•••

“Sinatra?” Cordelia snickered as the group exited Caritas. “Sorry, Gunn, I just never pictured you as a Rat Pack fan.”

“Lay off, Delia,” Gunn snarled, speeding up to walk next to Angel. He’d finally broken down and returned to the demonic karaoke club. Humility was not his strong suit.

“I thought it was lovely,” Wil said, leaning into Angel. He’d greatly enjoyed the evening; but then, Lorne had told him he was doing well, and it never hurt to have your unofficial therapist give you a good report.

“Excuse me, sirs.” A tall, heavyset man stepped out of a doorway.

The investigators stopped. “Yes?” Angel said, wary. The man was human, but they’d run into many types of trouble. It was probably nothing, though.

Angel and his coworkers were suddenly surrounded. They took defensive stances, turned outward. Angel reached for Wil, shoving him behind the older vampire. “Hey!”

“All human, Wil,” Angel warned. There wasn’t a demon among their attackers, so Wil was defenseless. “Care to explain?” The older vampire asked the tall man.

Their attacker smiled. “No.” With that, the humans attacked.

Cordelia immediately took out the two closest to her. “Angel, do you know these people?” She asked, pulling out the Beretta .380 she kept with her at all times. A few well-placed shots convinced the humans to retreat.

Wesley and Gunn stared at Cordelia in shock. “Delia, where did you get that?”

The ex-cheerleader smiled, checking the safety on her weapon. “A few months ago. It works better than a stake on some things.”

“Like humans,” Angel said, grimacing.

“What was that all about, anyway?” Gunn asked, looking around. The humans had appeared out of nowhere, and had disappeared the same way.

Angel reached out to Wil, trying to reassure himself that the younger vampire was unhurt. “I can’t be sure, but I have a very bad feeling about this.”

“Who would send humans after you? Even if you won’t kill them, they stand no chance against you,” Wesley said, confused. Most of their enemies used demonic thugs, not humans.

“Yeah, none of us are easy targets,” Cordelia remarked as they hurried down the street toward the hotel.

“Except for me,” Wil whispered, leaning further into Angel. Being surrounded by hostile humans had severely shaken the vampire. He was completely helpless against them.

“Wolfram & Hart,” Wesley said firmly. “If they found out that Wil is working for The Powers, and that he can’t hurt humans…then sending humans after us makes sense.”

“Cause none of us would kill a human, and Wil’s no challenge, since he can’t even pinch them,” Gunn added.

Wil trembled in fear. This was his worst nightmare come to life. He’d finally adjusted to having a soul, gotten over Buffy, and been reclaimed by his Sire. Now, after being his Sire’s lover again for just a few short weeks, the strongest evil in the city was gunning for him. Again.

“We’ll just have to get rid of it then,” Fred said, nodding her head for emphasis.

“What?” Cordelia asked. “Get rid of what?”

“The chip. It shouldn’t be that hard, really—a translocation spell or something,” The young woman replied.

“She’s right, it shouldn’t be that hard,” Wesley agreed. “Why haven’t we thought of this before?”

“Never crossed our minds,” Angel said.

“This means another spell, doesn’t it?” Wil asked, grimacing. He could have lived a century before enduring another spell.

“Unless you want us hacking around in your tiny little brain, Wil,” Wesley said, smirking.

•••

“No.”

Fred smiled tremulously at the blonde vampire, trying her best to gain his consent. “I need a picture, Wil. Otherwise…” She emphasized her statement with a loud 'splut' and suggestive hand motions. Wil remained unconvinced.

Angel intervened, putting his foot down. “Wil, you will go with Fred and Wesley to get an x-ray. Tonight.” Wil scowled, but was unwilling to argue with his Sire—at least, not when Angel was in such a bad mood. Finding out that his archenemies were gunning after his favorite childe had ruined his short-lived good mood.

“Fine.” Wil stomped upstairs, slamming his bedroom door behind him. Angel winced. Wil’s room had been relegated to the position of office/study for the younger vampire, since the two were sharing a bed. Apparently Angel was sleeping alone today.

