Ah, Wanted. I was rather obsessed with this movie for a few months. Even wrote a massive FanFiction on it. But it died, as did the fic. But I wanted there to be some evidence of the time and effort I put into it, so... here's one chapter. Read and review! Or don't; I'm fairly neutral either way.

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

The door to the train compartment slid open and Wesley found himself walking around in a muffled silence. The only sound above whisper level was that of the train on the tracks; a rather stark contrast to the loud bustle he had faced outside. It was a challenge to force himself to try and act, well, normal. Six weeks of brandishing guns around without any consequences was a hard habit to get rid of. He stuffed the gun out of sight in his pocket and hoped he didn't look too obvious about it.

He looked behind himself. Fox was gone. Last he saw her, she had been chasing Pekwarsky through the station. He hoped she was all right, then snorted. Of course she would be all right. She was Fox. He was more worried about himself. For the first time, he was truly on his own.

Now, where was Cross?

As he walked down the aisle, he caught a glimmer in his peripheral vision. There was a car following the train, and just as he was reflecting on how pointless it was to be driving when there was a frigging train out here, he realized who it had to be – Fox. So he wasn't really alone…. He glanced from side to side quickly as he neared the end of the aisle. Cross was not among the passengers, so he had to be ahead –

He realized it one second too late.

Suddenly he felt someone grab him from behind. Arms wrapped around his shoulder and, as he reached for his gun, wrenched his hand away. He forced himself back and slammed Cross into the window – and in front of him he saw Fox's car catch up to their window, saw her raise a gun –

The bullet shattered the window and went flying at their heads, but Wesley did not see it. Cross jerked them both down and they hit the floor, almost trampled on by the horde of screaming people fleeing for another compartment. Wesley rolled over, saw Cross looking up towards the window where Fox had shot at them, and, trying to take advantage of his distraction, grabbed his gun and raised his arm –

Only to have Cross punch his wrist down and another wave of pain followed. Wesley barely managed to hold back his gasp of pain; his whole arm was numb now.

Cross grabbed him and almost hurled him against one of the seats. Wesley lashed out with his arm but Cross caught it; leaning into his ear, he whispered,

"Wesley-"

Wesley head slammed him – or tried. Cross leaped back and shoved Wesley onto the floor, disappearing into the next compartment. With pain still ripping from his shoulder down, Wesley dragged himself up and grabbed his gun in his other hand. People from the other compartments were fleeing down toward him, and with no other choice, Wesley raised his gun and shouted,

"Out of the way! Out of the way!"

He forced himself through the door and saw Cross on the other side, aiming his gun – but not at Wesley. Frantically he looked and saw Fox's car –

He shouted. "No!"

Cross fired. The window did not shatter; instead, the bullet drilled its way out, leaving a neat hole and a small web of cracks. Passengers screamed and fled towards Wesley, surging around him. He yelled and fought his way through them, finally shoving himself into a clear position only to see Fox's car swerve out of control and tumble into the ditch between the road and the train.

"No!" he screamed again, raised his gun and shot wildly at Cross, saw the other man's left arm jerk suddenly –

The car exploded through the train. Pushed by its own momentum, it had ended up rolling out of the ditch and crashing against the lower half of the train. Glass shattered, metal walls and sidings bent and Wesley saw Cross throw himself behind a seat. Without a thought for himself or for Fox, Wesley hurtled over the car, smashing into people, bodies, seats…

It was as he made it to the other end that he saw Cross suddenly whirl around, gun in hand and aimed squarely at Wesley's chest. He realized that he was going to be shot; that he was going to die at the hands of his father's murderer, his vengeance unfulfilled.

Time seemed lose its grip on him, as if he were standing outside its stream. In his last few precious seconds of life, he could see Cross's expression even in the dim light, see him pull a trigger and the bullet leave the barrel, see the man's determination – and see how it turned to sudden, unexplainable fear –

Wesley saw the muscles in Cross's cheek and neck tense. The man swung his arm in a way not dissimilar from the curving movement of a Fraternity member's arm – and the bullet flew to the side.

