Well, tried to roll out of bed. What he actually did was lurch to one side and then fall off the stone platform, striking the floor with a soft thud. Instead of bothering to wince at the pain, he just shrugged and used the side of his bed to pull himself upright. It wasn’t easy and the maneuver took him several minutes. Once he was vertical, Wesley replaced the bedclothes that had followed him onto the floor and inched his way toward the main room.

Once there he found the reason why the wind had woken him up—he’d left a window open the day before. The tall, multihued glass stood flush against stone, letting a huge rectangle of uncolored light shine onto the floor. Through the open window Wesley could see thick, towering gray clouds, twisting and swirling in the wind. Another scream shattered the air and he winced. Perhaps he should shut the window.

Of course, that action required Herculean strength and took him almost an hour. Just moving a chair over so that he could clamber up onto the sill was almost more than he could manage and he had to rest there, exposed to the elements, until he’d recovered enough to push the heavy glass back into place. Then he had to lean against it for several more minutes until he was able to stand and fasten the latch, working against the brutal winds.

He welcomed the quiet stillness of his room now that the vicious environment had been temporarily banished. The fact that there was no more wind whipping around inside made the place feel warmer, although no one would ever actually describe the place as comfortable. No, Wesley’s quarters were not the least bit welcoming.

The exhausted man threw himself into a mound of cushions in front of the cold fireplace. Reaching over, Wesley stuck his hand into the bucket he’d put on the hearth and extracted a small piece of ice. It was so cold in the room that even after four days, the stuff hadn’t melted. It just stayed in the shards he’d broken it into when he’d gone outside to retrieve it. While he sucked on the moisture, Wesley stared up at the ceiling, watching as the patterns carved there moved and danced.

Laughter poured unbidden from his dry, cracked lips. If he squinted just right, he could see Angel and Cordelia dancing in the lobby of the Hyperion, and over to one side were Gunn and Fred, curled around one another. Lorne, too, was present, residing over the festivities like a rich, verdant lord. After torturing himself for a few minutes, Wesley closed his eyes against the images and finished his ice in relative peace.

He wondered what day it was—or what time it was, for that matter. It had been almost two weeks since he’d seen anyone in the hold. His wall had been finished for only two days before the first true winter storm had descended on the hold. The arrival of the coldest season was no surprise; after all the temperatures had been dropping for weeks and all the leaves had long since fallen away. Still, Wesley had stood at the window, watching in awe as his sanctuary was turned into a blue-white field of snow.

Unfortunately, along with the snow came idleness. Wesley no longer had physical labor to exhaust him and take his mind off his troubles. So instead of working himself to sleep every day he’d turned to the studies he’d neglected during more temperate days. Once his mind was focused on that activity alone, he quickly filled out his understanding of the dalhari language and began reading in earnest.

His choice of pastime proved to be both blessing and curse, as most things were in Wesley’s life. He was enthralled by this people, with their culture of sadness and hope. The ex-Watcher found himself relating quite well to the yearning he saw in every page and he began to see the tired desire in the eyes of his hosts.

At the same time, Wesley began to see just how lacking he was. Once he’d seen, really seen, what these soulful creatures were like, he found himself wanting in just about every aspect of life. He was a selfish, shallow and crude being who whimpered about the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the moon. He didn’t deserve to be near these people, and he certainly didn’t warrant their companionship.

Eventually Wesley began to retreat from the company of others. Instead of letting Rraiec bring him things from the kitchens, he went to the place on his own and gathered the supplies he needed, leaving notes for the staff. The helpful dalhari soon got the hint and stopped dropping by to check on him. Wesley relished the solitude.

But for the last week, Wesley hadn’t ventured into the kitchens. The last time he’d been out of his room had been to retrieve the ice he now used for water. The last of his food had disappeared five days ago and it showed. Even before he’d completely stopped eating, he’d not been consuming much. As a result he was little more than skin and bones.

And because he hadn’t been outside, nor let anyone in, he had no fuel for fires, not that he wanted them anyway. He welcomed the cold of winter into his home. It reminded him of how he was inside—icy, barren and without hope. He’d lay in bed at night, buried under the covers, using only his own body for heat. After several minutes of shivering, he was warm enough to drift off for a bit, until creeping frigidness woke him again.