Fred patted Angel on the shoulder. “He’s young, he’ll get over it.” Angel just stared at her. “I mean it. He will. Now you go have a nice warm mug o’ blood, and I’ll write up a spell with Wesley. Sleep well!”

Angel just shook his head at Fred’s eternally chipper attitude, sending him off to bed with a hot drink and a pat on the back, like a schoolboy.

“I take it Wil was…resistant?” Wesley asked Fred as she joined him in the library. He’s suspected that Wil wouldn’t like the idea of an x-ray, but he and Fred had discussed it on the way home and had decided that no matter what type of spell they used, they needed an exact location of the chip—and that meant some sort of imaging.

Fred laughed. “Resistant? No, Angel took care of that.”

“Oh my. What happened?”

“Let’s just say we won’t be interrupted today—by anything.” Giggling, Fred pulled down several books. “So, do you think a simple translocation spell will work, or do we need something more complicated?”

Getting back on task, Wesley examined the first spell Fred found. “I would think not. In removing the chip, we may be leaving a physical gap between key nuclei in Wil’s brain. My hypothesis is that the chip was inserted as a replacement for naturally occurring connections between several sensory/motor nuclei and the periventricular tract. The result would be, of course, a sensation of pain whenever Wil harms humans.”

“But how does the chip only hurt him when the person is human?” Fred asked as she drew a rough sketch of a brain on a piece of scrap paper.

“My first instinct is to say that one of the nuclei the chip connects to is a visual or other sensory area responsible for identifying input—“

Fred cut him off. “But Wil said that he chip still hurt him, even if he thought the person wasn’t human.”

Wesley continued. “Which leads me to believe that the chip itself has some sort of sensor embedded in it—perhaps a monitor for heart rate, body temperature, or electrical signals. In short, anything that would positively identify the target as human.”

“So if you’re right, the chip replaced these connections.” Fred pointed to a schematic she’d drawn. A small square marked the probable location of the chip, derived from Wil’s information on where the surgery had taken place and the location of the nuclei Wesley had identified. “And if we want to remove the chip and still have a functioning Wil, we need to rebuild these connections, because they’ve been cut?”

“That is my current hypothesis, yes.” Wesley frowned. It was generally considered difficult, if not outright impossible, to regenerate brain tissues.

“I don’t think so.” Fred shook her head in emphasis.

“Why not?”

“Well, vampires have remarkable regenerative capacities. In fact, considering some of the cranial injuries Angel has sustained—and survived, I would hypothesize that any damage done to brain tissue is rectified by that healing ability.” Fred stopped for a moment, taking several breaths. “So severing those connections wouldn’t do anything. However, something else would.”

She then turned to the bookcase, pulling down a seemingly out-of-place college textbook she’d brought in some time back. Flipping to the middle, she showed Wesley a schematic. “It’s far more likely to be a setup like this—a microscopic probe, of some conductive metal, embedded in individual axons within the periventricular tract. The chip would send an electric current into the membrane, causing it to fire. There would be another set of probes embedded in the cells of these motor areas, ones that picked up currents instead of sending them. That’s where the chip gets its input.” She sketched out another schematic on the paper. “The entire circuit would be like this: The chip sensors pick up whatever signal it’s using to determine humanity. Then, when Wil moves to hurt the human, and causes any pain, the chip picks up on changes in the human, and sends its output, which results in Wil’s massive headaches.”

She looked up at Wesley, who was frowning, but following along. Taking a chance, she continued. “Remember how Wil gets hurt if he hurts a human, even if he didn’t mean to? That’s because the chip isn’t connected to any cognitive areas. That would be where the actions would be linked to intentions. If it had been linked there, then Wil wouldn’t hurt if he accidentally hurt someone, or hurt someone while trying to help them. They probably didn’t do that because it’s so much more complicated than motor areas. What do you think?”

