Isadora
He will mourn her later. He knows this as soon as he sees her there lying crumpled and cold. Now is not the time.
Later, on a cold endless night, he'll sit and stare and drink.
He'll wonder if she loved him. If he loved her. He'll wonder if he could have saved her and how it is he didn't know. How she didn't know. How it was really all his fault � every last bit of it. He'll want to think about the missteps along the way; the signs missed and the omens obscured but he won't be able to keep his mind from drifting back to her again and again.
He'll remember her warmth. Her heat. The feeling that overcame him when he was close to being inside her. He'll remember the aching need to have her clothes off and her legs spread.
He'll try to forget the other moments. The slight feeling of dread that settled over him after they were drenched in sweat and spent. The fear that he was more like her than not. The wish that she were someone else, sometimes anyone else.
They were survivors, Wes and Lilah. He'll chuckle at the thought and wish that he were drunker. He'll start to think about himself in the past tense. He'll hold up his time with her as a symbol of his failure. He could have saved her; he failed.
He'll think about Fred. About Lilah's death destroying that, too. Where he would have cherished her innocence and intellect, he'll only see her defects. She'll be too thin and earnest. She'll not have Lilah's spark, determination and ruthless ambition. He'll ache for a woman with all of those things but would reject them out of hand for not being Lilah. He'll not give himself another chance to fail. Or to fall.
He'll get up and stumble to his bedroom to torture himself with the sheets she was once entangled in and he'll think about crying but won't. He'll be afraid to sleep. Afraid she'll come to him in the night reconstituted as something more evil. He'll wonder if he'll know the difference and fears he won't care.
The last thought before darkness falls over him will be that he can smell her perfume in the room. He'll know then that he did love her and know that even if she were there she would still be just out of reach.
End
Fic