When she felt Angel slip away from her, Fred tried to open her eyes, but they still felt heavy, so she let her eyes close again and snuggled down under the covers for a little while longer. Sam was in good hands with Angel, and there was still time before they had to be out the door to head to the doctor's.
She fell asleep for a few more minutes until she felt that she needed to get up and get dressed. She wasn't sure why, but she did. Stretching, she slipped out from under the covers, pulling them up just enough to neaten the bed for the time being and pull on a dress before grabbing a band to pull her hair back with as she headed downstairs.
At the bottom of the steps, she looked toward the kitchen where she could hear Sam babbling to himself and banging his spoon against the tray. However, she could also see the front door cracked open and could hear voices, so she walked over, peeking out to see an old woman standing in front of Angel...and calling him an idiot while saying she needed to speak to her. Her brow furrowed, and she stepped out onto the porch, looking at the woman.
"I'm Fred. Who are you and why are you insulting my boyfriend?"
"Boyfriend. The one you love is still alive, and yet you live and sleep with one of the undead."
Fred grabbed the doorframe at the woman's words. "Wh--what did you say?"
"The father of your son lives, girl," the woman told her. "He's with the Lux people in Oriens, their Scholar Prince. And they need the two of you as well."
She pulled a book out of her bag and shoved it at Fred, who instinctively grabbed hold of it. Her mind was still trying to process what she had just been told. Wesley...was alive?
"Wesley...but he...he can't be..." Fred looked at Angel, lost and uncertain, feeling the ache in her heart that she had lived with for so long after Wesley's death come back.
"He's alive. And you both must go to him. That book will tell you everything you need to know." The woman gave Angel a dirty look before turning around and disappearing off the porch.
Fred looked after her then down at the book in her hands, her heart pounding and tears in her eyes.
Angel continued to stare at the old lady as his hand twitched, wanting to shut the door. He was about to when Fred come up behind him and started to talk to her. Angel kept his eyes on their visitor but wavered a bit when she made it sound like Wes was still alive. Angel shook his head and looked at Fred, wanting to tell her not to believe it.
It was a lie. He'd seen Wesley die with his own two eyes.
Before he could say anything, the old lady was thrusting a book at Fred and then left. He wanted to go after her but he couldn't do to the sun. Instead, he shook his head. "It's a trick, Fred," he said without looking at her. "Wolfram and Hart probably sent her. They've been too quiet lately and it's because of this. They were waiting for the right time to do this to us."
He knew he had to be right. Lilah was still smarting over he failed attempt to kill them. According to his sources, the lady lawyer had spent a great deal of time, being punished, by the firm in their own special Hell. Luckily for her, Gavin proved to be an idiot so they brought Lilah back to run her department the right way.
"It's a lie..." he said again. He wanted Wes to be alive but he understood what it was like to have hope, when no hope was there. And he didn't want Fred to go through the same thing.
Turning around, he shut the door and noticed the blank look on Fred's face. "Fred," he whispered as he cupped her face with his hands. "Wesley's dead. This lady was sent here to be cruel to us. Wes is gone and you know that. If you open that book there's not going to be an answer in there for you, or to help you find him. He's dead and you have to remember that."
Fred knew that Angel had to be right - this had to be a trick. After all, he had seen Wesley die, and she knew that he would never lie to her. He had cared about Wesley too, had been his best friend.
But she found herself looking down at the book. It didn't look like any normal book, with the spine at the top so it flipped open and paper like nothing else she had ever felt. The cover almost seemed to be made out of some kind of soft, short-haired fur of an almost pearlescent color. If Wesley was alive, this book could tell them how to find him.
If Wesley was alive.
It had to be a trick, but what if he was alive somewhere else and was lost like she had been lost and was waiting for them to come find him and bring him home?
She felt Angel's hand on her cheek and looked at him, feeling tears in her eyes. "What if it's true, Angel?" she whispered hoarsely. "You died. You told us. You died, but you were brought back. What if it's the same with Wes? What if he was brought back somewhere, and he's waiting for us to go find him? I...oh, God..."