Wesley studied the schematics. It did pain him to admit it, but Fred was right. This certainly made things simpler, for all of them. “I think you’re absolutely correct, Fred. I had also worried about some sort of destructive mechanism within the chip to prevent its removal, but anything of the sort they had installed would be designed for mechanical removal, not magickal. And from the information we have on the Initiative, they weren’t very reliant on magic.”

“So, which spell do you think will work?” Fred pulled down several more books. “So many of them have a serious danger of taking brain matter out with them, and even if he could recover, it could be very bad until he does…”

“Let me see that one.” Soon the two researchers were engrossed in a pile of spell books and drawings. Wesley was trying desperately to find a spell that they didn’t have to alter—Fred was a bit too eager to ‘customize’ a spell, and that worried Wesley.

•••

“I hate hospitals.” Fred and Wesley had managed to get the vampire into Angel’s car and all the way to the parking lot before he began to balk. Of course much of that was due to his Sire’s glare-of-death as they exited the hotel. Neither human had the heart to tell Wil just how worried and forlorn Angel looked when Wil got into the car with them. It was obvious Angel was worried about his childe’s welfare, but it would do no good to have Wil even more upset.

“Wil, act your age for once? Please?” Wesley grabbed the vampire’s arm and began dragging him into the hospital. Fred took up the other arm, and instead of starting a fight he couldn’t win, Wil just gave up and started walking.

“And how, by the way, do you intend to get access to an x-ray machine, technicians, film, and whatnot?” Wil asked as they passed the admissions counter.

“I know someone,” Wesley said, pulling Wil down a side hallway.

“Who?” Wil asked, wondering why they were going lower into the building’s depths.

“A forensic pathologist.” Fred giggled at Wesley’s statement.

“Forensic…path…You’re taking me to the morgue?!?” Wil stopped suddenly, sending the two humans flying forward. “I am not, NOT going to the morgue!” To emphasize his point, Wil slid down against one wall and sat down on the floor.

Wesley sighed. He’d expected this sooner or later. “Wil, where else can I take a person with a large number of characteristics in common with a corpse to get an x-ray where no one will question those characteristics? Hm? Can you think of some other place with the equipment where there is no line, none of the other patients care if you skip in front of them, and the technicians don’t ask questions? Besides, the pathologist I know happens to be a demon.”

“Oh.” After a couple more minutes of pouting, Wil got up. He didn’t really intend to resist forever, but he couldn’t help wanting to be a prick every once in awhile.

A short, rotund man smelling distinctly of cotton candy met them at the morgue. “Ah, Wesley! How’s Victoria?”

Wesley grimaced. “Gone. Arkie, this is Fred, Fred, this is Arkienim Hustiere.” Wesley gestured back toward Wil, who was lingering in the shadows. “And of course that is Wil, who’d rather not be here, as I’m sure he’ll let us know. Repeatedly.”

Arkie cocked his head to on side, examining Fred. “Fred…Fred…I know you! Physics, right? I’ve not heard about you in ages! What cave did you have yourself holed up in? Good to have you back.”

“Cave? How did you know?” Fred asked, frowning. “Oh, joke! Right. Cave.”

“Can we get this over with?” Wil stepped from the shadows to follow the pathologist into his lab.

“Sure. Why don’t you just slip into this,” Arkie handed Wil a gown, “and then we’ll get those pics made.”

Wil looked askance at the flimsy garment. “You’re taking a picture of my head. Why do I need this? I don’t have clothes on my head.”

Arkie grinned. “You’re clothes will interfere with the equipment. Go change.”

Wesley reinforced Arkie’s statement with a frown, as did Fred. Wil went to change, although he grumbled mightily about it.

Wil returned, dressed in an ancient blue-green hospital gown. “Don’t say it,” he said to Fred as she opened her mouth. “Just don’t. say. a. word.”

Fred grinned. “I was just going to say that it brought out your eyes.”

