Disclaimer: As before, I own nothing.
Angel wants me to kill her, of course. It's ironic that a creature like him, who defied all convention, cannot believe she can do the same. A psychiatrist would have a lot to say about that.
But Angel makes me tired. I find that each conversation awakes a thousand more hidden memories, memories I stupidly awoke because I'm so damned righteous and so so stupid! The weight of two lifetimes now rests on my shoulders, when I could barely carry myself upright with one.
"Don't trust her, Wesley. She's an angry ex-god, and I don't want her to play you. I cannot have that risk!"
His words now finally make sense. His worries about trust over the last year all fit into place, because what kind of man am I to steal a baby from his father without any true verification? What man blames his friends for his own losses? What man holds a grudge against another displaying pure paternal instinct?
I may not know my father as a parent, but I do know, the disappointment that I am, that he would hunt down and kill anyone who hurt me. It may be more for my mum's benefit, but the effect is still the same. I can understand everything Angel and the others did, but I cannot understand myself.
Yet, even now, I do the same as I did before. I hide. I sit in my office surrounded by books in barely comprehensible languages. I say very little and let no one into my mind.
Fred used to say that I was two different men. There was the clumsy gibbering fool, who tried hard to achieve other people's expectations: 'Mr Rogue Demon Hunter'. And then there was the quiet, unrelenting study, who invited no helpers and allowed for no failure, with expectations in the sky.
She had said, in that brief time, that she had loved them both.
Her assessment was flawed. There aren't two versions of me, only one chaotic, antagonistic mess who has no idea where he is going, and can't choose between his heart or his head. It was most likely that mess that got her killed, because I…I'm the one who brought us to Wolfram and Hart. I started it all.
I'm the learned fool with the pen and a shotgun.