Author's Notes: First of all, thank you so much for the reviews. You all don't know how many times it's been a review in my inbox that jump-started me working on this again. This story is much larger and more complex than I ever really intended...

A word of explanation. No, it did not take me all this time to write the five pages of this chapter. This chapter and what will be the next were originally one huge (18 pages single-spaced and growing!) mega-chapter that I felt was getting too much crammed into it, so I seperated it. I'm not so sure that this chapter has quite enough to stand on its own, but it was better than the alternative. Much Fresley relationship pondering ahead.

Chapter 9: The Reunion

Wesley was in heaven.

He knew it was Fred—really, truly her—the moment he saw her smile. It was a watery smile, that was true, but a smile nonetheless and hers. It was Fred above him, holding him, and not Illyria. He'd never had difficulty telling the difference, though he had let himself believe at the last. Just before death, one was supposed to have clarity, he had been told. One was supposed to the see the events of a whole life flash before the eyes, and know how the events had knitted themselves together into one conclusive whole. It had not been so with him. The edges of reality had blurred, letting him believe a sweet lie to ease his passing.

Only now he knew it had not been a lie, and for the first time he could remember in the bleak, grey stretch that had become his life, he felt joy rush through his veins. No, he did remember. When Winifred had kissed him that first, unexpected time, he had felt happiness like this-- knowing that the world was bright and good because she was in it and they were together. Now as then, wherever it was that they were, they were together as the vision of Fred had promised. It could be on earth, in any dimension, hell or paradise, and he wouldn't care.

It had to be heaven, though, because he could not imagine Winifred in hell. If this was heaven, it was... dim, and stark. He tore his eyes away from her face to wonder at the place where they were. He'd been wrong, he knew at once. This was not heaven, it could not be. This was where he'd died.... or had he not died at all? No, he could remember slipping away. He couldn't remember the actual moment where death had come over him, but he knew somehow that it had. A gaping rent was torn in his sweater, but beneath it no wound was seeping. There was no pain, though he wouldn't have remembered to feel it, he thought, a bit poetically, with Fred beside him. Perhaps she had come to Earth to take him to the afterlife, where she was. They could both be ghosts, shades—but they were so real. His body felt warm and solid. If this was death, it wasn't anything like he had expected, if anyone could fully expect such things. He knew that in most versions of the afterlife—or the pleasant ones, at least—one was given a restored body, free of hurt, aging, and any human frailty. But this was not the afterlife, so far as he could tell. Not yet, anyway.

Which meant that he had been dead, but had been brought back. Somehow.

Was the same true of Fred? There was only one way he knew to seek the answer. He reached out a hand to touch her, and she was warm and living.

"Fred?" It was not a question of who she was but whether she was truly whole and real and with him at last.

"It's me, Wes," she answered, in the sweet tones he knew distinctly as hers. In an instant he forgot that that same voice had ever produced tones so deep and cold. She stroked his face and her skin was soft, not a hard, brittle shell. He caught the fragile wrist and felt the pulse of life there, nearly weeping as he pressed his lips against it.

She was alive.

Wesley rested his face against the curve of her neck and breathed in her scent. He ran a hand through her hair, so soft and fine it slipped through his fingers. He kissed every feature of her face, ran his hands over every part of her, committing all to memory.

It seemed, holding her so closely, as if the past months had all been a horrible waking dream. They were wearing same clothes as they both had in death. It was as if they hadn't died at all, they hadn't suffered, and a demon wearing Fred's stolen body had never walked the earth. But it wasn't a dream—it had happened—but it all seemed to melt away. Wesley hoped with all he had that this wasn't a dream. That he wasn't dreaming of her hands soft in his hair, of her warmth, of her smile.

It was not a dream, and when he knew it he finally did cry, letting out healing sobs of release that were more shuddering choking gulps than water-tears.

"Don't cry, Wes," Fred told him, even as she did the same. "It's gonna be okay. We're together now, and it's okay. I'm never gonna leave you, never. The astronauts won."

Wes smiled, realizing that she was rambling, just like she always had. He'd never thought he'd hear the running sentences again, nor be able tease her about them. Perhaps someday soon they would be healed enough to do such things once more .

"I never left you. I was in there all the time... trying to reach you, Wes. I didn't mean to die and leave you all alone. I'm so sorry, honey, so sorry."

"No," Wesley mumbled against her, even as his mind processed her words.

'This is only the first layer. Don't you wanna see how deep I go?'

"You were there—in... her—the entire time?" he clarified slowly, unable to keep out a tone of sorrowed dread.

"Yes."

The hammer descended. It shattered his paradise into pieces.

"Then you could see everything she saw." The pieces embedded in him, twisting sharply. "You know what she knew. Everything I...."

"Yes," she repeated, softly, as their eyes locked.

Fred knew. She had experienced his actions, manic and dark when he had lost her. She knew he had stabbed Gunn, non-fatally or not, and deliberately shot Knox down without a second thought. Her memories had been restored, and so she would know of Connor now, and Lilah1. She had seen it all, and he knew he could not be forgiven. This was the end.

How could she forgive him? He did not think he deserved it. What would keep her from running away, far from him, as fast as she could? She had every right, every sane reason. He was going to lose her-- less certainly than he had before-- but her love would never touch him. This was cautious kindness now, because he had hurt so much. She would stay with him until she thought it was safe to leave, and day after day he would see the lingering fear of him in her eyes...

