Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String

[fredless]

With heels dangling from one hand, and a briefcase full of files hanging off the opposite arm, Fred emerged from her car and tentatively made her way across the minefield of a yard that sat between her, and the door to her apartment. Rocks, uneven pavement, and plants that Fred didn't have the energy to identify all together, all seperated her from home. But Fred still couldn't bring herself to put back on her shoes. Once you got past all the rocks and sharp corners, the grass felt wonderfully warm and free underneath her toes. It was more than caution that made Fred take her time.

She alternated between looking down, and plotting each step after the next, to staring straight ahead, eyes even and unblinking as she followed a certain determination to feel her way through it all. Parts of her insides seemed to be in argument over which was better. Gaze locked to the forward, Fred kicked the small box before she ever saw it. Readjusting her bag, she knelt down to study the plain, brown-papered package, a neatly tied string and local postmark the only thing that broke it's uniform surfaces. Fred worked to control her curiosty, the part of her that wanted to sit on the stoop, tug the paper away, and open it right then and there. She made a face at herself, and lifted the box to carry it upstairs, locking the door behind her.

Fred made a point to resume what little routine she had developed...briefcase by the door, shoes tucked in the hallway closet, and hair pulled back Fred collected the anomaly to her day and headed for the bedroom. She sat down on the bed, cross-legged, and untied the string first, fingers quietly delayed by a very solid knot. Once it was unworked Fred tossed the entire piece to the floor for Pi, before she remembered that he wasn't even there. That he hadn't even ever really been there at all.

She'd pick it up later.

The paper, torn one corner at a time, a ninety degree turn at a time, was warm in Fred's hands, something of the afternoon sun still left in it. This time she didn't toss the remenants away. A shoebox had peeked its way through. Fred lifted the lid, pushed soft pink tissue away, and tried not to...

"Fiegenbaum."

Cry.

He wasn't gone? He'd been here all along...and he...he wasn't gone? So why had she accepted that as the what was? Gently she lifted him from the tissue to hold him close. And he was still the same. He still smelled like home, and tasted like childhood ... a stange mixture of hot dogs blacked on the grill, smores, and craker jacks. The smoke...she looked for smoke mixed with her own doubt, sure that they would have taken all the familiar parts away, but Fred couldn't find any. Almost anything that had ever mattered to her, it was still there, just waiting to be touched.

So was did she suddenly have to put him down?

"...master of chaos."

With only the faith a child could give, Fiegenbaum had mastered the entire universe, and the chaos that controled it. Every theory, and every dream, he'd been there for them. So what had Fred mastered? What did...what did she control? What did she dream? Especially since everything that had become her now.

What did she want?

So much, sitting just next to so little. For the first time in the whole of her life, Fred looked down at her oldest friend...and felt frighteningly alone. And somehow fightengly all right too. She had gone on for three months thinking he was lost, believing the truth of it, and resigned to that. It couldn't last forever really, it'd just finally caught up with her, the part where it all had to be tucked away.

Put...in boxes.

And that had been something close to ok.


There was a space now, a time that they hadn't know each other in her memory. Fred would never hold that against Fiegenbaum, not ever. And it certainly didn't...but it was still there. And he was still part of an unbroken line that she couldn't claim, a past that shouldn't be hurt or meddled with. A life that Fred didn't think she would ever fully know.

There was a space.

In a study of herself, Fred slowly removed a single pillow from its case, setting the insert aside. The soft linen was folded evenly, then folded on itself again. More lines...places that touched. She lifted Fiegenbaum once more from the box, held him close and dried tears were now added to old layers and scents from before. The smores, the smell still sticky, seemed to linger especially. The pillow case was nestled neatly into the box, and with slightly less ease than before Fred returned him to the place he had arrived in. Only now there was another part of her too.

They both fit inside neatly.

Fred crawled from the bed, knelt on the floor, and with a single, deep breath she pushed box and bunny under the bedskirt, and just out of sight. Just past where she could see him. But not so far away that the light from her window couldn't be seen.

And not so far that she'd ever forget he was there.

She could never forget he was there.

Comments

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He hadn't meant to forget her birthday. But Methos was a cat and Buffy was missing and she was leaving to go back to Boston and he had no idea where things stood.