She needed to sit down. Stumbling back a little, she found her way to the steps and sat down hard, the book in her lap. Her chest felt like it was caught in a vice, and she didn't know what to believe. If Wesley was dead and this was trick, she knew it would destroy her. But if Wesley was alive and they didn't do anything, she'd never be able to forgive herself.
"I love you, Angel...I'll always love you, but...I love Wesley too...and I have to know," she choked out. She looked up at him with tears streaming down her face. "Please. I have to know. We can't leave him alone if he's still alive somehow."
Angel stood perfectly still and listened to Fred. The sensible side of him knew she was right, and knew they needed to find out for sure if Wes were alive or not. Wes had been his best friend and when he'd watched him die, he felt his world crumble around him. Now there was a chance he was alive. Fred would have the love of her life back and Sam would have his father - his real father - back.
And Angel would be all alone.
Swallowing hard, he knew what he was going to do. He loved Fred and Sam more than anything and he knew he had to let them go. If Wesley was alive, then Angel would let them go so they could be a family. He would never stand in the way of their happiness.
"Then we'll look," he whispered, trying hard to keep the emotion out of his voice. "Once you find out where he might be, we'll go there and I'll help you bring him home."
He wanted to say more but Sam started to cry from the kitchen. "I'll get him. He'll need a bath. Why don't you start on that and I'll take him upstairs," Angel quietly said. He turned around and went back to the kitchen without saying another word to Fred.
"Hi!" Sam happily said when he saw Angel.
"Hi," Angel quietly said as he picked the boy up and took him upstairs to clean up.
When Angel agreed to help her find Wesley, she looked at him with tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered before looking back down at the book.
Opening it up while he went to take care of Sam, she looked at the strange words and realized that this would take some time. She would need to use Wesley's books from the library upstairs and try to translate what was in there. Once she knew what it said, she and Angel would be able to follow it and if Wesley was still alive...
Suddenly, the book fell from her hands to the floor as a realization hit her. If Wesley was still alive... If Wesley was still alive, that would mean that Angel--that she and Angel and what they had together--that it would be... Looking up the stairs, Fred gasped in deeply at the thought that she might have to give up Angel. She loved Wesley and wanted him back more than anything, but Angel had been her lifeline, her handsome man, her reminder that she could still love deeply and truly.
Hurrying upstairs, she found Angel in bathroom, watching Sam as he splashed in the tub. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly as she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that wanted to fall. She didn't know what they would do if Wesley was still alive. She wasn't even sure how any of them would react.
"No matter what happens, you'll always be my Angel," she told him softly. "I love you."
Once Angel had gotten Sam upstairs, he took the boy to the bathroom and filled the tub with warm water and bubbles. He stripped Sam of his clothes and placed him into the tub. After washing his hair and body, Angel placed a few toys in the water for the boy to play with as he sat back and watched, his mind wandering and thinking about the possibility of Wesley being alive.
Angel knew what he had to do if he was. He wasn't going to keep Wes away from his family. Sam needed his real father, and Fred needed her soulmate. All three of them needed each other and Angel wasn't about to stand in the way of that. He would remain on the sidelines as their friend, and Sam's uncle, and nothing more.
When Fred came in, and wrapped her arms around him, Angel let out an unneeded sigh. "If Wesley's alive, then you have to go back to him. He's your family, Fred, not me. Humans and vampires shouldn't be together anyway. I have forever and you don't. And Sam needs his father," he quietly said as Sam looked at the both of them and grinned.
He removed himself from Fred's arms and pulled the towel from the towel rack. Bending over, Angel let the water drain from the tub before picking Sam up and wrapping the towel around him. He glanced down at Fred and shook his head. "I'll help you look for him but once we find him, I'll move out. This is the only home Sam has ever known, and I don't want to take it away from him," Angel said. "It's for the best."
And with that, he turned and walked out of the bathroom and to the nursery, where he dried Sam off and started to dress the boy.
When Angel told her that humans and vampires shouldn't be together, Fred stiffened, feeling like she had just been slapped in the face. She was so shocked that she didn't attempt to reach for him again when he pulled out of her arms and got Same out of the tub, basically telling her all the while that he would be moving out.
She didn't know what to say or think. They didn't even know if Wesley was actually alive.
