Chapter 2: "Sunshine"

Later, Wesley could not recall how he found himself in his lab that morning, with Illyria waiting for him, standing with her back to the door. She turned her head when he entered, giving him a piercing look with her downcast eyes.
"Good. Now you must read the incantation. I've readied it for you." He thought he heard something waver in her voice, but he wasn't quite sure.
"Illyria, I still don't understand why you are doing this. What is in it for you?"
She laughed, a caustic, sharp sound that made Wesley cringe. "What's in it for me? Emptiness, quiet, release. Death. Death awaits me, and nothing more."
"Then why do you do it?"
"Because there's nothing for me here either. I can never be part of this world, just as I can never be part of your world. Only a thorn in your side, a painful reminder of what you lost, and an uncontrollable variable that threatens to tear apart everything with the wave of a hand."
"Illyria...."
"Speak no more. Only minutes before you called for my demise. Now you will be rid of me, and your lovely Winifred will be in your arms again." She turned away, and he blinked hard to clear his thoughts.
"Fine. Fine. Now, I don't understand how a simple spell can assemble a soul and return it to its body. Didn't you say that the particles were scattered throughout the entire world?"
"I did say that. But so much of her soul remains here, clinging to me, clinging to you. Can you not feel it? It is all in this place, it refuses to leave. That makes it simpler."
Wesley looked around, as if he could see her and feel her there. He imagined that he could, still trying to deal with the idea of having her back with him, his most ardent desire. There was still the extremely valid possibility that Illyria was lying, or toying with him, things she did quite often, with the ignominy of last night still painfully on his mind. Nevertheless, he approached the book that Illyria had opened for him, wondering where she had gotten it from, and how she had known which pages to turn to. He scanned the words over with his eyes, checking to see if some fouler intent had provoked her to ask this of him.
"What the hell," he said aloud. He might as well read it. The language was something archaic and illegible to him, but it was most certainly a derivative of common demonic tongues, so he was able to understand the general meaning of words and phrases. His mind translated and he read the words as his hands trembled.

"Be gone ye who inhabits unwanted here
Return to the hell that birthed you.
And welcome back the one that belongs,
Gather the broken pieces that will assemble the vessel
And set them together until they make the whole."

"Are you going to read it or not?" Illyria's voice forced Wesley to lift his head to look at her, where she stood, her arms wrapped around herself, looking ill at ease for the first time since she had come to him.

"Why are you condemning yourself? Why are you allowing me to do this?"
"Do not ask questions for which you already know the answers. Read it before I change my mind and kill you." Wesley could see that no words could have been more insincere. "Why do you hesitate? Bring her back, Wesley, it is what you want."
"It is." He thought of Fred, smiling, beautiful, the most important thing. He had lost her. And he would have done anything to bring her back. So placing his finger below the first word in the spell, he began to read, his voice strong and clear.
Seconds after he had begun to read, something changed in the air of the lab, the glassware began to shake, slightly at first, and then more violently. Regardless, he continued reading, his voice increasing in volume and intensity.
Illyria braced herself against the impact of the spell, first only feeling the otherworldly power passing over her, and then with a violent thrust of invisible energy, it was upon her, the spell taking a firm and unrelenting grasp on her very essence. She screamed. She couldn't help it. The pain was horrible, worse than she could have imagined, and she raised her voice against it, falling to the ground in agony. She heard Wesley hesitate as he read the spell, and she raised a hand that seemed to be made of lead to urge him on. Looking at her, inexplicably and impossibly concerned, he faltered, but continued. The moment that he began to speak again, the pain rolled over her like a wave, grasping at her very soul, grinding, and biting into it, destroying her. Finally, after an eternity of never-ending agony, Illyria felt her grasp on the world begin to slip away, and the darkness close in on her. She was dimly aware of Wesley crouched over her.
"Fred? Fred?" he asked, taking her in his arms.
"She comes," Illyria said; a little more than a breathy gasp.
"Oh God, Illyria, how can this be right?" he said, suddenly feeling remorse.
"Wesley, the last time you held her in your arms... I was doing the very same thing to her," she whispered, each breath painful.
He opened his mouth to speak, paused, and then said; "You were not acting like yourself, at the end."
"I was not. I became too human. That's why-" she gasped, and arched her back in a final death shudder, and she sighed against the pain. "That's why I started to love you."
"Dear God!" he exclaimed.
"She's coming.... Be happy, Wesley," she said, and then died.
For one horrible moment, Fred's body was still in his arms, and Wesley thought frantically that he had lost them both. He had his eyes closed tightly; the only sound his own ragged breathing.
"Wesley?"
His eyes snapped open, he looked down, and she was there, in his arms, looking up at him with her big, beautiful brown eyes.
"Fred? Is it you, sweetheart?"
"It's me, Wes," she smiled, and he knew it was. That smile, that warm glow in her eyes, it couldn't be imitated. He allowed himself to smile at her for a moment before choking back a sob and holding her close in his arms. Her hands clutched weakly at the sleeves of his shirt, her voice muffled by the folds of fabric.
"I'm sorry, Fred. I haven't hurt you?" he helped her sit up, still in his arms, and at that moment he swore that he would never let her go.
"No, never. Just, Wes, I can't remember... I was alone, so alone, and so cold. But I knew that you would come.... But I don't understand how you did it." She looked at him questioningly, and he just stared back into her beautiful face, watching each tiny movement with wonder and joy.
"Does it really even matter? You were lost to me forever, and now we're together again." He felt another tear roll unchecked down his cheek.
"Don't cry, Wes, I can't take it. I'm so sorry; I've hurt you so badly. But I'm so tired, so very tired," she said quietly, and sighed back into his arms.
"Just rest, sweet. It's all right. Everything will be fine, it's all right," he whispered to her, and she smiled faintly, curling her head against his chest. He pressed his lips against her hair, just holding her close, unable to believe how blessed he was.
"Wes?"
"Hmmm?"
"Sing me a song?"
"What song, Fred?"
"You know which one," she smiled, her eyes still closed, each breath that she took coming easily, causing her chest to rise and fall gently, and her eyelids to flutter slightly.
He smiled back at her, taking a measured breath, and began to sing their song in his untrained, but still pleasant, baritone. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray. You'll never know, dear, how much I love you, please don't take my sunshine away."
Wesley sat there in silence, the woman he loved more than his own life nestled safely in his arms, and his chest swollen with uncontainable, indescribable emotions. He leaned in to kiss Fred's forehead tenderly, pressing his lips there for no more than a moment, but knowing that he would hold that instant in his mind forever.

Note: Please review! Thank you so much! Where do I go from here? wink