As the title suggests, Wickham will win. Whether this means he will be redeemed or get his selfish HEA in this life remains to be seen. If Wickham gets his HEA, death and destruction will befall Darcy and others, and whichever occurs we will see what could happen. I do not know the outcome yet as I have not yet written it.

I am not going to promise a daily posting schedule on this one as there are still quite a few things that I need to work out, but I will do my best to post frequently, with the plan to be finished before Christmas. The germ of this story has captured my writing brain and caused me to take a hiatus from my Persuasion story. It is possible that at some point the other story will demand more of my attention and cause a delay in this one. As always, I appreciate your support.

Prologue

Satan decided to he wanted to have a rematch with God over the heart of a man and he knew just how he wanted such a competition to be structured. Thus when they met for their semi-annual meeting to discuss who they had won to their sides, and for God to appeal to Satan to change his ways and rejoin God, Satan was prepared to make his proposal.

Satan told God. "Keeping Job faithful was easy. He was already yours to begin with. It should not be too hard to keep a righteous man, who already followed you to stay committed despite me taking away the people and things that he valued. My actions simply proved to be a refiner's fire that purified him further. God, you can never prove yourself to be stronger than me with such a rigged contest. If you had to make a truly evil man repent and turn to you, while I devoted myself to encouraging him to remain committed to his evil ways, you would lose!"

God, being confident in his skill to bring sinners to repentance, said, "Satan, I am willing to agree to such a contest."

Satan said, "Since this evil-doer is mine, it is only fair that I choose the man that you shall tempt to become good."

God replied, "I will accept your choice, but we must each have an equal opportunity to win this man. I know it will be difficult for you, but you must be honest with him so that he can make his choice with his eyes open. I will obscure my vision of the future so that I will not know which man you will pick or what he will decide."

As Satan was getting to pick the man, he was willing to agree to God's terms. "I can do that," he agreed, knowing that there was still room to interpret what honesty meant and by saying I can he was not saying that he would, only that he was able.

God, of course, knew all of Satan's tricks but believed he could triumph nonetheless.

They negotiated a bit further and agreed that at the conclusion of the contest the man would be granted one wish which would determine whether he had chosen God or Satan. If it was a good wish, God would fulfill it; if it was an evil wish, Satan would fulfill it.

Satan, still wishing to have his way, told God, "My demons are more skilled at influencing man than your angels. Your angels are out of touch with the desires in man's heart."

God knew that Satan was trying to goad him into being just a little less than holier than thou in response and that Satan must want the contest conducted through their intermediaries. Of course God could not be goaded or tempted into acting based on emotions, but God thought it would be satisfying to take the Satan down a peg or two when Satan failed (despite all his tricks and cheating); perhaps Satan would be humbled and this was the first step of many in redeeming Satan from his sin of pride.

Therefore, God responded, "Prove it. One of my angels against one of your demons to influence the heart of the man you choose."

Satan agreed.

God assigned his angel Rebecca and Satan assigned his demon Muck to the task. Each would get the opportunity to show the man through visions where he had gone wrong or right. They could also show the man what would result from a particular wish. Satan, who had gotten all he wanted and more from the arrangement with God, felt himself particularly clever when after all the details were arranged he announced his choice.

As they had not restricted themselves to the here and now (which in the linear time they had met was 1812), God who had done what he said and obscured his vision of the future regarding Satan'c choice, had thought that perhaps Satan would choose Josef Mengel, Nero, Tomas de Torquemada, Judas Iscariot, Pol Pot or Vlad the Impaler. These were all men who enjoyed torturing others and clearly belonged to Satan.

Thus, God, for perhaps the first time in his very existence, was surprised when Satan named his choice: "I choose George Wickham, a soldier in Newcastle, England."

God knew of George Wickham, God knew everyone of course. Wickham was certainly quite bad, but was not without redeeming qualities through those had been obscured more and more in recent years. Wickham was recently married and was gainfully employed. He was on the list of those that could be turned to the right path (though of course having obscured his vision, God did not know how that would turn out).

God's angel had made sure that Jane Bennet's letters would arrive for her sister Elizabeth Bennet just before one Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy would call on her. This was timed so that Elizabeth would blurt out what had occurred, thus putting Darcy on the path of intervening to salvage Lydia Bennet's future and indeed her soul. God knew Lydia would eventually repent and be saved in the next few years though she would never be a model member of his team, but that would not occur before she had undergone many trials (though what they were was obscured too, so he would not know George Wickham's fate).