Following him to the nursery, she stared at him. "And if Wesley's not alive, then what? Would be all right for a human and vampire to be together then? Why are we even together now if it's not right? What the hell have we been for the last few months if we haven't been a family?" she asked, her voice quivering, her heart aching more than she ever thought it could. She looked at her son and the man who had been a father to him and more than everything to her. "It was bad enough losing Wesley, but now you're saying that what we've been and meant to each other isn't right or a family when it was because of you and Sam that I didn't lose myself again. I..."
Her throat suddenly closed up as she fought against the sobs that wanted to escape.
"We don't even know for sure, and you're already breaking us apart," she whispered, every word painful. Blinking several times, she shook her head and turned around, heading back downstairs where she picked up the book and then headed back to the library to get Wesley's book.
When she pulled it down, she finally lost it and sank to the floor, crying, not sure what she was going to do now.
Fred's words pierced every fiber of Angel's soul. What he had said about humans and vampires wasn't the way he meant it. He was giving her an easy way out so if Wes were alive, she could go back to him with a clear conscience. He never wanted to be the cause of their unhappiness but now he was causing Fred more pain than he ever wanted to.
"Fred..."
Before he could get the words out, she had already left the room. He looked down at Sam, who was happily playing on the floor and sighed. "I have to go speak to your mom, little guy. Behave while I'm gone," he said before putting the small child into his playpen.
Shortly after leaving the room, Angel could hear Fred's sobs coming from the library they'd set up to house Wesley's old books. It was one of the few things they still had left of him and sometimes, late at night, Angel would stand by the shelves and run his fingers over the bindings, remembering each time Wes had used his books.
When he walked into the room, he looked at Fred and frowned. "Fred...I didn't mean what I said - not in the way you took it. I just want you and Wes to be happy, and if he's alive, then I want you to be with him. He can give you so much more than I ever could. Both of you deserve complete happiness and you won't get that with me," he said before stepping further in the room.
"That's why I backed off. First with Wes and then with you. I saw the way the two of you look at each other and it never compared to the way the both of you looked at me. I love the both of you more than you'll ever know and that's why I didn't pursue either of you. You belong with Wes and he belongs with you. I was very content in just being your friends because at least you were still in my life," he quietly admitted, wishing he could go over to her and comfort her, but not knowing if she would let him.
Fred hugged Wesley's book to her chest, feeling like everything was slipping away from her when Angel walked in, telling her that he hadn't meant what he had said the way she had taken it. "How did I take 'Humans and vampires shouldn't be together' wrong?" she muttered, reaching up to swipe at the tears running down her cheek. "It was pretty clear to me."
But as she listened to his explanation, she just found herself growing more uncertain and confused. When she had been with Wesley, she had seen occasional moments when Wes would look at him that looking back on it later, she knew there had been more than just friendship behind it. After Wesley had died, and she and Angel had spent so much time together, she had started to realize that he had obviously in some way been in love with him too even though they had never really talked about it.
Now, though, he was saying that love was even deeper than she had guessed.
But as much as Angel seemed to be saying what he was to make her feel better, it just made everything worse. Angel loved Wesley. He loved her. He loved Sam. Why should he have to pull away and be relegated to some backburner status, only to be turned to when they needed him.
"He loved you too, you know," she whispered, starting to rock back and forth with the book. "Did you ever see the way he looked at you at times? I wasn't sure until...after he...but...he did. I don't know if he even knew for certain, but he did. And I always loved you...ever since Pylea, I've loved you. I...oh, God..." She tugged at her hair a few times before slapping her palm against her forehead. "I don't want to lose you. If...if Wesley is alive, that would be...probably the most amazing, wonderful thing ever, but I don't want to lose you. I've lost too much. I can't..."
As she said that, she looked at the other book, the one that the old woman had given her, and, with a soft cry, kicked at it. "You're right that this was probably all a trick by Wolfram and Hart to tear us apart. Wesley's probably not even alive."
Angel watched in horror as Fred clenched the book to her chest and started to work back and forth. The last time he'd seen her like this was after Wesley's death. It broke his heart to know he was causing her all of this pain. And he knew he needed to put a stop to it. He was about to when she said Wes loved him too.