Yesterday had been a gray but stormless day, so Wes had spent most of it in the window sill, watching the world through the open window. While no snow or ice fell, and the wind hadn’t blown, the temperature was low enough that neither animals nor dalhari ventured outside. When darkness came, he’d simply crawled off to bed, completely forgetting to close the glass.

The dull pain that accompanied his extended exposure to cold simply added spice to the emotional torture he was inflicting upon himself. He spent his days lying around ripping his psyche to shreds, inserting chapped fingers into festering wounds and twisting cruelly. It had become a game to him, to see how much damage he could inflict, how knotted and grotesque he could become as mental scar tissue built up around him. Images of the infant Connor, being held by Angel, were forever burned into the insides of his eyelids and he used those pictures as a focus. Whenever peace threatened to overtake him, he just shut his eyes and resumed his mental flesh-rending. Lilah, her taunting laughter and come-hither insults, just gave a bitter flavor to his antagonistic ruminations.

Such were Wesley’s days, and this one differed not from the rest. All too soon chilly tears crept out from under twitching eyelids, only to leave frozen trails on his gaunt cheeks before freezing on his collar.

•••

“Elder?”

Rinhe looked up from her studies. “Yes, Rraiec?”

The young dalhari frowned briefly. “I am…concerned about the human, Wesley.”

The elder rose from her place by the fire, setting aside her book. “Explain.”

“Ever since the completion of his labor, he has shunned all forms of contact,” Rraiec began. “Preferring to gather supplies when the kitchen staff was at its lightest, at night, and refusing to answer his door.”

“I recall that he seems to prefer solitude,” Rinhe murmured, watching Rraiec carefully. The young human did seem troubled, but she would rather not intrude on his private life if at all possible.

“However, the kitchen staff informed me that he has not taken any food for almost a week—nor has he retrieved any wood for his fires,” Rraiec continued.

Rinhe’s eyes widened slightly. There was no way the human had enough in his quarters to last that long, which meant he was going hungry, cold, or both. “And you have not been able to access his quarters?”

“They are locked,” Rraiec explained. Only Wesley and certain elders and guards had access to the keys needed to open his quarters’ door, so Rraiec was locked out.

Rinhe thought for a moment. Although they ran the risk of offending their guest, it was vitally important that they not allow him to die. “We shall visit him together then, Rraiec,” She said firmly, leading the younger dalhari towards the door. The elder gestured to a pair of guards, who followed behind. The trek to Wesley’s quarters was tense and silent.

When they arrived, Rraiec knocked on the door, hoping that Wesley would simply open it and appear, healthy as ever with a lighthearted excuse for this misunderstanding. Unfortunately that didn’t occur, so Rinhe asked one of the guards to unlock the door. A blast of frigid air greeted the four wary dalhari as they stepped inside.

What they found made them gasp. The human, gaunt as a skeleton, lay supine in front of the darkened fireplace, still as death. “Is he alive?” Rraiec whispered as they drew closer.

Rinhe looked down at the human. She couldn’t tell if his frail chest was rising or not. At her command, the guards reached down to lift the seemingly unconscious man up from his resting place. As they brought him up, Wesley snapped to life.

Wild, pale eyes shot open and stared straight at Rinhe. She took an involuntary step backward from the madness she saw there. Wesley twisted and spun out of the guards’ hands, his unexpected movement compensating for a lack of strength. They immediately attempted to steady him, but he evaded their hands as he moved forward.

Wesley was in the midst of yet another hellish nightmare, one where Lilah and her goons were taunting him with the torn and broken body of Connor. They reached for him even as Lilah flicked the infant’s blood on his face. Rage boiled up from deep within his soul and Wesley broke free of the guards, surging forward to take the innocent from the bitch’s hands and punish her. The lawyer’s flesh was surprisingly resistant as he flailed against her.

