She'd hung suspended there for what seemed like forever. It was dark, and it was warm. Weightless, and also bodiless, she drifted endlessly. Time stretched out until it no longer had any meaning. She was safe here, but outside the door of her retreat, a monster lay in wait. It had hurt her horribly, once upon a time. So much that it had nearly destroyed her. But her torment had ended when she'd retreated here, and thus far, the monster had not been able to gain access. They fought, the girl and the monster. Not with swords or blows or magic, but simply by existing. So this was death. 'Funny,' she thought, as much as she was able to think in that state, 'I'd expected something different.'

And different it became.

After an eternity in the safe, warm darkness, something changed. Light intruded upon her prison for the first time, well, ever. Great cracks ran through the walls, and a brilliant blue light poured in. She did not need to be told that this was the monster's light. Instinctively, she lashed out against it, and lightning crackled along the border, doing battle with the blue light. Energies writhed in that terrible inner space. More and more cracks appeared in the walls of the prison/sanctuary, and then, all at once, it shattered. The blue light fled, and she was moving. She was moving upwards.

Up.

Ever and onwards, up.

It grew bright around her. Lightning crackled wildly, and her shapelessness became clothed in flesh.

The blue light returned.

There was pain.

She fought with all that she had, knowing that she would not get another chance like this again. She fought with everything she was.

And she won.

More or less.

With one brilliant, terrible burst, she emerged out of darkness and into the world. She was being born. She was being reborn. Her pupils dialated, and her eyes seemed to thaw. The blue faded from her hair – somewhat. She took in a great, glorious breath, and all at once figures strange and unfamiliar swirled in her confused vision. She couldn't make sense of it. Light and colour merged together in unrecognizable patterns. She clenched her eyes shut, and began to cough. Each great wracking cough sent waves of agony through her. She felt as though her lungs were on fire. Her entire body burned. She felt her heart beat a laboured beat. It beat again, this time stronger. Again and again, and each beat felt like a hammer being smashed against her chest.

She opened her eyes. That man. She recognized that man. "Wesley?" she asked weakly. "My Wesley?" She tried to sit up, but her vision swam, and she fainted.

A Kingdom By The Sea
An Angel Crossover Fanfic
by P.H. Wise

Chapter 1: That Which We Are, We Are

Disclaimer: I don't own Angel. I don't own Highlander. I'm not making any money off of this.

Wesley stared at Fred's fallen body in shock, and he was not alone in this. Spike, Angel and Lorne alike seemed unable to believe the evidence of their senses. Both Angel and Spike sniffed the air, and for a moment, Wesley wondered what they were doing. It occurred to him a moment later: her scent. Fred's scent. They were smelling her, and not Illyria.

He looked down at her sleeping face, so peaceful now in comparison to the last time he had seen her. She looked like an angel.

Emotion welled up within him, felt too powerfully to be quantified as any one feeling, and he burst into tears, clutching her desperately, only half convinced that she really was back.

He knew she was back. She had to be. He had seen her quickening doing battle with Illyria's essence. That she was Immortal came as a shock. It meant that she'd have to deal with a number of things now... things he'd never wanted for her. But it had not yet come to that, and if she was really back, he would make damn sure that it never would.

He had no idea whether or not an Immortal's essence could survive possession by an Old One intact, but it gave him hope. She was here.

Winifred Burkle awoke some time later. She was in a hospital bed, and for a moment, she had a peculiar sense of double vision, one field of vision hyper-acute and tinged blue, and the other normal. The blue faded, and the normal remained. Wesley was seated at her side, with Angel, Lorne, Spike, and Gunn all crowding round. Theirs was the joy of the springtime, of the sunrise, of the first cry of the newborn. Wesley was crying, and the others looked ready to join him.

"Fred," he said, and there was a note of desperate hope in his voice, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got run over by a truck," she replied, and her voice sounded unfamiliar to ears that had grown unused to hearing it. "What? Why are y'all looking at me like that?"

The others exchanged glances.

"We, ah," Angel began.

"Right," Spike said, stepping forward. "It's like this. We need you to sing for us so as we know that Bluebird's really flown the coup."

The others nodded in agreement.