He stopped and stared at her for a moment, not knowing what to say. Wes had loved him too. It boggled his mind and for a moment his thoughts drifted to all three of them, in love and happy together. But he shook his head, knowing that would never be possible. Three people loving each other would be frowned upon and he didn't want Wesley or Fred to be hurt because of it.
"Fred, I..."
He stopped when she suddenly kicked the book across the room. It hit one of the chairs and fell open. Angel went over to it and picked it up. When he looked down at it, he stopped and stared at the picture in front of him. It was a picture of the Lux's Scholar Prince. A prince that looked a lot like Wesley.
"Fred, I think you need to see this," he said, going over to her. As he walked across the room, the words shifted and were soon in English.
"According to this book, there's a dimension called Oriens. Humans are highly regarded there. And they have a prince. And he looks like Wesley," Angel said as he held the book out for her.
Leaning forward, Fred put her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear anymore. She didn't want to lose Angel, and she didn't want to hear that Wesley might be alive when she knew he could be. How could she even think that woman had been telling the truth when they had been burned so many times by Wolfram and Hart? She should know better, she should be able to see that by now, she should...
She realized just then that Angel was talking to her and raised her head to see him crossing to her with the book in his hands. Dropping her hands, she shook her head.
"How are you reading that?" she asked. "When I opened the book, it was all in a language I couldn't understand. That was why I came in here to look through the books..."
Reaching out for the book, she took it, her breath catching in her throat when she saw the picture and the words. The book had to be magic because she was sure they hadn't been in English before. But why had it changed for Angel and not for her...? Was that why the woman had said that they both were needed?
"She said he was the Scholar Prince. The woman called him that," she said hoarsely. Her fingers trembled as they ran over the image of Wesley, the picture's caption almost a beacon. "You said that a demon took his body after he was killed...it must have taken him there...to this Oriens. They must have revived him somehow."
She flipped to the next page of the book to find the words there still in the other language, but even as she stared at them, they wouldn't change. But they had for Angel. Reaching up, she pulled him down beside her, holding on to his hand tightly as she looked at the page again. A moment later, the words shimmered and changed to English.
"It's you. Something about you is causing the words to change," she told him. "That must be why she said we were both needed. Look...it says here that there's a portal to the dimension 'overlooking the ocean of peace at the mission father's point.' The Pacific Ocean...they must mean Point Dume. It was named after a Franciscan mission priest named Dumetz, but the name was misspelled on the map."
She looked up into Angel's eyes, swallowing deeply and tightening her hold on his hand.
Angel allowed himself to be pulled down beside Fred. When she took his hand, he was tempted to pull her close to him and never let her go. But, he couldn't. They needed to find Wesley and they needed to bring him home to his life.
"I know where that is. It's out by the Bluffs," he said. "And yes, we have to find Wesley. And we will." Leaning over, he wiped the remaining tears off her cheeks and softly kissed her lips. "We'll work through the once we've found him, Fred. I promise."
Standing for a moment, Angel started to pace. "We'll need to use my car. Wesley said you have to go through portals together or you could get seperated. It worked when we went to Pylea so it should work again," he commented before he crouched down beside Fred. "We'll do it tonight after sunset."
He glanced further down the page to a passage that hadn't turned over to English. "This must be the way to open the portal," he commented before he was hit with a realization.
"What about Sam? I don't know if we should take him but we really don't have anyone to leave him with," Angel said as he looked over at her. "If this dimension is friendly toward humans, and if both of us have to go, we should take Sam, right?"
She fell asleep for a few more minutes until she felt that she needed to get up and get dressed. She wasn't sure why, but she did. Stretching, she slipped out from under the covers, pulling them up just enough to neaten the bed for the time being and pull on a dress before grabbing a band to pull her hair back with as she headed downstairs.
At the bottom of the steps, she looked toward the kitchen where she could hear Sam babbling to himself and banging his spoon against the tray. However, she could also see the front door cracked open and could hear voices, so she walked over, peeking out to see an old woman standing in front of Angel...and calling him an idiot while saying she needed to speak to her. Her brow furrowed, and she stepped out onto the porch, looking at the woman.