Wesley saw it pass inches from his face seconds before he felt the sudden pain stinging the left side of his chest. He fell, and the impact, the shuddering of the train, sent white-hot pain vibrating up to his shoulder, so terrible it blinded him. He barely managed to hold back a yell – he would not scream, he would not give his father's killer the satisfaction of seeing him in pain – aware in the sudden haze of pain only of gritting his teeth to hold it back. He rolled over and felt a lessening of pain, put a hand to where it hurt and felt blood –

Two things happened then. The first, as he forced himself back to his feet despite another lance of pain (but it was nothing, nothing compared to the training he had undertaken in the Fraternity, nothing compared to the bullet he had dug out of his own arm), was that he saw Cross leave the safety of his seat and grab him. Too stunned and in pain to resist at first, Wesley was pushed to the back by the front of his shirt and slammed against the wall of the train. Dizzy and out of breath, Wesley still couldn't understand when Cross grabbed his shoulders and shouted into his ear, "Hold on!"

That was when the second thing happened.

Pushed off the track by the car, the train tilted.

For one second, they were frozen in that slanted position, one side of the train's wheels still caught in the track. Wesley was half-slipping and Cross was on him, gripping his shoulders in a vice-like grip –

Then they fell against the train's walls, and the train slipped free of the track, and the moment broke.

The world suddenly flipped.

The train turned and spun and Wesley felt himself slammed into the window and the glass pierce through his jacket just as the train's side hit the ground. The two impacts thudded through his body like thunder, deep, shuddering – and then the window he had hit exploded up, up over him in a shower of glass particles – until the train rolled over again, and again, and the other side hit the ground and the glass came flying back down at his face.

He covered his face instinctively at the same moment that he felt a great jerk at his arms, almost wrenching his arms from their sockets, and then he slid across metal ridging and heard the glass sprinkling on the metal and ground, but not him, no expected piercing or blinding –

The train's spinning stopped with a sudden jerk that sent Wesley into the wall, his head colliding into the metal surface. Pain exploded behind his eyes in a starburst and he knew nothing.

Creaking.

That was what he first registered – the harsh sound of metal on metal, and he thought for a moment that the damn train was going by his window again and Cathy would be on him to get a new apartment, again –

He tried to move his head to respond before she could speak, but then pain struck him somewhere in the forehead, behind his eyes, and some dim memory struggled up to the surface of his mind – a train, rolling –

He opened his eyes.

He was looking up into the ceiling, or what he assumed was the ceiling. His vision was blurred, overly-bright; he blinked several times, trying to clear it, but nothing happened. It felt like it took a great effort just to stay awake. There didn't seem to be any strength left in his body. He wondered vaguely where Fox was, but he didn't know and couldn't make himself focus on the thought for long. He was only aware of a dull nausea gripping him, pain down his chest and side, and a warm stickiness spreading along the left side of his chest and side and soaking into the sleeve of his arm.

Wesley closed his eyes and lay there. From what seemed like a great distance, he heard moving glass and wreckage, then hurried steps.

"Wesley?"

That voice seemed familiar, but he couldn't think how. He felt hands grab his shoulders and lift him up, felt himself being propped against something…

"Wesley, we have to go. Can you walk?"

No, he certainly could not walk, and furthermore, he didn't want to. Metal had never seemed a particularly comfortable material for sleeping, but this kind was unusually cool and soothing –

He felt hands grab him and he pushed himself off, feeling smooth leather against his fingers – and only then did he remember.

"Shit!" he gasped, really forcing himself back now – where did his gun go, he couldn't find his gun, and all he felt was glass pricking at his fingertips – until Cross grabbed him again.

"Stop moving. You are hurt and we have to leave now."

"I – I am not going with – with you!" Wesley managed to say. He shoved Cross back but it was a weak push; Cross's hands didn't even loosen.

"Wesley…" Cross stopped, looking around. All was silent on the train. "There's much you need to know about the Fraternity-"

Wesley pushed away his hand. "Get away – get away-"

"-but we have to leave-"

"Fuck – fuck y-"

"Listen to me!" Cross jerked at Wesley's shirt. "If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead."

He had a point there.

Cross continued, "Let me get you out and then we can keep fighting, all right?"

Wesley glared at him with as much energy as he could muster, but there was nothing else he could do. He nodded. Cross sighed, and Wesley wondered if he had guessed that Wesley was planning his imminent demise. It was strangely difficult to care, though…

"Good," said Cross. "Get up-"

Wesley tried, but slipped on his own blood and fell on to the floor. He gasped again as his shoulder smacked into the glass. Forget Fraternity training; he was in too much pain and just so tired…

Then he was being lifted by one arm and placed into a seat. He settled his head into the cushion. Staying in the train really didn't seem like a bad idea…

A sound made him crack open his eyes. Cross was at one of the broken windows, breaking any glass still in place with his gun. He looked outside, then crossed to Wesley and lifted him to his feet again.

