FANDOM: Angel, Fred/Wes
SPOILERS: Season 3
DISCLAIMER: almighty Joss and Company owns Wesley, Fred, and any other characters from Angel and or Buffy.
NOTE: The title means ‘to illuminate the dark’. This is my idea of what could happen based on where we are now.
Part 1
It was something I would have never expected to happen. Something I could have never foreseen. Who would have ever thought Wesley would…
Now that I look back on it, I’m sure there must have been signs. What do people call it…hindsight bias? All those times I would see him staring at me, but I never understood how much he truly loved me. I was blind…in more ways than one.
It all started about three months ago, when Wesley first found the prophecy that said Angel would kill Connor. In the beginning Wesley had been wary of the prophecy, because as I learned after Darla, prophecies are trick things. Gunn and I were at first doubtful and too involved in ourselves that we didn’t believe him, until we saw the signs. It was at that point that Wesley decided Connor wasn’t safe at the hotel. Without talking to anyone, he fled with Connor to keep him safe, but unfortunately the world always has other plans. Sometime during the hurry to keep Angel’s son safe, Connor was taken by Holtz. Wesley had tried to do the best thing and in the process had done the worst.
Angel was angrier than I had ever seen him, and unknowingly in his grief he took it out on Wesley. For Wesley, even worse than losing Connor, was Angel’s disappointment in him. I think in that moment in his life, losing Connor, Angel’s disappointment, and losing…me was just too much and the last straw.
The next night he waited until everyone had left the hotel before he came to talk to me. “Fred?” I looked up from place on the settee as he sat down next to me. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry…for everything that I…I’ve done. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
I must have smiled at him, because for a split second, one that I almost didn’t notice, his face lit up for the first time in days. “Wesley,” I started, “there is nothing to forgive. What happened wasn’t your fault. You were just trying to save Connor and help all of us, like you always do.”
He nodded and said a simple, “Yes.” I don’t think he believed me in his heart, but for my sake, he pretended he did. He gave me a hug that seemed to last a couple of seconds longer than normal, before he pried himself away.
He looked into my eyes. “I love you, Fred.” He waited for a second and watched me for a response I couldn’t give him. I couldn’t tell him what I felt in my heart. Then, as an afterthought he added, “Goodbye, Fred.”
I knew I should’ve said something, but I didn’t. I just sat there and watched as he walked away taking the guilt, grief, and weight of the world away. That was the last time I ever saw him with us. The next day he never came to work. When we went to his apartment to check on him, he was gone. Wesley had left without a trace.
The next time I saw him was a month later on the side of the enemy. I would have never believed that Wesley would side with Holtz. This new Wesley was different somehow. It seemed as if he had aged a year within a month. This was not my Wesley, the Wesley I wanted back, and the Wesley I missed dearly. That Wesley was gone.
Part 2
It’s silly how time changes your perspective on circumstances. While Wesley was still with us I never thought closely about our relationship. In self-defense after the Billy incident I kept my feelings hidden deep inside, even from myself. I kept myself enraptured only in feelings that were easy, obvious, and not what was right under my nose. First, in my hero-worship and puppy dog love of Angel, then my high school relationship with Gunn. The whole time I was lost to the other two, Wesley watched over me and waited for the turn he thought would eventually come.
Gunn told me a week after Wesley’s… decision, how much Wesley really loved me. He told me about Wesley’s conversation with him after we had gotten in trouble with the magnolia tree. He said Wesley had been really upset knowing that I could have been seriously hurt. Wesley had made Gunn promise then and there that I would never get hurt.
Hearing these words and ideas coming from Gunn made my stomach churn and my heart flutter. It was then that my heart spoke to me. For the first time I realized what love really is. Love wasn’t only admiring someone because they saved your life or gushing over someone because they paid you a compliment. Instead, love was all of these things and more. Love was when your heart ached when the other person was gone, but at the same time you were perfectly content to just be in each other’s presence. Love was caring and protecting someone above your own life. It was when seeing the other person made you dizzy and all you could see was them.