“Monster! Abomination! You have no right to touch the innocent,” Wesley screamed as he slapped the dark-haired lawyer. She stepped back from him, but he pursued her, slipping on Connor’s blood. He looked at her hands, caked and sticky with the stuff. “You like blood, do you?” He snarled, gesturing to her hands. “You like bathing in it, sliding your fingers in pools of the stuff, seeing a child’s life slip away.”

The guards made another attempt to restrain Wesley, who was ranting at Rinhe with murder in his eyes. Although they all understood the trade tongue, none of the dalhari present could make sense of what the human was shouting. What was clear was that he was delirious and thought that Rinhe was the target of his rage. Rraiec stepped in to try to protect the elder as Wesley pursued her around the room.

“Bitch! Traitor to your own kind, how can you hurt that which springs forth from a mother’s womb?” Wesley ranted. He managed to back Lilah into a corner and slapped her hard across her mouth. She reached up to wipe the blood off her face, but Wesley stopped her. He pressed his hand against her mouth, muffling her screams. When he felt her teeth cut into his palm, he smiled. “Yes, draw blood. That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Hurting, killing, raping, destroying. Do it! Take my blood, drink it, feed on it. I hope it fills your belly and you choke to death on the stuff,” He screamed, forcing the soft tissue of his palm harder against her mouth. He felt her scream behind her hand and laughed. “What? You don’t like it? Not pure enough, not clean enough to satisfy your lust?”

Rraiec and the guards finally managed to pry Wesley off Rinhe and push him back on the stone floor. He continued to yell and curse at the top of his lungs, but his limited supply of strength was quickly waning. Once he was sure the guards had Wesley under control, Rraiec stood to see to Rinhe.

“Elder?” Rraiec murmured, holding out a cloth for her. She had blood all over her face and was shaking slightly.

“I…” Rinhe started, wiping the blood from her mouth. One taste told her it wasn’t hers, but Wesley’s. “Get some more guards, and alert the healers.”

Rraiec nodded and ran out of the room. Wesley had by this time collapsed completely, once again unconscious. Rinhe watched over him from several feet away until several guards and a healer showed up. “Get him to a sick room,” She ordered curtly.

“But elder, he attacked—“

“We’ll deal with that later,” Rinhe said to the guard who’d spoken up. “Right now there are more important things to be dealt with.”

“I see that there are,” The healer commented, taking in both Rinhe and Wesley’s injuries. “He did that to himself?” She said, pointing at the human’s mutilated hand.

“Yes,” Rinhe replied, grimacing. “I’m not sure if it was enough to change him, though,” She added. “But if it was…”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Iaka, the healer, muttered. “If you will?” She said to the guards, indicating that they should pick up the human. “And I will need to know everything that happened.”

“So do we,” Rinhe replied softly as she followed them. Rraiec closed the door behind them before joining the group.

The healer made short work of cleaning Wesley up and tending to his wounds. As they’d feared, there had been a great enough transfer of venom to initiate the change. “He needs food,” She said to Rraiec, who nodded and left for the kitchens. The cooks there would know what to make for an invalid.

“Will that affect the change?” Rinhe inquired.

Iaka shook her head. “Not really. True, he is weak at the moment, but overall he’s in good health—quite strong and rather resilient. I’m surprised he was able to attack you, given his current state, though.”

“I believe most of that was due to surprise,” Rinhe said grimly. “No one was expecting the move—or the madness.”

“What caused it?”

Rinhe thought for several moments. “I truly do not know. We felt that there was something wrong, something that was bothering Wesley, from the time he arrived. The elders in Xo’pa gave us what information they had. But he seemed to be doing so well here. Rraiec noticed nothing truly amiss during the past months.”

“Then this has been building,” Iaka surmised. “From what you’ve told me of the attack itself, it didn’t seem to be aimed at you.”

“No,” Rinhe agreed. “I believe he was completely delirious. Unfortunately, none of us are completely sure what he was talking about. There were several mentions of violence, innocence, and blood, though. I gather from what I did catch that he experienced or witnessed great trauma. Perhaps that is the cause of this madness.”

“Such events often are,” Iaka replied. “And they are often very difficult to overcome.”

Rinhe looked at the healer. “We have offered him sanctuary.”

“And he has it.”