One Winter's Night
by Lara

SUMMARY: Wesley reflects on a loss one wintry English night.

RATING: FRC [A] [AU]

PAIRING: Fred/Wesley

SPOILERS: Through Season 5 “Lineage”.

DISCLAIMER: I only wish I were as successful as Joss Whedon. He and Mutant Enemy own this; I just write fanfic for fun while waiting for my own big break.

DISTRIBUTION: Permission granted to to the usual haunts. If anyone else wants to archive it, please let me know.

FEEDBACK: Very much appreciated. Please e–mail lara@darling-moon.com. Flames, however, will be used to fuel the fire in Wesley’s next spell casting session.

AUTHOR’S NOTES: Inspired by “Song for a Winter’s Night” by Sarah McLachlan. Dedicated to all the Wes/Fred shippers who told me to get writing, especially Candace who “whipped” me to get me writing. I promise to write you guys some happier fic soon.

The soft glow of the old–fashioned lamp, the only light in the sitting room besides the fire, illuminated a small circle around the man who sat at the table, a worn sheet of paper held in his hands. On the other side of the slightly fogged–up window next to him, snow fell, blown slightly by a gentle wind that made no sound. In the room, there was also no sound, no ticking clock, no tapping of fingers on the table. Just silence.

Silence and the whisper of a voice no one else could hear, except him.

Wesley.

He looked up from the page for a moment, blinking his eyes and focusing on the dark corner across from him, where a few wisps of smoke from the ever–dying fire drifted up into the shadows playing upon pictures covering the wall. People long gone seemed to stare down on him, their faces full of odd sympathy, as if they were trying to put on a show of understanding but didn’t really know, and for that reason, he had dimmed the lights, so he wouldn’t have to look at them. Reaching out, he picked up his drink sitting next to the lamp, only to find that it was pretty much empty. With a sigh, he set the glass back down and brought the paper up to read again, his eyes scanning over words he had already committed to memory.

Wesley,

I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to write to you. I wonder how you are and what you’re doing now. It’s not the same without you here. I hope you come back soon because we have so much to talk about, especially after what you said in your office. About why you shot him.

I always knew that...I mean I knew that you cared, but I never expected that you felt like that. Or did I? I don’t know. Things are so confusing, and that’s why I need to talk to you. There are things I could swear I should remember about you and me, but every time I try to figure it out, it just goes poof like one of my experiments, which are going poof a lot more than usual now.

But that doesn’t matter really. What matters is that you come back so we can talk. Because I’ve come to realize that I don’t like it without you here. You’re my best friend, Wesley, and I love you. More than

The letter ended there, unfinished and unsigned. He had never been sure whether she had been called away at that moment and had just never had the chance to return to it, or whether she had realized what she had said and had stuck it away in embarrassment. Whatever the reason, it hadn’t been until...after that he had found it while cleaning out her desk, shoved underneath several folders, crumpled and forgotten. Seeing the words there in her scribbled handwriting had hit him far harder than anything else had, even the news of the accident itself.

Dropping the letter back onto the table, Wesley sat forward and rested his palms against his eyes. Again, he heard her voice in his mind, all the times they had talked about this and that, the way she would become excited about discovering something new. He could just imagine how she would have reacted to being there with him, standing at the window and watching the snow falling onto the Downs. How he would have loved sitting with her in front of the fire, holding her hand, holding her close.

Now, that would always be a dream, just as everything else he had ever thought about when it came to her would always be.

Raising his head, he saw that the fire had died to no more than glowing embers. As he watched, a spark fell from the grill down onto the hearth, flaring brightly for a moment before disappearing. The lamp on the table had also dimmed to practically nothing; however, patches of light were slowly starting to creep across the table, reflected by the windowpane. Turning, Wesley stared out as the sun rose, shining across the now drifting snow. He reached out to run his finger across the condensation on the window, tracing a name.

Fred.

No sooner had he finished than droplets of water, warmed by the steadily emerging sunlight, began running down the glass, first obscuring the name and then obliterating it altogether. Sighing, he pushed away from the table and stood up, picking up the letter. As he folded it up, he walked out of the sitting room and headed downstairs.

“Wesley?”

Stopping on the steps, he looked up toward the landing to the woman standing against the railing. “Yes, Mother?”

“Were you up all night again?”

He shrugged, glancing down at the letter in his hand, which he then slipped into his trouser pocket. “I didn’t keep you and father up, did I?”

His mother shook her head. “No, it’s just...Wesley, I’m worried.” She crossed over to the head of the stairs and walked down to join him. “This can’t be good for you. I know...I know how much that girl meant to you—.”

“No, you don’t.”

She looked at him in surprise. “What?”

“No one knows how much she meant to me. Even she didn’t know how much she meant to me. Because I was too afraid to tell her.” He glanced up toward the slanted ceiling, at the morning light playing off the chandelier and throwing patterns of color onto wall. “Now I never can.”

Without another word, he descended to the entrance hall, grabbed his jacket and headed outside, disappearing into the still falling snow.

© December 2003

Return to Fanfic