I felt like I’d had my eyes covered and now I could see again. I was now able to see everything I had looked over before. I could see the way Wes always watched over, cared, and protected me. The way his eyes lit up every time he saw me. The most wonderful thing was in his eyes I was perfect. I spent the next few days pondering my new feelings in what Cordelia called a funk, until I finally decided I couldn’t go on living a lie. I had to tell Gunn. It was hard, but it had to be done.
A month after Wesley left I awoke at the same time I had every night since I had first discovered my hidden feelings. I realized this time was completely different when I jumped out of bed and was instantly awake. I tiptoed down the hall careful not to wake Angel. I looked into Angel’s room and wasn’t surprised when I saw it empty. Angel had been going for walks as his way to release pain and brood where no one would see him. With the thought that I was now alone in the hotel my heart climbed, despite the knowledge that Angel had Lorne put a barrier spell on the hotel.
I worked my way off the last step on the stairs and followed the dim light coming from behind the hotel counter. Wesley’s office.
I stood halfway outside the door and looking halfway into the office. It was him. I watched as Wesley rummaged quietly through the books on his bookshelf. He was obviously looking for a particular book. I was so close to him, yet so far away. I yearned to speak, touch, or even look into his eyes again. He finally grabbed the book he’d been searching for and stuffed it into the satchel he had brought. He hurriedly turned around to leave and froze when he saw me standing at the door.
I stepped out of my shadow. “Wesley,” I said with a slight tremor. He just stared at me in awe, as if I was an angel and didn’t say a word. I tried again, “Wesley?”
He stepped forward to get out of the office and at the same time he tried to keep his distance. I quickly sneaked a peek at the title of the book he was taking. When I didn’t budge out of his way, he stepped back again. “Fred, move out of my way.”
“No.”
He seemed to be considering his options before he responded again. “Fred, move out of my way.” He paused before letting out the words he didn’t want to pass his lips. “Don’t make me…”
I quickly interrupted, despite the slight shaking in my fingertips. “Or else you’ll do what, Wesley?” I held my ground.
We squared off and my eyes wandered from his to take in the rest of his appearance. I needed to make sure he was fine and at the same time temporarily satisfy my own curiosity. My eyes stalled on what looked like a deep gash on his upper arm coming from underneath his shirt. He caught my gaze at what I was looking at as I reached out and touched him in comfort. He stepped back from my touch in shock and this time he was no longer afraid to get close to me. He hurried past me and out of the past he was trying to escape.
“Wesley!” I called his name hoping he wouldn’t leave me, but nothing would stop what he felt he had to do.
I turned around to face the empty room that still contained his overpowering energy. My eyes caught sight of his jacket he’d left on the chair in his hurry. I grabbed it and put it on and in the process surrounding myself with him. I went back to my room and settled into the covers. I wrapped them tightly around me. In the back of my mind I wondered if Wesley had covers wherever he spent his nights.
I thought about Wesley’s steely eyes and calculated look. The way his eyes held no emotion or feeling. The way he stared at me with no reflection of the former Wesley. Even the scar on his arm looked deep, old, and unhealed. His skin and eyes had been cold, until he repelled from my warmth and touch. It was if I had been the spell to knock him from his trance. His eyes had come alive again before me.
My eyes began to water as I recalled all the images one by one. At that point I started crying and couldn’t stop. I wrapped myself in his jacket that smelled of him and his purgatory. I cried for Wesley’s pain that I could feel on the inside and everything I couldn’t see on the outside. I also cried for myself. I cried for everything I had never told him and couldn’t anymore. Mostly I cried at the thought that the man I loved, needed, and wanted most was gone.
Suddenly, I stopped crying and wiped away the tears from my eyes onto Wesley’s jacket sleeve. Two thoughts hit my mind at the same time. First, what did Wesley need a book on alternate dimensions for? Second, how did Wesley get past Lorne’s spell that was specifically in place to block anyone from entering the hotel who was set out to harm us?
TO BE CONTINUED…