Wil growled, the turned to ignore her in favor of Arkie. “Can we please—“

“Get on with it? Sure. You know, though, I prefer corpses that don’t talk.” Arkie gestured to a table across the room. “Go lay down there. I’ll position you in a minute. Fred, Wesley, would you wait in my office?”

After the humans had left, Arkie maneuvered Wil’s head into a vice-type mechanism. “Now hold still, ok? Otherwise we’ll be doing this over and over.”

Several minutes later a surprisingly obedient Wil was allowed to get dressed. Arkie packaged up the x-rays for Wesley, sealing them in a large brown envelope.

“They’re all in there, clear as a spring sky. I hope it helps you get rid of that thing in his skull.”

Wil squinted suspiciously at Arkie. “What do you know about that?”

Arkie sighed. “Quite a bit. There aren’t that many of our kind in medicine, so we keep up with what goes on. Damned shame, those chips. Say, if you all find a way to remove them, pass it on? There are more of them out there than you think.”

Having agreed to that request, the trio exited the morgue for a more pleasant environment.

•••

Angel was surprised to see Wil curled up in his bed that morning. The blonde had stayed away the day before and appeared none too pleased with his trek to the hospital. Not questioning his good fortune, Angel stripped down and joined his lover for a day’s sleep, if nothing else. He started to curl around the sleeping form, but stopped. He didn’t want to upset the still-fragile vampire.

A soft snort had Angel turning back over. Wil’s tousled curls popped up from beneath the covers. “Come ‘ere, pillock.” Angel happily gathered Wil to him, burying the younger vampire’s head in his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Wil. It’s for the best.”

Wil sighed. “I know. And I’m bloody well ecstatic about the chip. Hate the thing with a passion. I just…”

“Hate magic,” Angel finished for him. “But it’s not Drusilla casting the spells. Fred and Wesley wouldn’t do anything to harm you.”

“On purpose.” Wil shuddered. What was that yank expression? The road to hell was paved with good intentions?

“Or Democrats, or Republicans,” Angel responded. Wil jerked his head. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “They won’t harm you, Wil.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Angel turned and shifted down until he could see Wil’s pensive face. “Because they know I’ll dismember them and walk into the morning sun if they do.” Satisfied by the shocked look on Wil’s face that his point had been made, Angel settled back and closed his eyes.

Sleep didn’t come so quickly for Wil, who lay awake with Angel’s last words circling in his head.

•••

Gunn watched Fred scurry around the dining/ritual room setting up for yet another spell on Wil. Disgusted, he snorted and turned away. Leaving the room for the more acceptable confines of the lobby, the vampire hunter decided his time was better spent sharpening weapons. Again. He refused to think about just how often he’d polished axes and daggers in the past weeks.

“Still got a cob up your rear over the chip?” Cordelia leaned over the counter, smirking at Gunn.

“Shut up, Delia.” Gun poured oil on a whetstone and picked up a dagger.

“I don’t get you. This needs to be done. Otherwise Wil’s a liability to all of us, and I don’t want my new Pradas ruined because Soulboy jr. couldn’t keep up.”

Gunn pitched down the dagger and whetstone. “A liability? His being here is a liability! Some serial killer waltzes in here, says he’s reformed, and all of a sudden we’re taking him off his leash? That’s not helping us; it’s signing our death warrants.”

Cordelia walked around the counter, getting right in Gunn’s face. “You know what your problem is, Charles? Envy.”

Gunn snorted. “And how did you figure that one out, Dr. Chase?”

Cordelia smiled a not-very-friendly-smile. “Simple, really. Angel’s smarter, faster, and stronger than you. Wesley’s smarter, got a better track record with the ladies—and that’s not saying much--, and has a rapport with Angel that you’ll never have. Then there’s Fred—smarter, more popular, and more adaptable. After all, she was stuck in a cave for five years, but she’s recovering. You, though, you’re just muscle, and not very personable muscle.”

