Title:  The End
Author:  Sssenza
Fandom:  Angel
Pairing:  Fred/Wesley
Rating:  PG

For Milla (nova25)
Written for the What If ficathon

The End
By Sssenza

*   *   *

When Fred finds out, she almost cannot stand under the weight of the terrible impending loss. Every time she thinks of it she feels she will collapse. It is worse when she actually looks at him. She shudders. Under white sheets, Wesley shivers.

"Tell me," he says softly.

"Wesley," she says. For a moment her mind sticks there, on his name. "Wesley..."

"I need to know what it is, Fred. I need to know what's happening to me."

She makes her voice as gentle as she can. "As far as we can tell you have a... parasitic agent of some sort, something mystical, but that doesn't mean we can't figure it out, mixing the science and the magic is kind of my thing these days, I can do it, Wes--" Is she babbling? If so, she can't seem to stop-- "we're all going to do our best and if we can't understand we'll still *fight* it, ok? So you're going to be alright. Angel, Gunn, we're all here for you, or, well, out there, as the case may be."

"Out there?" His voice is too weak. ("His organs are cooking inside him," Angel had said.) She grits her teeth.

"Angel and Spike took the jet to find something called the Deeper Well."

Wesley cocks an eyebrow. His librarian look, she calls it privately. One of a hundred private thoughts she's had about him since they met, thoughts she'd been so glad to be able to share, now that they were together. Now that it was their time.

Time. She hates the word.

"Well. That was some fast work." Is he shivering more now? The sheets are too thin, already soaked with his sweat, giving little warmth. She wants to cover him with her body, but she's afraid it might hurt him. "So I assume I haven't--"

"Wes--" she tries, but he cuts her off.

"I haven't got much time left."

She's silent, words, numbers caught in her chest, breaking everything inside her.

"Fred?"

"One day," she whispers.

"Then you've got to go be science girl, don't you?" he says.

"You'll be ok here alone?"

"I'll call if I'm not." He's trying to brave for her, and that breaks her heart almost more than anything else.

"I'll be here in heartbeat if you need me."

"I know." She gives his hand a final squeeze. It's hot against her palm, painfully hot, and his skin feels brittle, hard. The small muscles underneath feel fibrous and thick. She feels as though she will faint.

*   *   *

After that it is quick. There's been no word from Angel and Spike in far too long; she suspects they haven't succeeded. Neither has she. A million and one blood tests, x-rays, sense spells; experiments with heat, with cold, with radiation, with her own blood. Nothing can fix him. She goes back to the infirmary to find him turned an unpleasant shade of yellowish-grey and dread smacks her hard in the gut. Strangely, it doesn't make her feel weaker, this time. She wants to be strong for him, and so she is.

Her presence in the room wakes him, or perhaps just the pain. Even that she could not spare him--none of the drugs have worked. Awake, he begins immediately to twitch.

"Fred?"

"Wesley, I'm here," she says, hurrying to his side. She takes his hand and the spasms still for a moment.

"I can't stay here."

Her brow furrows. "You have to, Wesley, you need to save your strength."

He laughs. Not bitterly. Resignedly. "Save it for what, exactly?"

"If you just hold on, Wes, maybe... maybe Angel will find a way, maybe all he needs is for you to live those few extra minutes." Somewhere under the words panic is waiting like vertigo. She shoves it away.

"I can't stay here, Fred."

After a moment she nods. Takes him to her bed, where she has been wanting to take him for months now, at least. She knows she is taking him there to die. (We have *hours* together, my love, hours and hours. At least five. Six.)

She supposes she never did expect forever, when it comes down to that. She's grown accustomed to death in her short life. She never expected immortality, for either of them. Just an immortal love. And she has that.

*   *   *

Illyria, when at last it spreads itself through Wesley's body, is perhaps the most painful thing that Fred has ever found so... fascinating. It... He... looks like Wesley, even with all the blue and the naked armor-stuff crossing his flesh everywhere. He looks at her as though he knows her. Of course, he doesn't seem to care that he does.

"What kind of place is this? Even the sun doesn't touch anything here, the shadows are wrong... once my mere shadow struck fear in all it touched. Long before you weak pink things, like soft worms with your laughable. I was the god-king of all this realm, and my subjects--"

"'My subjects, my kingdom,'" Gunn snorts. "Do you ever talk about anything else? I thought gods weren't supposed to be this whiny."

Illyria's blue eyes narrow, and his head swings around. "You, puny worm-thing, you would have been a morsel at my banquet table."

Gunn rolls his eyes and walks away. People do that a lot around Illyria.

"His presence offended me," says Illyria. In Wesley's British accent. He sounds even more like a librarian, Fred thinks, and wants to giggle. But she doesn't, because it would come out a mad giggle, she thinks. And is it funny that Wesley's murderer has these exaggerated traits of his? No, of course it isn't.

"Angel asked me to help you," she says when she can trust her voice.

"Why?"

"Well, if we're going to let you stay--and we're not certain yet--you'll need to do a much better job of integrating your--the... Wesley's--"

"The memories this body holds."

"Um. Yes. We can't teach you everything, especially if you already *know* it, potentially. And you need to know, if you're going to be useful."

His expression is--well, she had thought *Wesley* was good at the whole disdainful contempt thing, but the scorn in Illyria's mouth is like a battering ram. "You are fools if you think you can make use of me like some, some *tool*."

"Helpful! I meant helpful."

He appears to consider this. "You are good at being helpful," he says at last.

"Well, yeah, I think I am."

"I have never helped anyone."

"No kidding." They begin walking down the hallway, aimless, just walking. Fred isn't sure which of them is leading.

Illyria is still considering. "This body. Wesley--he was helpful. He fought for your king?"

"Angel's not our king, but yes, Wesley did help, by fighting or researching, or whatever he could do. It's what we all do, around here. We help however we can."

"You help each other."

"Yes. When it's possible," she adds, softly.

He looks thoughtful. "Something in me understands what that means," he says, looking at her. Their eyes meet, and she nods.

Suddenly, his face hardens. "What are you doing to me?" he demands, drawing back.

"What? I'm not--"

"You are doing something to me!" He growls it this time, a familiar voice, Wesley's angry voice. "The more I look at you, talk to you, the more I--*feel*--this, this binding. You are trying set me under your power! I do not know how you can do it, but you are doing it."

Keep calm, Fred, she tells herself, slow down, calm down, but outwardly she blurts, "I'm not doing anything! I swear, I'm not!"

"No? Then what is this weakness I feel whenever I am in your presence?" His face is entirely undisciplined; he's like a great, powerful child who has never learned to hide what he feels. So she can see the weakness in his eyes, and she recognizes it for what it is.

"Wesley?"

And his hand comes up and strikes her across the face, sends her spinning into the hard white floor.

She lies there a moment, dizzy. His blue-encased feet mere inches from her nose. Wesley's dead, she says in her head again and again. He's dead. Gone. Dead.

"Help me," says Illyria.

"What?" She looks up, finds his face. It's taut, desperate, fearful, even.

"I do not know what to do. I do not know why you can affect me this way. I cannot live in this world, in this body, without help. Help me."

She pushes herself up on one hand, slowly, feeling for damage in her body. It hurts. But she thinks she's ok. She can stand up. She does. She puts one hand on his shoulder.

"I'll help you," she says.

******
The End
******