"Wesley. I need you to go through the window. Can you do that?"

"Mmkay…" He grabbed at the edges, something gnawing at the edge of his mind. "My gun…"

"Nevermind it. Go."

"No…" The gnawing grew stronger. "It's my father's gun…"

"Your – Wesley, you will get another, now – no!"

Later he would realize he was probably delirious from pain and the whole messed up situation, but at the time all he remembered was that he could not lose his father's gun. Perhaps it was something to do with Cross and this idea that he had to take down the man with his dad's old weapon. Maybe he just didn't want to be defenseless. Whatever it was, it gave him enough strength to push himself away from the window and try to look for it.

It wasn't much of an attempt – as soon as he left the support of the wall he collapsed, cutting his hands on the glass. He couldn't even look much there because within seconds Cross had grabbed him and hauled him bodily out the window.

He hit the ground hard, the long grass not helping to break a rather longer fall than he was expecting. He felt dirt getting into his cuts and the grass pricking at his skin, but couldn't do much more than roll on to an uninjured side of his body. The sunlight was beating down upon his head, blinding him.

The sound of someone else landing on the ground, probably with much more grace than he could ever manage, still wasn't enough to get him out of his stunned stupor. That same person shaking at his arm, though…

"Wesley. Get up."

"Mm…"

"We can't stay here, Wesley."

Then he was lifted up again, one arm slung over Cross's shoulder, and half walked, half dragged up the slope. Through hazy vision Wesley could see the destruction around them – the entire train, half of it off the track in some sort of wide semi-circle, the rest partly on the track. The tracks had been raised above the rest of the surrounding land, and they had to trek up the slope, across the tracks, and down another incline to reach the road, which was leveled above them somewhat. By the time they had done this, Wesley was soaked from a mixture of sweat and blood.

Cross let him collapse on the dirt street when it was over and strode away. Wesley closed his eyes. He could hear the man talking.

"…have him. He's injured." He felt Cross's shadow over him, felt him move away. "Yes. Yes, we'll be waiting." He heard rocks and sand crackling. "You'll know it when you see it."

Wesley heard Cross come closer and knew the man was leaning over him again.

"Get up. We have to get off the road."

Wesley was really in no mood to move around, and tried to make this clear by grunting his disagreement.

"We're in clear view," said Cross, apparently interpreting that as a question. "If anyone comes along, they might see us. Come…"

He felt Cross grab him and pull him to his feet again. They moved a short distance into the bushes lining the ditch. Cross kneeled down and seemed intent on keeping Wesley up and next to him, but Wesley wasn't going to stand next to his father's killer a moment longer, not if he could help it. He pushed himself away and landed in a lot of prickly grass.

"Careful," he heard Cross say. He blinked up at the man, who was watching him calmly. Cross went on, "You're hurt."

"What… do you… care?"

Cross didn't answer. Wesley tried to find a good spot to just lie in, but everything was poking at him, and the entire place was sloped downward. After a few moments of rolling around he gave up and just lay there. One half of him felt ashamed and humiliated. He should be trying to take down this man, and instead he was lying here like some pussy, barely able to walk. The other half just wanted to shut up and sleep. He decided to obey that half. He closed his eyes and curled up on the dirt.

It seemed like only a few seconds passed before Cross was shaking him and hauling him up.

"Get up," said Cross. "We're leaving."

Wesley opened his eyes and rolled over sluggishly. In the distance he could see a car coming towards them. Cross grabbed Wesley and got to his feet, pulling the younger man up with him.

"You…" Wesley paused to get his tongue working. "You going to kill me now?"

"No."

The answer should have been a surprise, but somehow his pain-addled brain couldn't make it so. Everything seemed to be entering his mind in a fog.

"Why not?"

Cross looked as if he were about to answer, but then the car pulled up in front of the wreckage of the train and they were moving out of the ditch, Wesley dragged alongside. He felt dull and resigned to the whole thing. Were they going to take him hostage? Torture him? He didn't really know and, at the moment, didn't particularly care. He just wanted to lie down and rest.

A man poked his head out from the window and Wesley recognized him – Pekwarsky.

