A/N: My second fic about Wes and how he's dealing with the loss of his love. Spoilers for "Hole In the World" and all eps following it. Also, would like to mention that characters might seem a bit OOC, but then, who isn't when they're grieving?
I do no own these characters, which belong to the creative genius Joss Whedon. I also do not own the song at the end of the fic, which is "Without You" by The Dixie Chicks- Fred's favorite band.
Without You
"I've sure enjoyed the rain........."
It wasn't like him to do this.
No. He was the one who pretty much always kept it together- well, at least to a point. This was the breaking point, however, and he shouldn't have even been worried about it because this was ridiculous and he knew it.
He'd been raised to be a sensible man. More than sensible, really. More like......... static and hollow. His father had shown him no parental compassion that he could recall. It was a bit of a family tradition to raise children who didn't understand what it meant to get love from their family.
"But I'm looking forward to the sun........."
He had received lectures instead. Lectures on how evil is evil and good is good. Lectures on how he had to be perfect in every way, how he had to know everything there was to know about demons and vampires and all those things that went bump in the night. He remembered how his heart fell each time his father put him to sleep as a small boy, and he would complain about monsters under the bed- to which his father would just smirk and say, "Nonsense, boy, the demons live outside. You don't have to worry about them until you're older."
It hadn't been promising, the way he put it.
But all his family problems and quiet anger toward his father was nothing now.
"You have to feel the pain........."
There was a wound, right there, where his heart was. It was bleeding and burnt with pain so badly he had trouble remembering how to breathe. It grew larger each night, dripping a bit more onto his shirt and tingling with a searing sting that was a little more intense than the night before.
It was all he could concentrate on- the pain. Sometimes he would see Spike or Angel wandering the halls, looking so depressed and down trodden that he could not even bring himself to glance at them for more than a split second. Gunn was still in the hospital wing, and Lorne refused to leave his office or put down the strange blue liquor he often drank.
But he didn't notice. All he felt was the pain.
"When you lose the love you gave someone........."
He sat at his desk and stared blankly at an ancient book containing incantations he was supposed to be researching, not seeing the words at all. Seconds ticked by on the clock, resounding so loudly through the room that he had to cover his ears.
This place was empty.
So was he, he thought, looking down at his wound. He rose from his chair and began to walk across the lobby when he was stopped by Angel.
"Wes, I need you to check out those incantations ASAP." Angel said in a depressing tone, his heart not in the work at all.
Maybe he had a wound too. Wes nodded mutely, staring at the floor and wishing he could just fall through it and never surface again.
"Wes? Are you okay?"
"I thought by now the time would take away these lonely tears........."
He looked up, icy blue eyes dulled by tragedy merely glancing around the room before turning to his chest. "I need to get my wound checked."
"What?" Angel asked, immediately on red alert. "You haven't been in the field for a while; how'd you get a wound? Where is it?"
Wes simply shrugged and slowly lifted his hand to touch at the bloody patch on his shirt. "Here." Angel moved Wes' coat lapel aside to see what he was talking about. "Uh, Wes? There's nothing there."
"No." Wes replied, no emotion in his voice whatsoever. "It's there. Don't you see the blood? It hurts."
"What blood? There's no blood. If there was blood, I'd smell it."
He looked down at his shirt again, eyeing the bright red spot with slight disdain. "Guess this means I need to go to the Laundromat."
"Your clothes are clean. Wes, what's wrong?"
Wes let out a small laugh. "Well, that's the thing. Nothing's right. It's all wrong. It's all wrong."
Angel lifted a brow and took a step closer to his friend. "What's all wrong?"
Wes' laughter died and turned to something short of a fiery rage. Wes didn't yell, however. He merely uttered in a deadly whisper that only Angel could hear, "What's wrong? What's wrong? I'll tell you what's wrong!
