Chapter 21

Fred put Allyson in her crib. The infant had ceased her crying and settled down long before Fred had felt any kind of calm. The baby did not seem any the worse for wear.

Fred felt like an emotional punching bag. She wondered if their marriage could survive the past day. Remembering everything he had done, and the reasons behind his actions, she found sympathy within her. He was not a bad man, he loved too much and he did not rely on others as he should. Everyone she loved was guilty of those same crimes.

Turning to her husband, she watched him drink in the view before him. The look on his face conveyed all she needed to know. Going to him, she wrapped her arms around him. She could not convince herself that she did not love this man.

"Am I inherently bad?" His voice was a whisper.

She answered him quietly. "We all are. No one is inherently good, if they were, they wouldn't be human."

"I've made so many mistakes."

"Who hasn't?"

They stood in silence for a long time. He wondered if he should leave. If he should go far away, where no one knew him. Perhaps, if he no longer existed, the pain he had caused the people he loved would be lessened. The woman sitting next to him, leaning in the crook of his arm, convinced him he couldn't run away.

"Fred…where do we go from here? How can we move on from…from finding out the last four years were predicated on a lie?"

She took the time to answer his question with the weight it deserved. "Wesley, it's not a lie. The lives we saved, the lives we will save, are not a lie. The people we help are not a lie.

Angel didn't tell us the real reason why he was joining Wolfram and Hart, but he didn't ask us to come along either. We made that choice and that choice was not predicated on a lie. We joined to destroy the beast from the inside out. We did, and we rebuilt it and made it into something good.

I can't miss Connor because I don't know him. I knew a baby and I knew a very dangerous teenager. I don't know who he is today. I can't feel sorry for him, because…I think I would do the same thing for Allyson. If she was in so much pain that the only way to take it away would be to erase everything she had ever known…I would do it.

We will move on. We have never faced anything so bad that we could not move on from it. This will not be set that precedent."

They sat in silence for a while longer. Wesley wanted to respond, but his mind was shutting down. He was so tired, he admitted, that he could no longer think. Sensing this, Fred rose and took his hand. They walked to bed together, hand in hand.

Wesley was not the man who had stolen Connor based on a false prophecy. That was a man from a long time ago, Fred thought. This man is the man I love, the man who would do anything to save those he loves, she thought. This man defends his family to the ends of the Earth.

Wesley wondered if he could repair what he had done. He wondered if Angel would have the family he so wanted. The last thought in Wes's mind as he drifted to sleep was if he could keep the family he had now.