"You did it," was all the old man said.

Cross opened the door and pushed Wesley inside. "We have to leave, quickly," he said as he got in. "The other one might still be alive."

Pekwarsky nodded and hit the gas. The car swerved tightly and started back down the road, Wesley bumping into the other side of the car.

"Watch the blood," said Pekwarsky. Wesley felt indignation prickle at the back of his mind. Pekwarsky jerked the wheel about and said, as casually as if they were talking about the weather, "I see you had some… complications."

"A few." Cross pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around Wesley's body, then buckled his seatbelt for him. It was warm and comforting and Wesley did not like the feeling at all. He also didn't like it when Cross put a hand to Wesley's head. It felt oddly parental, and it made Wesley feel sick. "He is injured."

"So are you. Bad?"

"I'm not sure." Cross let go of him. "Wesley…"

Wesley tried to crawl as far away from the man as possible, but didn't succeed very well – a combination of the seatbelt and his own weakness.

"Let me see." Cross pushed Wesley's arm out of the way and poked a bit at the wound in his chest. Wesley gritted his teeth at the pain, his mind screaming at him to punch, hit, fight back, but his body equally adamant that it could not do any of that. Then he heard Cross move back and say, "No. A few hours in recovery and he'll be fine."

Recovery. They were going to let him heal? For what? He tried to think on it but couldn't get any ideas. Cross's fingers brushed against Wesley's hair, stayed there. Wesley grunted again, trying to push him off, but Cross wasn't budging.

"I was asking about your injuries, not his," said Pekwarsky, sounding rather exasperated.

Cross ignored that. "How far are we?"

"Just a few hours. Can he hold on until then?"

"Yes."

"Good. And enough time for a father-son chat between you, right?"

Cross's hand jerked away from Wesley's head. The last words took a long time to penetrate Wesley's brain as a sudden silence fell between the two. Slowly, he raised his head to look at the two.

"What…" He swallowed, tasted blood. "What did you say?"

Pekwarsky shot a glance at Cross through the mirror. "You didn't tell him."

"I had no time." Wesley felt Cross's hand brush over him again and jerked back, yet when Cross spoke again there was a distinct note of fondness in his tone. "And he didn't seem to want to hear."

"Hear what?" asked Wesley, feeling the words slur. He shook his head and felt Cross grab at him to stop him from moving. He jerked back, staring at the man. "Tell me what? What were you going to tell me?"

Cross looked back at Pekwarsky. "Wesley…"

"Who are you?" Wesley demanded. Louder, when he received no answer, "Who the hell are you?"

"Wesley, I'm your father."

That feeling – it was like when he had slammed into the ground in the train, a deep shudder in his body. "No…" He slumped against the door, drained. "No…"

"You are my son."

Wesley let his head rest against the window, hoping the coolness of the glass would unfog his brain and force everything to make sense. It did not, only got a bloody streak on it.

"Did they …" he mumbled, as Cross moved him away from the car door. This time he didn't resist. "Did the Fraternity…?"

Cross answered his unfinished question. "Yes. They knew."

"The Fraternity knew that you were the only one your father would not kill," said Pekwarsky from the front. "So they tracked you down and lied to you, used you."

Wesley pushed himself away from them again. "I – I don't believe you." He wrapped the jacket – Cross's jacket (his father's jacket, a voice whispered, but he pushed it away) – tighter around himself.

"It goes further than that," Pekwarsky went on. "Sloan's name-"

"Shh." That was Cross.

"He needs to know-"

"Later. You're tiring him."

And Wesley hated how concerned he sounded. He closed his eyes again and rested his head against the seat. The shaking of the car was lulling him into a half-conscious state.

He started awake when he felt something cold being pressed against his forehead and muttered a protest which was promptly ignored.

"You would be better off cleaning your own wound," Pekwarsky said from up front.

"I'm fine."

"Did the boy do that?"

"Yes."

He had shot Cross? When had that happened? He tried to go over his memory but couldn't go beyond the last few minutes. It hurt his head to think and he decided to just let Cross work, though getting back to sleep with him dabbing at him was rather difficult. When the car went over a particularly large bump, Wesley found himself leaning against Cross's shoulder. He was going to shift away, but then Cross put an arm around him and just held him there, and continued to wipe at his face.

