The Hard Decisions

She's a substitute, but he loves her. He loves her, but it's not enough. There's too much. It's not the same. It will never be the same.

He tries not to resent her, but every night, like this night, here in their bed, he can see a younger version of himself, holding his beloved as she died in his arms. He can hear words, strangled, tortured—

'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.'

'Why can't I stay?'

and the resentment steals in, unwanted, undeserved. He knows he cannot hold it against her; the blame is not hers. But she brought about the death of his love—his one true love, he thinks bitterly, but with no castle and no happy ending. His princess chose the wrong prince, it seems. Everything he touches turns to ash.

It may be that his resentment comes from hers, though he knows he deserves it, and she does not. She resents him for more than he wants to know. It's too painful, too frightening. If he does ever figure out the depths of her feeling, he dreads, reality will shine too brightly in their faces and she will leave him. She can't leave him. They have only each other—they were inevitable, always inevitable, from the day he set his eyes on her. He needs her and she needs him, for she hurts just as deeply. She is better at hiding it, but he knows. Her hurt now is like a gaping wound, stinging at him from across the pillows.

So he turns, strokes her hair, mumbles words of meaningless comfort. He doesn't know the words to give for what she has endured. No one on the earth does. She came back wrong; her world was not as she'd left it; her subjects were not as she'd left them. (Even in her long slumber, had she known she'd been betrayed?) The space between them yawns cold, and his words fail to change her hard expression. Everything about her is hard now but for her hair, still silken, and he strokes it again, mourning over this body that looks exactly like that that he loved, wanted—exactly like it and nothing like it. He mourns and thinks of wide, innocent eyes and his love's upturned smile. He thinks of his beloved's grace, of her curiosity, of her gentle touch-- but the images in his mind are not enough. They never are. Sometimes his love seems so perfect in his memory that it is hard for him to remember if she had ever walked beside him at all, held his hand, skated her fingers over his brow and eyes and mouth… or if she was simply the hopeful, delusioned product of a mind and heart too long ground down.

Later, when he can, he knows he will be sitting at his desk with her pictures—tangible, real, proof—mourning anew. There are surprisingly few of her and they cannot do her justice. She was so beautiful to him. There is a drawing Angel made that does and does not capture her. Her features are there but none of her courage, none of her caring. His favorites, though, that he studies the longest, are those of when she was young, just into adulthood. Her future lay ahead of her and it shows in her face. The world was her oyster then—before she got lost and it did terrible things to her.1 He searches that face, looking for glimpses of the woman she'd become, wondering if, were he able to go back to that time, if she would love him then as she had not so very long ago. He thinks of all the wonderful things she was and all she could do, and wonders why she had ever loved him, of all men. Flawed, a failure, his father says. He says. Yet she had. Now she is dead and he has a cold goddess beside him. She, too, is too good for him, and still she is not enough.

Of course he hadn't known what he'd had with his beloved—how rare and how precious-- until it was gone. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. He was like every other man and like every other horrible, true cliché. And guilt—of course there had been guilt, coupled with the expectant eyes of his companions.

Those were reasons all for what he'd done, but none of them the whole. He'd done what he'd had to do. Because it was about right and wrong, always. He'd done what he'd known was right, regardless of the cost.2

This time, the cost had been his love, his beautiful love. Her life and his spirit.

The body, after all, was Fred's first. Was he to have left her soul trapped, floating, shattered, sleeping? A death for a death, a life for a life, pain for pain. Debt repaid in full.

He'd loved Fred. He loves her now, though not with the love of before. If only he could, but his love is mostly spent for one lifetime. There's only so much love he can stand.

He'd made the hard decision that no man should have to make, and carried it out alone. There was no one to do it but him. He was the only once close enough to his love to get through all the armors she'd worn. He'd been the only one able to slip the enchanted knife up into her heart, whisper the three enchanted words against her hair with his eyes clenched shut against the sight of her stricken face. He'd been the one to hold her while he convulsed with sobs and she convulsed with the pain he'd hoped to spare her.

'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' 'Why can't I stay?'

It seems to be the plan of the universe that he should suffer so specifically. Surely not all men are fated to so many times raise the steel against their lovers. Surely not all men are fated to have the images of those same loves follow them beyond the grave.

Now he rolls away from one such image, but Fred does not stir. She sleeps, and he walks away from the bed to his books. He opens one and stares; irony chokes his throat. Is he like Knox must have been, with his hours of furtive love-worship, eyes fixated to texts that must be forbidden for a reason? Will he finally, half-mad, try to find a way to bring his goddess into the world again? To pull her out of her second death, out of the Deeper Well, to him?

His heart breaks, as it does every night, because he knows the answer.

"Illyria," he cries, and his tears blur the pages. His beloved is dust in a world that forgot her, and he'll love her until his body too is dust. Longer.

But it's about right and wrong, and he's already made the hard decision.

Author's Note: I hope this made sense; honestly I'm not sure if you readers had it all figured out in the first couple paragraphs, or if I did such a lousy job organizing it that the idea doesn't come across. Basically, this is based on Season Six speculation. Many of the major players involved with ATS (including Joss Whedon and Alexis Denisof) have mentioned that a major potential plotline for the now-fabled S6 would be Wesley having to choose between bringing back Fred and consequently destroying Illyria (who he ahs become "fond of,") or keeping Illyria while letting Fred stay where she is (not much detail given on that part.) The arrows all pointed to Wesley choosing Illyria, whether for the "greater good," his inability to flat-out kill Illyria, Fred being in a peaceful place, etc or for some other less obvious reason. This fic is a complete twist on that, and, unlike most of my fanfiction, is not actually a plotline I would have liked to have seen in the show.

Also, this is not meant to be a Fred-bash, nor a Fresley bash. I love both. I am simply playing with the idea that those two could have some major issues to work out should she come back. Don't get me wrong—I love the big reunions scenes and have written those, too. But given how Fred deals with betrayal and disloyalty, one can hardly imagine she'd be thrilled to find out that her boys not only didn't kill Illyria at their first opportunity (i.e. post-power-drain) but worked with her and even helped her at times. There are many different in-character ways that her reaction could be written. Hopefully, this is one of them.

1 A direct adaptation of a line from "Fredless," ATS Season 3.

2 Direct adaptation from "Lineage," ATS Season 5.