Author's Notes: Once again, thank you for the reviews. They are keeping me motivated with this! It seems as if this story is going to have more chapters than I thought, but the big cliffhanger is coming next chapter...

Chapter 5: The Offer

The Valkyrie stood silent as the visage of Fred spoke to her, and her stomach wrenched. The woman before her in every way mirrored Winifred... but Illyria seeped out over the surface like a molten pool. Her eyes were dark now, but there was none of the young woman's warmth shown there, no spark of life. They were dull, not shining as Fred's had, and hard with challenge. In their way they were as emotionless and vaguely reptilian as Illyria's herself, though lizard-black rather than freezing blue. No color showed in her face, and there was not even the same healthy sheen in her hair. She looked like the shell that her body had been reduced to, with the emotionless gaze that was Illyria. As if reading her thoughts, Illyria-in-Fred smiled—Fred's happy, open smile. It softened her face but rang horribly false, like instruments clashing out of tune. How it must have ripped the heart from Wesley to see this.... except at the end.

Adele had not expected this move from Illyria, and was sure her face showed it. This was a devastating counter in what was obviously a battle plan, waged to bring Wesley back like a spoil of war. It was not surprising, not from an Old One. But Adele had no intentions of playing these games.

"You said that he could not be returned while the cause of his death still existed," Illyria spoke in her own voice, every word a test. "I can live this way for him—as Fred. When you wake him, he will not know what has been done." She smiled again, almost lopsided-edly, giving her best approximation of Fred as she delivered the final blow. Her tone lifted, sweetened, took on the slightest trace of a Texan accent. "I'll take him far, far away from here. We'll be happy."

She'd take him to another dimension if need be, the demoness thought as she watched the Valkyrie react to the façade as if she'd been struck in the face. It wasn't romanticism—it was necessity. If she and Wesley remained, Spike or Angel would know the truth in an instant—they would know the lie by its scent—and the demon Lorne, were he still present, would know as well. No... she would take him away to somewhere safe, somewhere with no one who could root up her secret.

The death-chooser was silent for so long that Illyria spoke again, seeing her opponent's lack of acknowledgement as resistance. "He'll have peace," she finished, her own voice again, feeling her words deeply. She wondered, briefly, if she would have peace as well. It was doubtful at best-- but then, she had not been born into the world for peace, and had never known it.

While Illyria supposed that Adele was reeling over her startling change to Fred's persona, that was not the truth. The Valkyrie had seen Wesley's death after all, seen Illyria portray Winifred much more convincingly. More than portray. She had been Fred for him, then. It was a mercy to a dying man, a man that, in spite of all this selfish battling, Adele knew Illyria loved—or loved as much as it was possible for her to understand. It was the offer she now made for that man that had knocked the wind from her lungs. For the former world-ruling demon to live as Fred, every day for years, with the last of her powers given up...

"Do you know what you offer?" Adele asked at last, unable to hold the question back. She'd tried to stay back from Illyria's struggle, to avoid engaging in the conflict at all. Wesley was gone, and that was as it was. It could not be negotiated, no matter how Illyria pushed for it. Still, this was too much.

The Valkyrie's question entered Illyria's mind and echoed there, filling her with doubt. It was, and had always been in her nature to attack first and ask questions later—or not at all-- and so she had done now. She'd thought only of Wesley's return when she made her proposition, thought only of a way to convince the Valkyrie to change her verdict. Becoming Fred was an effective weapon and so she had used it. Not until the death-maiden questioned her did she realize the gravity of her offer— its very selflessness. It was strange, truly, as her motives had been as selfish as any had ever been—but yet it was so. If she carried this out, she would live a lie every day, and never again could she proudly declare the name of Illyria. She would be forced to put away even the smallest of her powers, to speak from a face that was not hers and in a voice that did not match her. She would be trapped even more firmly in a body that could not in the least express her grace. No longer would she wield her might in battle, for Fred had not been a warrior—not of that kind who fights with the sword. She had fought in a different way, with her mind, and Illyria would have to learn this as well, drawing on the well of Fred's knowledge more than she ever had before. She would have to draw on that well so often and so deeply that she might lose all of herself that was left.

Once she had said that living without her power was a fate worse than death, and so might this be. Yet she'd chosen to live on, 'adapting' rather than letting herself perish as her true self. Thinking on it twisted like nettles in her gut, but it didn't make it less true. But to do this would be so much more—too much. She was beginning to regret her words, and yet she could not dismiss them. This vile grief was causing her to act strangely.