Then after the party, he'd been floating, happily, and suddenly realized. Her birthday. They'd all forgotten it in the shuffle.

He wanted to give her the infinity necklace back, but this. This was a birthday and he wanted it to mean somethng for her. For them. Their situation now, not then. He'd give her that later. He found another piece that made him think of her, and resolved to give it to her when he saw her.

But the other gift needed to be shipped. It arrived late, but then it had been ordered late. His birthday, not hers, though he didn't know the day it arrived.

A wooden box sat inside the packing crate. Inside lay twelve candles. Square and solid and all colors of the rainbow and shades in between. Each labeled with a wish. A hope. Joy, love, fun, adventure, luck, wealth, peace, health, longevity, success, balance and comfort. One candle for each month to be burned an hour a day.

Dear Fred,

I'm so very, very sorry we didn't celebrate in Englad. That I forgot to mention it in the Realm. I feel ten times a fool. We didn't have a cake and no wishes got officially made as you blew out the candles.

So, I thought, perhaps, these would do. They're wishing candles, you see. Specially made to prolong the wishing. Burn one a month--they should last 30 hours of burning time--wishing, focusing, on what they're there for. On what you want. Rebuiling your life for you. Shaping it into what you want it to be.

All these things are what I'd wish for you to have in your life. Make them yours. Grab ahold of the wishes and make your dreams come true.

Love always,
Wesley

PS...I've another gift for you as well, but I'd prefer to give that one in person.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

Fred had just found a small, hand painted plate in the small bag of things she'd collected at a local garage sale a few weeks before. For some reason it was nice that not everything feel so new, with tags still on it. 'Joy' now sat on it, and together that sat on her small side table, the candle already buring.

Fred glanced at the Caller ID when her phone rang, and with a soft smile she asnwered it, sitting down on the couch.

"You're not a fool," she announced in greeting. "And...thank you."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He smiled, settling on the sofa.

"I'm so sorry I forgot. And you're welcome. And thank you."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"It's ok Wesley," Fred replied honestly. "I'm not sure of I was really ready, or wanted everyong ro remember just then. But," her eyes went to tha candles. "It's ...just what I needed now, I think."

"Thank you," she repeated herself.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

'You're welcome." He smiled to himself, looking at his gift.

"We think alike, it seems."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"That...we seem to do. The evidence is burning about two fet away."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"And I've already written a wish down."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"Oh," Fred's voice brightened in many measures. "I'm so glad, it was the idea, after all."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"It was a good idea. A very good one."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"I'm just glad it made sense," Fred laughed softly. "I forget that I can ramble when I write too."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"It made perfect sense." He smiled. "Which candle are you burning?"

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"Joy."

She doesn't ask what his wish was on purpose, and because that was the point. Wesley having some of his own.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He smiled more, settling back into the couch.

"Good choice."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"I thought so," she agreed. "They're all lovely, but this one seemed to want to glow a bit." A pause, but not a very long one."How's your day been?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"It's been good so far. I'd completely forgotten it was my birthday until Ben woke me up, though."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"Which I can completely see how it can happen." Fred laughed, pulling the blanket down from the back of the couch. "I'm glad he was there to remind you."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"He made me some form of breakfast. There were interesting things adorning the hotcakes."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"With Ben?" Fred's voice carried a certain amount of knowing now. "Why don't I doubt that at all? I'm almost afraid to ask."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"Differnet flavourings and chocolate chips." He chuckled. "Apparently the icebox needs restocking."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"And yet why," Fred smiled into the phone, even if no one could see. "Do I think that it's still completely stocked with beer, no matter what?" She tucked the blanket around her feet.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He laughed. "You would be corrrect. Several different varieties, even. He did brew coffee for breakfast rather than bringing me beer though, which says a lot."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"That really was generous of him," Fred confirmed with a laugh. "Will he really not do that again until next year?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I might be lucky enough for Thanksgiving. But otherwise I'm generally on my own for the coffee."

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fredless/]

"I always missed that...the coffee," Fred announced only somewhat randomly. "The way everyone would take turns making it at the hotel, how everyone got really good at bad coffee."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I miss it, too. I never thought I'd get used to it instead of tea, but it sort of grew on me."