Fred met Wesley's desperately hopeful gaze, and couldn't help but think of how much he resembled a little lost puppy at that moment. She smiled. "You are my sunshine," she began singing, "My only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray..."

Lorne recoiled slightly, wincing even as he clenched his eyes shut.

"What?" Angel said, "Is it Illyria? Is she still there?"

"Holy sea-breeze," Lorne said. "Ow ow ow. Freddikins, remind me never to do that again."

"What did you see?" Wesley asked.

"Oh, Lyree's still in there," Lorne said. The hope that had shone so brightly in Wesley's eyes dimmed slightly. "She's just not the only one who's in there. Our little Winifred is back and better than ever! Except looking at her aura packs a wallop like the morning after a twelve hour drinking binge."

Fred grew troubled at that. "That thing that... killed me, it's still inside me?"

Lorne nodded. "But don't you worry about a thing, Sweetcakes," he said, doing his best to sound cheerful, "I'm sure that with the full arsenal of Wolfram and Hart at our disposal, we'll have that nasty old Old One out of you in no time."

Even as he said it, Fred knew it wasn't true. Not that Lorne was lying to her. He plainly at least wanted to believe what he was saying. But Illyria... she doubted she'd ever be free of her.

"Do you need anything, Fred?" Wesley asked. "Anything at all?"

Her stomach rumbled.

"I could go for some tacos," she said.

Wesley smiled. "Of course."

It was some two days later that Fred was finally able to leave Wolfram and Hart's hospital and go home, and Wesley spent most of it at her side, even going so far as to bring his work with him and do it by the side of her hospital bed. But now, she was finally back in her own room, and alone for the first time since she'd woken up. Wesley had escorted her back to the apartment, but had not come in – he knew that she needed some time alone to process what had happened, and she loved him for it.

She felt grimy, like she needed a shower. And she really wanted to get out of the strange leather catsuit that she'd woken up in. It clung to her like a second skin, but it was starting to chafe, and she was pretty sure that she probably stank to high heaven underneath it.

She prepared a change in clothing for herself – jeans, bra, panties, and a nice blouse – and set it down on the sink. That was when she got a first look at herself. They had been very careful at Wolfram and Hart not to bring any mirrors near her, and she had suspected that she probably looked awful.

She was right. And she was wrong.

She looked... inhuman. She studied the person in the mirror in a state of near shock – it was still her body, but so much was different... Her eyes were no longer brown, but now a peculiar shade of crystalline blue. Her hair no longer had the very slight waviness that was natural to it, but was now straight, and streaked with blue, though she suspected it might regain some of its wave if she were to wash it. Her lips were faintly blue as well – they looked... frozen, almost. But the most distressing to her was the blue tinged flesh of her forehead, and her neck.

She tugged at the catsuit, but it wouldn't give. She tried to find a zipper or some means of removing it.

There was none.

She began to panic. Frantically she tugged at it and pulled at it, and even went so far as to find a knife and attempt to cut it off.

No luck.

She felt trapped. Smothered. The walls were closing in all around her. Her eyes flashed, and she cringed, and huddled down on the floor, out of the view of that hateful mirror, and of the creature she saw looking back at her.

"Shell," a contemptuous voice said.

She recognized it as her own, though she had not spoken.

Slowly, she rose to her feet, forcing herself not to panic, not to collapse in on herself. She could feel the Other there, waiting for her guard to falter, waiting for a chance to seize control.

She met the gaze of the creature in the mirror.

"Shell," her reflection said.

Fred glared at it. "My name is Winifred," she said.

"How have you done this?" Illyria said. "How have you overcome me? How can a mere mortal live after being used as fuel for the glory of my rebirth?"

Pain wracked her body for a moment, and she staggered. She recovered a moment later, and glared at Illyria.

"Your organs continue to regenerate. Again and again, they are liquified by my power, and they regenerate. How is this possible?"

"Maybe you just aren't that cool," Fred replied, not feeling at all charitable towards the thing that had taken her body.

Illyria's expression hardened. "You will not treat me with such disrespect. I am Illyria, god-king of the primordium, shaper of things!"

"And now you're stuck with me," Fred said.