“Muscle? That’s all I am to you?” Gunn stepped forward, pushing Cordelia back into a pillar. “This muscle has saved your hide more than once. This muscle put up with your oh-so-wonderful Angel going bad, getting depressed, screwing his sire and firing me-and you. This muscle,” Gunn raised his voice for effect, “knows this city better than all of you put together. This muscle has a neighborhood that depends on him—one that suffers when you all decide you’re more important than they are. Maybe you should get off your little ‘Seer in Prada’ pedestal and think about what you contribute to this group, Delia. Cause this muscle isn’t going to stick around somewhere where he’s stupid, mean, and not wanted.”

Cordelia watched in shame and dismay as Gunn stalked out of the hotel. That hadn’t gone as planned, not at all. She had never meant to insult him like that, just poke a hole in that damned arrogant pride. Apparently, she used too large a needle. How was she going to fix this?

Fred walked out of the dining room, carrying a large box. “Where’s Gunn? I needed him to help Wesley set up the altar.”

Cordelia winced. “Um, well, I kind of got into an argument with him and…”

“Oh. Can you help me and Wesley then?” Fred just smiled and tilted her head back towards the dining room. “We gotta get this set up before sundown.”

“Yeah, ok.” Guilt was the sole motivator for Cordelia lowering herself to do manual labor.

Fred, Wesley and Cordelia were grinding the last of the required herbs when Angel and Wil ventured downstairs.

“What do we need to do?” Angel asked, looking over the supplies.

Wesley straightened, dropping the mortar and pestle he’d been using. “Not much, really. Wil, if you could refrain from feeding until we’re done?” At the vampire’s nod, the researcher continued. “Most of this is protection—just in case someone tries to interfere.”

“Call me paranoid, but I don’t trust Wolfram & Hart.” Fred smiled at Wil, who couldn’t help but grin right back.

“Don’t know why. Lovely bunch of bananas over there.” Wil draped himself over a chair, watching the proceedings with little interest.

Unlike the last magickal procedure, this spell took little time and almost no effort on the part of Wil. Wesley and Fred positioned the vampire inside a protective pentagram, and then worked the spell. Several minutes and a soft ‘pop’ later, Wesley presented Wil with a small square of plastic with barely-there wires protruding.

“That’s it?” Wil peered at the little contraption.

“It wouldn’t be very big. It doesn’t have to be, really.” Fred watched Wil nervously, and then jumped back as the vampire crushed the thing in his hand.

“Well, only one way to find out if it worked, hmm?”

Wesley and Angel shared a glance. Wil just stepped forward, invading Fred’s personal space. Cordelia stepped forward, but before she reached them, Wil brought one hand up, pinching her left earlobe between two fingers.

“Ow!” Fred yelped—but didn’t jerk back. Wil smiled and loosened his grip on her ear, massaging the spot he’d pinched.

A grunt and sigh from the doorway caught their attention. Gunn was standing there, stake in hand. A look of guilty relief flew over his face, before his usual bored expression took over.

“Guess it worked then, huh?” Wil nodded. “Fine. I’ve got…stuff to do. See you tomorrow.”

Cordelia bit her lip. She really needed to talk to Gunn. “Um, I gotta do something. You all stay out of trouble.” The seer ran out after Gunn, calling his name.

“What was that all about?” Angel asked, confused.

“She and Gunn got into a row earlier,” Wil said, staring at the doorway where the two had exited.

“You heard it?” Fred asked. “I thought I heard shouting, but…”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Wil shrugged. “Delia’s a smart girl and Gunn’s alright. They’ll work it out.” He smirked. “Or not. I’m voting for ‘not.’ It’s fun watching them snarl and scratch at each other.”

“Wil!” Wesley and Angel groaned together.

“What?” He squeaked. “As if you don’t like how those two keep going at it?”

“That’s beside the point, Wil. Don’t encourage them. It’s not healthy,” Wesley said primly.

Wil just rolled his eyes. “So, no visions, no appointments, no raving mad humans after me with a stake. Who’s up for Caritas?”