At least in this way she'd be rid of it. This she knew, though it might turn out that being trapped in the life of another was far worse than anything this foul emotion could do to her. But she would have something else to repay her, to fill her life.

She'd have Wesley's love. It would not be meant for her, but she would have it nonetheless.

She'd offered to make Fred come alive for him that day—had it only been hours before that he was still living?—and it was not only for him that she did it. His perfect day—she'd known what it would be, and she wanted it, too, against everything she had been and knew. Had she not looked away in disappointment, knowing he would refuse her... and not even troubled herself to hide it from him? The memory tasted metallic and bitter in her mouth. Once she would have vomited it into the dust. Now there was only regretful acknowledgement. She loved Wesley, even though until that day she'd had no idea what that meant, and still did not understand it. She hated that she loved him, but she did. Overpoweringly. Like her grief, she couldn't control it.

It helped to think that it was only echoes of old love, Winifred's memories trapped within her—but she did not know if this was so. It helped also to tell herself that this was only worship that she craved, and that she deserved. Wesley was as loyal as any priest she'd had, and she knew from Fred's recollections that he was the sort of man whose love could border on worship. He'd held Fred as something so much higher than himself, showing it in every word of admiration, every look, gaze, touch. And yet it was not only this that she wanted. Her craving was very human, too.
She knew from Winifred's memories that humans could sicken and die without touch, without feeling and contact.[1] Fred had agonized in Pylea that she would waste away in her cave from skin-hunger—the only contact she'd had in years being the strikes and blows of slavers. It was little wonder that her mind had slipped. Illyria, demon pure but housed in a human shell, was suffering from the same hunger. It made it easier to bear, at least, knowing that it was beyond her, due to the cursed requirements of the race she'd been partly re-born into.

Or was it, really, only that?

She remembered earlier that day, as Wesley cradled her, washed the blood from her face, healed her injuries. She'd never been touched gently before- - not before in her millions of years of rule, and not after her re- appearance in the world. The bite of the axe and the crush of a fist were what she had known, and what she had dealt. And so she'd watched every movement of his hands, and her ageless, unblinking eyes had closed, fluttering—not with pain, as it had appeared—but with the strength of awakening feelings as they washed over her. It was strange that he could be so tender, when the day before he would not even acknowledge her presence. 'Watch over her for me,' he had said, as if he cared. She cared that he cared, and that disturbed her. Concern was once something she took for granted, and that she did not reciprocate. Knox, her former priest, had given his whole life for her, and how had she repaid him but to kick his lifeless body across the floor like battle fodder.
Wesley, as always, was different.

Her hatred turned on herself a little at that, even as she looked at him lying there in death. What was she becoming, that she would turn herself inside out for what had once been muck under her feet?

I am Illyria, god-king of the primordiam, shaper of things.

I am the divine embodiment of war.

I am the ecstasy of death.

She blinked, looking at the death that brought her anything but ecstasy.

And I reek of humanity.

Human. She was becoming human

Never.

She could get around this. She could live as Fred only long enough to secure Wes' return, then revert to her true self. If the Valkyrie made the mistake of thinking to choose him again, she would be killed, as would anyone else who threatened him.

I am not what you want.

No.

She would lose his love, that was true. For him to love her was impossible, for she had killed his beloved. He'd been much gentler about it as time went on—replacing the word 'murdered' with 'infected'-- but in the end Fred was gone and all was the same. But Illyria thought she could live with that. He would not love her, but he would be hers again, as he had been before.

And his soul would die again and again-- a little each day, with only stacks of books and gallons of whisky to numb the pain.

She went to him now for the first time, kneeling first, then taking the upper part of him into her arms as she had when he lay bleeding his life out. Her appearance was still that of Fred, and she wore it as an actor would a mask. It gave safety, freedom. Only in this mask could she allow herself to show such affection in front of another, and even then she would have been loath to do it. Somehow she knew that her answer would come like this. For a moment she forgot the watching Valkyrie and ran the backs of her fingers over his face. It was stiff and cold with death, but she didn't draw away.

It was then that something changed in her, and this was for him now, not for winning. She should let him go, and yet she couldn't. She was not that selfless and never hoped to be. But to give away the last shards of her glory and live as Fred...she did not know if she could do such a thing. Old Ones did not yield; they did not sacrifice. It would be an abomination to everything she was.

She looked into his face and knew she had no choice.

"I know what I offer," she declared. "Now restore him."

----------------------- [1] This is actually true, though I don't remember the scientific term for it. Just thought I'd throw that out there, so you know I'm not using over- flowery imagery. Oh, PLEASE tell me I'm not venturing into Illyria fluff—which is probably a door best left unopened.