"How is he?" asked Pekwarsky. It seemed to take a long time for the words to really register, and even then Wesley found himself not really caring that they were talking about him.

"A lot of glass in him, injury to the head, and a gunshot wound."

"You shot him?"

"It was an accident."

Pekwarsky didn't sound particularly concerned. "He shot you, you shot him. I suppose you two can consider yourselves even."

"No. I've shot him twice. He's only shot me once." Wesley felt Cross move the jacket aside and push up the sleeve of his left shirt. He could vaguely remember being hit there…

There was a silence, Wesley falling into a doze and coming out whenever Cross started cleaning at him again. When he was about as clean as he was going to get, Cross covered him up with his jacket and pulled him in closer.

After that, Wesley didn't remember much, just flashes as he came out of his sleep – the trees speeding by, the brief glare of the sun on his eyes before Cross covered his face with the jacket, the skyline of Chicago, and finally the car stopping in front of a house.

Cross shook Wesley, though he was already awake. "Wesley, we're here."

Wesley got up slowly. His head swam with the movement and he almost fell over again.

Cross steadied him, pulled Wesley's arm around him, and helped him out of the car. Dimly, Wesley noticed that he seemed to be favoring his left side slightly, but was otherwise moving normally.

Pekwarsky poked his head out of the front window. "Get inside quickly. They may be watching."

"Yes. Thank you."

Pekwarsky nodded, then drove away. Cross and Wesley were alone. It was dark, even the street lamps not enough to give them more than a dim view of things up ahead. Cross helped him until they reached the first stairs, asking, "Can you make it?"

"Yes," Wesley mumbled, then promptly slid off of Cross and slumped on the steps, leaning against the railing. He heard Cross sigh. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Never mind. Here…"

Cross grabbed him again. Little by little, the two went up what seemed like an insurmountable staircase. Finally, the man deposited a wheezing Wesley onto the floor so that he could unlock the front door, then dragged the younger man inside. The noise of the traffic dimmed as Cross shut the door and helped Wesley into another room, where he deposited him on a bed.

Wesley closed his eyes as he flopped back against the pillow. He heard Cross move next to him, then nothing. For a few moments they said nothing, Wesley concentrating only on getting the dizziness to recede.

A quiet clink made him start. He mumbled, "Whazat?"

"Gun." Cross moved back slightly. Wesley blinked. Cross had returned his gun, the one he thought had been left in the wrecked train, had put it on the end table next to the bed.

"Mine…?" No, his father's gun. Cross's gun… right?

"You seemed to want it rather badly." There was an emotion in Cross's tone that he couldn't quite decipher, half humorous, half scolding. It was distinctly odd, as Wesley had never been talked to that way before.

"Thanks…" He slumped into the bed. But though he felt so tired and aching sore, he had to ask, "Was it… yours?" Or had he been lied to about that, too? He had grown attached to that weapon, had thought of it as one of the few connections to a father he would never know. It made him feel dirty inside to think it was not.

"Yes. One of mine."

That was more of a relief than he wanted to let on. He was about to slide into comforting sleep when he was shaken awake by Cross – not hard, but enough to make his head start swimming again.

"Don't sleep, Wesley. I'm going to put you into recovery."

Wesley mumbled something into the pillow.

"What?"

He raised his head slightly. "Where are we?"

"My apartment." He heard Cross shift closer to him.

"Why…?"

He cracked open his eyes when he heard the floor creak, and saw Cross kneel next to him and put his fingers to Wesley's forehead again. He said, "It's the only way you'll believe me."

Wesley sighed as Cross turned him around. He blinked his eyes open and saw the man looking over his wound again. "I think… I already do." He smiled weakly at the man. Perhaps it was the blood loss, or maybe the possible concussion, but it was true. Who else but his real father would go to this much trouble?

Cross looked surprised, then gave him a tentative smile in return. He touched Wesley's face again, now looking just a bit disbelieving. "I didn't think we would get this far."

"What?"

"You, here, safe."

Wesley tried to get up and ended up flopping back into the mattress. He saw Cross reach instinctively for him.

"Maybe… maybe not that safe…" said Wesley sheepishly.

"Well, as safe as possible." Cross got up. "And there's still so much to tell you."

Wesley nodded, lifting himself up. He still felt sick and confused and in a lot of pain, but the prospect of so many new changes and information somehow didn't seem all that frightening, not with his father around.

"I'm ready."

FIN