"I'm Fred. Who are you and why are you insulting my boyfriend?"
"Boyfriend. The one you love is still alive, and yet you live and sleep with one of the undead."
Fred grabbed the doorframe at the woman's words. "Wh--what did you say?"
"The father of your son lives, girl," the woman told her. "He's with the Lux people in Oriens, their Scholar Prince. And they need the two of you as well."
She pulled a book out of her bag and shoved it at Fred, who instinctively grabbed hold of it. Her mind was still trying to process what she had just been told. Wesley...was alive?
"Wesley...but he...he can't be..." Fred looked at Angel, lost and uncertain, feeling the ache in her heart that she had lived with for so long after Wesley's death come back.
"He's alive. And you both must go to him. That book will tell you everything you need to know." The woman gave Angel a dirty look before turning around and disappearing off the porch.
Fred looked after her then down at the book in her hands, her heart pounding and tears in her eyes.
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It was a lie. He'd seen Wesley die with his own two eyes.
Before he could say anything, the old lady was thrusting a book at Fred and then left. He wanted to go after her but he couldn't do to the sun. Instead, he shook his head. "It's a trick, Fred," he said without looking at her. "Wolfram and Hart probably sent her. They've been too quiet lately and it's because of this. They were waiting for the right time to do this to us."
He knew he had to be right. Lilah was still smarting over he failed attempt to kill them. According to his sources, the lady lawyer had spent a great deal of time, being punished, by the firm in their own special Hell. Luckily for her, Gavin proved to be an idiot so they brought Lilah back to run her department the right way.
"It's a lie..." he said again. He wanted Wes to be alive but he understood what it was like to have hope, when no hope was there. And he didn't want Fred to go through the same thing.
Turning around, he shut the door and noticed the blank look on Fred's face. "Fred," he whispered as he cupped her face with his hands. "Wesley's dead. This lady was sent here to be cruel to us. Wes is gone and you know that. If you open that book there's not going to be an answer in there for you, or to help you find him. He's dead and you have to remember that."
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But she found herself looking down at the book. It didn't look like any normal book, with the spine at the top so it flipped open and paper like nothing else she had ever felt. The cover almost seemed to be made out of some kind of soft, short-haired fur of an almost pearlescent color. If Wesley was alive, this book could tell them how to find him.
If Wesley was alive.
It had to be a trick, but what if he was alive somewhere else and was lost like she had been lost and was waiting for them to come find him and bring him home?
She felt Angel's hand on her cheek and looked at him, feeling tears in her eyes. "What if it's true, Angel?" she whispered hoarsely. "You died. You told us. You died, but you were brought back. What if it's the same with Wes? What if he was brought back somewhere, and he's waiting for us to go find him? I...oh, God..."
She needed to sit down. Stumbling back a little, she found her way to the steps and sat down hard, the book in her lap. Her chest felt like it was caught in a vice, and she didn't know what to believe. If Wesley was dead and this was trick, she knew it would destroy her. But if Wesley was alive and they didn't do anything, she'd never be able to forgive herself.
"I love you, Angel...I'll always love you, but...I love Wesley too...and I have to know," she choked out. She looked up at him with tears streaming down her face. "Please. I have to know. We can't leave him alone if he's still alive somehow."
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And Angel would be all alone.
Swallowing hard, he knew what he was going to do. He loved Fred and Sam more than anything and he knew he had to let them go. If Wesley was alive, then Angel would let them go so they could be a family. He would never stand in the way of their happiness.
"Then we'll look," he whispered, trying hard to keep the emotion out of his voice. "Once you find out where he might be, we'll go there and I'll help you bring him home."
He wanted to say more but Sam started to cry from the kitchen. "I'll get him. He'll need a bath. Why don't you start on that and I'll take him upstairs," Angel quietly said. He turned around and went back to the kitchen without saying another word to Fred.
"Hi!" Sam happily said when he saw Angel.
"Hi," Angel quietly said as he picked the boy up and took him upstairs to clean up.
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Opening it up while he went to take care of Sam, she looked at the strange words and realized that this would take some time. She would need to use Wesley's books from the library upstairs and try to translate what was in there. Once she knew what it said, she and Angel would be able to follow it and if Wesley was still alive...
