without trying to please her. Seeking an explanation, he turned to Doyle, who looked like a child in a Christmas film.

"I don't understand."

Doyle came up to him, hugging him tightly and leaning his head on Wesley's shoulder. "You finally snapped, Wesley. Sure, you did it as a gentleman, but you did it. Christ, I've been waiting for this for months."

**********