Illyria visibly grew angry at that. She reached through the mirror and seized Fred by the throat, and began to squeeze. A moment later, Fred realized that she was holding her own throat. With a shudder, she released herself.

She took a few moments to recover, and then met her reflection's gaze. "How do I get out of this ... outfit?"

Illyria tilted her head to the side, birdlike. "You ask a favor of me?"

Fred thought about it. "... Yes."

"I will ask a favor in turn, shell, though it rankles that I should even be in such a position to bargain with a shell, of all things."

Fred nodded. "Just tell me how to get out of this."

"Will it."

Fred thought about that. Then she tried it. No luck. She met her double's gaze.

"You are not trying," Illyria said contemptuously.

Fred grit her teeth. "Fine," she hissed. Abruptly, the catsuit dropped off of her, and she was nude.

The sense of Illyria's presence faded. She started the shower, and as she waited for the water to warm up, she considered her body in the mirror.

The streaks of blue ran down her form in a very definite pattern that bore some small resemblance to the mottled skin of a chameleon, interspersed with her normal flesh tone, with the flesh tone as the dominant colour.

She shuddered, and stepped into the shower.

An hour later, she was washed, dried, and clothed. Her hair had regained its natural slight waviness, and the blue streaks on her skin felt raw from the scrubbing she had given them in a vain effort to uncover normal skin beneath. The sense of rawness faded rapidly, as did the redness. Though she had scrubbed her left hand till it bled, she had watched it heal before her eyes.

Between this, her altered appearance, and the fact that she had felt no urge to use the facilities since she had awoken – though she had felt hunger - she could only wonder what other surprises Illyria had left her with.

She'd tried concealing the blue skin with makeup, but that had only ended up making her look worse. The one plus to this whole Illyria transformation was that she doubted she'd ever need to use makeup again. This was, unfortunately, counterbalanced by the fact that she'd never be able to use normal makeup again, either. Her complexion was too radically changed for any of the common store-bought makeup to work with it. A professional makeup job by a makeup artist might be feasible, but her knowledge of such was limited. That was something to look into, she supposed.

Still, she was on the whole feeling much more human now, and the bag of taco-bell food lying on her kitchen counter – bought by Wesley on the drive back to her apartment - went a long way towards improving her mood. It wasn't really Mexican food. Not really. But it would do for now.

Wesley sat by the door of Fred's apartment. He had not left since dropping her off here. He stared down at the tattoo on the wrist of his left hand, unsure of what he should do.

Although such information was a highly guarded secret, the Watchers had a mission beyond the care for and direction of the Slayer. And although the First's culling had killed most of those involved in the training and care of the Potentials, the other divisions of the Watcher's Council had remained, for the most part, untouched. His organization had watched the Immortals for nearly as long as they had cared for the Slayers.

Idly, he wondered who they would send to watch Fred, if they should learn of her immortality.

Although he was no longer a Watcher, he knew that he could still access a great deal of their information through the template books at Wolfram and Hart. He could find someone to train her. Someone to give her the skills she needed to stay alive. Someone he could be reasonably sure was not going to try to take her head. Perhaps one of the MacLeods.

But the thought of his Winifred as a player in the Game, his Winifred taking heads, was almost more than he could bear.

Oh, he knew that she had intended to kill a man once before. She'd intended to kill the Professor who had sent her to Pylea. And he'd helped her. But that was different. That was ... not justice. The man had deserved to die. He had gotten what he deserved, though not by Fred's hands.

He thought about telling Fred about being Immortal, and what it meant. And what it would mean for a very long time, unless someone took her head.

He thought about it.

He stood up, and reached out to knock on the door.

He reached out, and he stopped.

No, he wouldn't subject Fred to that. He would protect her. Keep her safe. Any Immortal who came after her would do so only over his own dead body. And he had two great advantages that they did not: he was under no obligation to follow the rules of the game, and he had access to the Watcher's database.

Besides, he'd known long ago that he would kill for her.

END CHAPTER 1

Author's notes:

Feedback is most definitely welcome – particularly constructive criticism. Nothing makes me happier than to know what specifically you (the reader) liked, what you didn't like, and (most importantly) why.