Suddenly, the book fell from her hands to the floor as a realization hit her. If Wesley was still alive... If Wesley was still alive, that would mean that Angel--that she and Angel and what they had together--that it would be... Looking up the stairs, Fred gasped in deeply at the thought that she might have to give up Angel. She loved Wesley and wanted him back more than anything, but Angel had been her lifeline, her handsome man, her reminder that she could still love deeply and truly.
Hurrying upstairs, she found Angel in bathroom, watching Sam as he splashed in the tub. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly as she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that wanted to fall. She didn't know what they would do if Wesley was still alive. She wasn't even sure how any of them would react.
"No matter what happens, you'll always be my Angel," she told him softly. "I love you."
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Angel knew what he had to do if he was. He wasn't going to keep Wes away from his family. Sam needed his real father, and Fred needed her soulmate. All three of them needed each other and Angel wasn't about to stand in the way of that. He would remain on the sidelines as their friend, and Sam's uncle, and nothing more.
When Fred came in, and wrapped her arms around him, Angel let out an unneeded sigh. "If Wesley's alive, then you have to go back to him. He's your family, Fred, not me. Humans and vampires shouldn't be together anyway. I have forever and you don't. And Sam needs his father," he quietly said as Sam looked at the both of them and grinned.
He removed himself from Fred's arms and pulled the towel from the towel rack. Bending over, Angel let the water drain from the tub before picking Sam up and wrapping the towel around him. He glanced down at Fred and shook his head. "I'll help you look for him but once we find him, I'll move out. This is the only home Sam has ever known, and I don't want to take it away from him," Angel said. "It's for the best."
And with that, he turned and walked out of the bathroom and to the nursery, where he dried Sam off and started to dress the boy.
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She didn't know what to say or think. They didn't even know if Wesley was actually alive.
Following him to the nursery, she stared at him. "And if Wesley's not alive, then what? Would be all right for a human and vampire to be together then? Why are we even together now if it's not right? What the hell have we been for the last few months if we haven't been a family?" she asked, her voice quivering, her heart aching more than she ever thought it could. She looked at her son and the man who had been a father to him and more than everything to her. "It was bad enough losing Wesley, but now you're saying that what we've been and meant to each other isn't right or a family when it was because of you and Sam that I didn't lose myself again. I..."
Her throat suddenly closed up as she fought against the sobs that wanted to escape.
"We don't even know for sure, and you're already breaking us apart," she whispered, every word painful. Blinking several times, she shook her head and turned around, heading back downstairs where she picked up the book and then headed back to the library to get Wesley's book.
When she pulled it down, she finally lost it and sank to the floor, crying, not sure what she was going to do now.
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"Fred..."
Before he could get the words out, she had already left the room. He looked down at Sam, who was happily playing on the floor and sighed. "I have to go speak to your mom, little guy. Behave while I'm gone," he said before putting the small child into his playpen.
Shortly after leaving the room, Angel could hear Fred's sobs coming from the library they'd set up to house Wesley's old books. It was one of the few things they still had left of him and sometimes, late at night, Angel would stand by the shelves and run his fingers over the bindings, remembering each time Wes had used his books.
When he walked into the room, he looked at Fred and frowned. "Fred...I didn't mean what I said - not in the way you took it. I just want you and Wes to be happy, and if he's alive, then I want you to be with him. He can give you so much more than I ever could. Both of you deserve complete happiness and you won't get that with me," he said before stepping further in the room.
"That's why I backed off. First with Wes and then with you. I saw the way the two of you look at each other and it never compared to the way the both of you looked at me. I love the both of you more than you'll ever know and that's why I didn't pursue either of you. You belong with Wes and he belongs with you. I was very content in just being your friends because at least you were still in my life," he quietly admitted, wishing he could go over to her and comfort her, but not knowing if she would let him.
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But as she listened to his explanation, she just found herself growing more uncertain and confused. When she had been with Wesley, she had seen occasional moments when Wes would look at him that looking back on it later, she knew there had been more than just friendship behind it. After Wesley had died, and she and Angel had spent so much time together, she had started to realize that he had obviously in some way been in love with him too even though they had never really talked about it.
