Title: Almost
Characters: Angelina, George, Fred
Summary: Angelina Weasley wouldn't trade her life for anything, but sometimes, when she wakes up in the morning and her vision isn't quite right yet, she swears she sees…
The first time she ever spends the night, she wakes slowly, and still groggy, nestles into him. She says how much she loves him. And she realizes a few minutes later how much it must've hurt George.
Sometimes, in the beginning, she would allow herself to pretend he was Fred on mornings like that one. And she would cry when he left.
They've been married ten years now. She loves her husband, their children. Knows she wouldn't trade her life for anything. If Fred Weasley strode into their house, alive and well, she would still love George. Want George. She tells herself this on those groggy mornings when she calls him by the name of his twin.
Tells herself this as she shares his life. Tells herself Fred would want her to be happy, that George is a good man, one of her best friends since she was eleven. That he deserves better than this. At the same time, she knows that he doesn't mind being called by his brother's name. That sometimes, he wishes it had been Fred who had lived. Not him. And it hurts inside to think that he's broken like this. That being married to his brother's childhood sweetheart, the girl Fred had been engaged to, probably doesn't help.
Because she is a large part of what Fred's adult life would've been. Her children, with George's-Fred's-DNA, might have been exactly the same if Fred had been their father. George knows this, realizes this. She hates that he thinks it. Because they're not Fred's. They're his.
She doesn't like it when she calls George by Fred's name. It slips in sometimes, by accident. She can't help it. They were always so much a part of each other. To the extent where she knows that George would have been happier dead with Fred than alive with her. He's broken.
It's why he likes it when she calls him Fred.
I would willingly write a second chapter to this. Let me know what you think!