"There's this part of me that won't stop hurting, won't stop aching, won't stop bleeding." He ran his fingers over his wound for emphasis, running his thumb over his other fingers to spread the blood between them. "It hurts so badly. It hurts........."
"I hope you're doing fine all alone........."
"We're all hurting, Wes. We all miss Fred-"
That was what really set him off. Now he was yelling, and the whole office stopped to listen to his tirade.
"Miss Fred? Miss Fred? That's right, Angel, we all miss Fred! But you know what? I seem to be the only one you're picking on about it!"
"Wes-"
"No! I'm done listening! I'm so tired of you telling me I have to get on with life!" He took a step closer to his friend and boss, voice lowering but still loud enough that people who were watching still jumped when he spoke. "How about the others, hmm? Why aren't you telling Lorne to get off his pity train and do something? Why don't you tell Spike to get out of the lab? Why don't you tell Gunn to stop giving up on life and get up out of bed?
"Why is it just me? Why are you always asking me to go do something? To forget my pain?
"Well I have pain that's not going away anytime soon, if ever. Even if you don't see this," he ran his hand over his wound again, wincing slightly, "it's there. I feel it every day. I feel it every night. I feel it every second.
"I feel it too, Wes. But I can't stop to try and make it go away. I can't freeze time and I can't bring her back. I have to keep going no matter how much I want to stop-"
"Great advice coming from the King of Brooding."
"Hey! Watch what you say!"
"Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to offend you, Mr. I'm-Still-Beating-Myself-Up-Over- My-Teenage-Years. But you know what? You don't have to remember how to breathe each morning. You don't have to wake up each night wondering if it was real." Wes ranted angrily, tears threatening to burst from his eyes at any second.
"And what about Fred? What if her soul really didn't evaporate? What if she's lost out there in some hell dimension, waiting for someone to save her? What if she's........." he bit at his lower lip because his next words were bringing on a flood of memories before they were even spoken, "what if she's scared? What if she's lost? What if she's alone?" His tears were dripping down his face despite him now, but he made no move to wipe them away.
"Where do I go from here?"
"You don't have to remember what happened. I was there, Angel. I saw her break. I saw her crumble. And I can't forget, because then I'd forget all those seconds with her and I'd hate myself even more for it. I can't move on, Angel- I can't."
Angel had no reply to this, so Wes headed back to his office. He doubted if medical could help him, if the wound wasn't physically there, as Angel had been so quick to point out.
"Cause without you I'm not okay........."
He locked the door behind him and quietly wished she'd come back. He'd imagined it so many times now that he saw it at night in his dreams.
She would enter, wearing the very clothes she'd left this world in, with her glasses on and her nose crinkled when she saw him absentmindedly making a chain of paperclips at his desk. She'd come over and nudge him lightly, whisper his name until she got his attention, and peck him on the cheek. He'd look at her and smile, overwhelmed with the joy that he had merely dreamed the last few weeks up. She would laugh at his story and sit on his lap while they talked about where to go that night. Maybe Peking chicken at Fu Yon's Buffet.
"And without you I've lost my way........."
Then he would snap back to reality at a bone crushing pace and fall back into the daily routine that he now went through without a single thought outside of her.
That jolt back to reality always seemed so surreal. It reminded him of what it felt like to jump through a portal- the sense of being lost, the queasiness, and the unease of it.
"My heart's stuck in second place........."
He opened his desk drawer and lifted out the small box of paperclips that sat near the neatly stacked erasers. He turned in his chair and pressed the on button for the stereo that had once been Fred's. 'Play' was the next button he chose.
The words drifted through the speakers and he pulled a long chain of paperclips from the box, adding links as he waited for her to walk in.
"I've sure enjoyed the rain
But I'm looking forward to the sun
You have to feel the pain
When you lose the love you gave someone
I thought by now the time would take away these lonely tears
I hope you're doing fine all alone
Where do I go from here?
Cause without you I'm not okay
And without you I've lost my way
My heart's stuck in second place
Without you.........."