part one
Location: Manhattan Island New York
Wesley let himself into his apartment building's elevator. The week from hell finished at last for him. Workwise at least.
For Fred would be upstairs, sitting on the chair by the window, staring silently outside. Not speaking, not eating.
A miscarriage, how could a miracle been gifted to them by the gods like that and then just as suddenly been pulled out from under them? Not that Wesley knew about Fred's pregnancy, until entering his apartment shell shocked at hearing the news about Faith, he ended up having to drive a distraught Fred to hospital.
Then they received the sad news about Lorne being killed in a plane crash. It never rained but it poured. Enough misery rained down on Wesley this month to sink a battleship.
No word on Faith's whereabouts brightened Wesley's despair. Faith more than likely, now existed as a vampire, seeing how her corpse never revealed itself to the searchers of the area Faith was last sighted in.
Leaden footed, Wesley walked down the passageway to his apartment door. He unlocked the door and stepped into Hell.
A tableau of death met his eyes. The two wolfhounds sprawled on the tasteful Persian carpet, their throats ripped out, dead after a long period of torture by the looks of it. Fred on the leather couch, eyes staring sightlessly to the ceiling.
"I was gonna hold on to you got here." Faith came out of the kitchen, wiping the blood off her hands with a tea towel. "But I got real hungry and kinda excited I admit by kicking the dogs ribs in. So I started dinner without you." She put on a fake English accent. Mocking him. "Bloody rude of me I know, do excuse me Wesley old sport."
Wesley could only watch frozen in horror, as the animated corpse of the girl he loved drew nearer to him.
"You didn't warn wifey I'd been turned. Still trying to keep me your dirty little secret?" Faith sighed disappointedly. "No matter. I didn't turn her. I've had enough of being in a freaking triangle. It rocked telling her all about us. Stick insect cried, it made me get off like you wouldn't believe, oh and slapping around her some."
"The baby?" Wesley choked.
"Oh you mean the bunch of fetal cells, that were gonna wreck my figure? They're long expelled Wes. I'm dead lover, I can't sustain life." Faith put her arms around his neck. Her hands were the cold of the grave. "I can only take it."
"I'm sorry Faith." Wesley meant it most sincerely. "I couldn't save you."
"But we're gonna be together forever now baby. Eternity. I don't even wanna delay the process, by torturing you the remaining three ways I missed out on six years ago. I love you Wesley. I have for so long." Faiths features changed, she sank her fangs into his neck.
"I love you too Faith." Wesley whispered back. He pulled the automatic out of his coat pocket and blew his brains out.
part two
"You say you love me in your sleep?" Faith chuckled and shook him harder. "That's so romantic dude. I'm gonna need a sick bag 24/7 being in New York with you, not just in the mornings."
"Faith!" Wesley sat upright on his couch in the winter afternoon sunshine. Thank god it had been a dream. "Oh Christ, Faith." He hugged her warm breathing body. "I dreamed you'd been turned back in London."
"What, when I actually had something to live for, for once? No way. I had to escape." Faith put her scarred wrists from vampire bites around his neck reassuringly. "No, you're just gonna have to get used to me and Junior whatever its going to turn out to be, stuck in ya life for good."
"I can cope." Wesley spotted three cardboard boxes in the corner of their new loft apartment. "Lorne drop around the rest of my things? Fred wouldn't be up to that, would she?"
"No, she's still on permanent bed rest, so Lorne packed the gear up for you. We had a good laugh about the pair of you. Kidding! He dropped the stuff off and left." Faith snuggled into Wesley's arms and lay back on the couch with him. Turning up on his doorstep at work with a suitcase ten days ago, turned out to be one of the best decisions she had made to date.
part three
Fred cleared away her embroidery from the bed covers, Lorne placed the tray of sandwiches carefully in front of her.
"You cut them into star shapes!" Fred squealed delightedly. "You are a green angel Lorne."
"You need to eat up sweet thing." Lorne handed her orange juice. His unexpected upgrade to an earlier flight, causing him to not be on the plane that crashed, a blessed miracle. As had Fred's threatened miscarriage holding off. With complete bed rest for the next two months, Fred hopefully would be able to sustain the pregnancy. It looked like twins.
"Any regrets Fredkins, about mailing off the papers to divorce Wesley?" Lorne enquired, brushing a wisp of her hair back from her forehead.
"Shucks no, as my fellow Texan Dr Phil rightly said, 'The only thing sadder than staying in a bad marriage for a year is staying in a bad marriage for a year and a day.'" Fred sipped her orange juice. "Why if I'd remain married to Wesley, I'd be better off dead."