"Would you have loved me?" Fred asks through her gasps, childlike curiosity overcoming her dignity. She's seen enough people die slowly and messily like this in Pylea to know that this death has no dignity, only fear, and she knows the man holding her will never judge.
Wesley looks heartbroken. "I've loved you since I've known you. No, that's not-" He's so tragic, so romantic, so Shakespearean. She feels like she's in a play and only dying to symbolise or to prove something. "I think maybe even before."
She leans into him, trembling, terrified of what's to come, because she isn't the damsel in distress anymore, she's the heroine who survived hardship but died young anyways. Fred wishes she didn't have to put him through this nightmare, because god knows he's lived through enough. "I'm so sorry."
"No, no, no," he whispers through his tears, and there are tears in both their eyes now, and oh god, her last picture of him will be blurry. She thinks of Angel and Gunn and her parents, and absurdly of Feigenbaum and how eager she was to move away. She can barely remember what Feigenbaum looks like, but she can remember the time her mother sewed him up with dark blue thread after he had been torn.
She chokes and speaks through her coughing, because this message is important. "You need to tell my parents. They have to know I wasn't scared, that it was quick. That I wasn't scared."
Wesley holds her tighter, staring into her eyes with an intensity that would never be enough to bring her back from delirium. This scene isn't loud and glorious and beautiful, it's sweaty and messy and her skin is getting so hot and she can barely hear him telling her she has to fight, not talk, has to hold on.
"I'm not scared," she lies, shaking uncontrollably, knowing with a horrible clarity that there is nothing Wes can do to save her, knowing that she survived a hell dimension only to die like this. She's absolutely terrified, and she grabs his arms like they're what's keeping her from slipping, and murmurs words like saying them will make them true. "I'm not scared. I'm not scared."
Fred's muscles have stopped working for her. She goes limp in his arms, staring up at him, desperately sad, because this is the last time she'll ever see his eyes or hear his voice, and she's nearly gone.
She's not special, she's just another victim fading away in a dimming room tinted blue in her eyes and she needs more time, oh god, she needs more time. She cries and shakes and whispers, "please, Wesley, why can't I stay?"
She has time to see the look in his eyes before everything darkens and turns blue.