Now, though, he was saying that love was even deeper than she had guessed.
But as much as Angel seemed to be saying what he was to make her feel better, it just made everything worse. Angel loved Wesley. He loved her. He loved Sam. Why should he have to pull away and be relegated to some backburner status, only to be turned to when they needed him.
"He loved you too, you know," she whispered, starting to rock back and forth with the book. "Did you ever see the way he looked at you at times? I wasn't sure until...after he...but...he did. I don't know if he even knew for certain, but he did. And I always loved you...ever since Pylea, I've loved you. I...oh, God..." She tugged at her hair a few times before slapping her palm against her forehead. "I don't want to lose you. If...if Wesley is alive, that would be...probably the most amazing, wonderful thing ever, but I don't want to lose you. I've lost too much. I can't..."
As she said that, she looked at the other book, the one that the old woman had given her, and, with a soft cry, kicked at it. "You're right that this was probably all a trick by Wolfram and Hart to tear us apart. Wesley's probably not even alive."
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He stopped and stared at her for a moment, not knowing what to say. Wes had loved him too. It boggled his mind and for a moment his thoughts drifted to all three of them, in love and happy together. But he shook his head, knowing that would never be possible. Three people loving each other would be frowned upon and he didn't want Wesley or Fred to be hurt because of it.
"Fred, I..."
He stopped when she suddenly kicked the book across the room. It hit one of the chairs and fell open. Angel went over to it and picked it up. When he looked down at it, he stopped and stared at the picture in front of him. It was a picture of the Lux's Scholar Prince. A prince that looked a lot like Wesley.
"Fred, I think you need to see this," he said, going over to her. As he walked across the room, the words shifted and were soon in English.
"According to this book, there's a dimension called Oriens. Humans are highly regarded there. And they have a prince. And he looks like Wesley," Angel said as he held the book out for her.
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She realized just then that Angel was talking to her and raised her head to see him crossing to her with the book in his hands. Dropping her hands, she shook her head.
"How are you reading that?" she asked. "When I opened the book, it was all in a language I couldn't understand. That was why I came in here to look through the books..."
Reaching out for the book, she took it, her breath catching in her throat when she saw the picture and the words. The book had to be magic because she was sure they hadn't been in English before. But why had it changed for Angel and not for her...? Was that why the woman had said that they both were needed?
"She said he was the Scholar Prince. The woman called him that," she said hoarsely. Her fingers trembled as they ran over the image of Wesley, the picture's caption almost a beacon. "You said that a demon took his body after he was killed...it must have taken him there...to this Oriens. They must have revived him somehow."
She flipped to the next page of the book to find the words there still in the other language, but even as she stared at them, they wouldn't change. But they had for Angel. Reaching up, she pulled him down beside her, holding on to his hand tightly as she looked at the page again. A moment later, the words shimmered and changed to English.
"It's you. Something about you is causing the words to change," she told him. "That must be why she said we were both needed. Look...it says here that there's a portal to the dimension 'overlooking the ocean of peace at the mission father's point.' The Pacific Ocean...they must mean Point Dume. It was named after a Franciscan mission priest named Dumetz, but the name was misspelled on the map."
She looked up into Angel's eyes, swallowing deeply and tightening her hold on his hand.
"If that's Wesley...we have to go to him."
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"I know where that is. It's out by the Bluffs," he said. "And yes, we have to find Wesley. And we will." Leaning over, he wiped the remaining tears off her cheeks and softly kissed her lips. "We'll work through the once we've found him, Fred. I promise."
Standing for a moment, Angel started to pace. "We'll need to use my car. Wesley said you have to go through portals together or you could get seperated. It worked when we went to Pylea so it should work again," he commented before he crouched down beside Fred. "We'll do it tonight after sunset."
He glanced further down the page to a passage that hadn't turned over to English. "This must be the way to open the portal," he commented before he was hit with a realization.
"What about Sam? I don't know if we should take him but we really don't have anyone to leave him with," Angel said as he looked over at her. "If this dimension is friendly toward humans, and if both of us have to go, we should take Sam, right?"
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