Then he couldn't look at her anymore. "You don't have to..." he began slowly, his heart breaking. He ground the words out through the pain, which was not sharp anymore but heavy and dull with resignation. Crushing and blunt. Lasting-- worse. "If you want to go, I understand. You mustn't..."

Wesley filled in the words in his mind that he couldn't bear to say aloud. She mustn't stay because he had suffered, because she knew it would hurt him so badly to lose her love. She mustn't stay because she was – he took a breath so sharp it stung his ribs—afraid of him. Afraid of his love, which was a force beyond the everyday force of the emotion. Afraid of the darkness that he wished she hadn't had to see, and that he wished he'd never let loose.

But Fred was not afraid. She was not one to be scared of darkness. It was her gift to see the goodness past the dark, from the very first—in Angel, in Spike... in her Wesley. She couldn't approve of his actions, and she wasn't going to try to justify them, but she could forgive them, as the others had forgiven them. She even knew that it would be natural if she feared them, though not for herself. Wesley would never hurt her, no matter if she hurt him—she knew because she had, so many times. It would go against everything he was, and everything in his heart. He would let her go if she wished it; he was trying to let her go now, for her own sake. He would never harm her—she knew that the way she knew that her name was Fred, or the way she knew that she wanted only Wesley.

She trusted him. She had always trusted him, from her first months back from Pylea, despite what had happened because of Billy, and Connor. When she'd needed help with Seidel, and later with Jasmine, she had come to him first, despite his exile.

It was true that there was darkness in him, but it was not so different from the darkness she carried. They were not so different, she thought, on the whole, as people—for the most part gentle and loving, set on doing good, but underneath, at times... Wesley understood that about her when no one else did or would, even as he put her on a pedestal. Charles and Angel had not been able to, though she didn't blame them for that. It wasn't a part of herself that she was proud of, but it was burned in from Pylea. She was better at keeping it locked away than he was, but she was not so sure that she would not have done some of the same things he had, were the situation reversed. She might have pulled the trigger on Knox. She'd done no less to Seidel, after all.

'We all got our demons.'

She'd had hers, literally.

Wesley had lost everything, had been left not quite fully sane—she understood that feeling, too. It hadn't been just her death, because she knew she was more than a lover to him. He'd lost his last hope and brightness in the world, because she represented such for him. It wasn't right that it should be that way. It wasn't right, that one woman should be all his happiness. But he hadn't had much else; he was too damaged, her Wesley. Fred made a vow to herself, there, holding him. He would have all of her love that he could hold, and she would see to it that there were other things, too, that could bring him joy again. He was broken, as she had been broken once, and they would heal together. They both wanted to banish every last dark part of themselves. Fred wasn't sure it was possible, in the world they lived in, to lose it totally. Darkness seemed to be a necessity, with the work they had to do. But they would try, and they would be happy.

If there was one thing above all else that Winifred had learned as he'd held her in her dying moments—then as she was trapped in Illyria--it was that she and Wesley simply were, and there was no question about it. They had survived the grave and a hundred horrors and come back together. Their love could not be denied, and that was all.

Winifred did not say any of this. Sometime he would want to hear these thoughts and she would share them, but now he just needed to know she was with him. "For someone so smart you do miss a lot, don' t you?" she teased, so gently. "Didn't I just say I was never gonna leave you?"

A sigh came out of him that must have drained his lungs. The agony fled his face and she kissed him.

"I'm afraid you're stuck with me, whether you like it or not."

He smiled and kissed her back, over and over, letting her touch wash over him like the healing balm it was. After long moments, as their minds and hearts finally began to settle in some small way, thoughts could come into Wesley's mind that weren't filled with Fred. His brief death had created a fuzzy line, with the events after it bright and forward, those before dimmer but growing more clear as the seconds flew.

"The others," he blurted, bolting upright. "They were fighting. It could still be going on."

She showed no urgency to match his, only smoothed his brow again. "It's over, Wesley. The Black Thorn is gone."

Wes felt a surge of pride in his comrades, followed by another alarm. "Angel said that there would be retribution from the Senior Partners. Possibly an army—"

"That's all over, too—and we won, Wes. You won. They're alive."

"And we were both brought back." It was difficult to force all the information through his newly-awoken mind, like trying to concentrate and work while one is too sleepy. He didn't want to surrender to that sleepiness, but it was difficult to fight it. Wesley let himself relax and reached out to stroke Winifred's cheek. All of his churning thoughts came out in one simple word. "How?"

Fred turned, unconsciously, to where Illyria had fallen. The dead warrior was not there.

And they were not alone.

Closing notes: Since the next chapter and this were originally one, this means it will be posted within a few days, maybe even today if I find the time to do the final editing and fill-ins on it. There are two chapters left in this puppy. Next time—we see a return to Dark! Fred, Wes' reaction to Illyria's sacrifice, and the other shoe falls—BIG time. The Valkyrie could have a made a very, very big mistake...

1 I'm not going to elaborate on this point, but I put this in spite of the fact that we know at least Wesley remembered his relationship with Lilah during the mind-wipe. Arguably Fred did, too, but perhaps not in the same context.