{"id":617,"date":"2012-08-23T05:06:17","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T05:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/?p=617"},"modified":"2012-08-23T05:06:17","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T05:06:17","slug":"fic-one-lifetime-angelhl-wesfred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/?p=617","title":{"rendered":"Fic: One Lifetime (Angel\/HL, Wes\/Fred)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note:<\/strong> Written between “Sleep Tight” and “Forgiving”…so long ago Jossed. *g*<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Oh, my darling Fred…<\/p>\n

Perhaps if I wasn’t so keenly aware of how desperately I’ve failed you all, I would show myself. Perhaps even explain why there is a scar across my throat that wasn’t there the last time you saw me, a scar that seems to be long-healed. Or why my voice is broken now, though the rest of me remains whole…at least in body.<\/p>\n

I hear you calling me, you and Gunn. Ah, Fred, if you only knew how that sound was a cut even deeper than the one which brought me to this point. Because I cannot answer it.<\/p>\n

You’ll never understand what I have done. In truth, even I didn’t understand it, though I thought I did. All I know is I have made a grievous error–Holtz has Connor and I dare not imagine what horrors he has planned for the child of his enemy. I deserve to be damned for how easily he played me.<\/p>\n

The prophecy…perhaps I have prevented the prophecy but to what purpose? And at what cost?<\/p>\n

I did not lie when I told Holtz you all are my family. Or rather were–I disinherited myself when I tried to take fate into my own hands. A choice I made unwisely in a moment of despair compounded by fear. Despair that I had lost you, Fred, my love, and fear of what my own hand revealed to me concerning Angel’s child.<\/p>\n

Had my eyes but been opened sooner, I would have known there was no reason to despair. That I had lost you for one lifetime, but…now I see that one lifetime is all of your heart that Gunn could hope to possess. For he is mortal and we, beloved, are not. I sense that potential in you now, just as a stranger once sensed it in me. That man, hoping to weaken me with the knowledge, gave it to me premature. I will not commit the same sin, keeping instead to the code of honor that most Immortals live by, to grant those who will one day fight among us a few precious years of ignorance lest they seek death or grow careless and find it too soon.<\/p>\n

I suppose it is just as well that I followed my father’s path in hopes of finally finding a way to please him–to have become a Watcher of Immortals, like my mother was, would have made this transition all the more difficult. It was sufficiently burdensome that I knew enough to truly understand the meaning of the secret spilled to me.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is just punishment, though, for the crime I committed against you all that the death I always knew would resurrect me Immortal was given to me in the one fashion that would always leave a scar.<\/p>\n

Oh, to hell with irony–why did it have to be the throat?<\/p>\n

Angel will never forgive what I have done, and I can ask no more of the rest of you. Someday, no doubt many lifetimes from now, I will have to face him and account for it. But I have cut myself off from my family forever.<\/p>\n

I have lost you forever.<\/p>\n

I only wish…perhaps none of this would have come to pass if I had only realized…<\/p>\n

I could have waited one lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note: Written between “Sleep Tight” and “Forgiving”…so long ago Jossed. *g* Oh, my darling Fred… Perhaps if I wasn’t so keenly aware of how desperately I’ve failed you all, I would show myself. Perhaps even explain why there is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[201,42,99,158,200,199],"tags":[196,124,205,204,150,203,202,191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}