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]

"I never thought I'd go back," Wes confessed. "But without an Angel Investigations, and with all these girls...well. Someone had to do something. They're all Chosen. All with these powers they know nothing about. Destinies. They need someone to help them. To guide them as they find their path."

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

Fred grew quiet.

"And...and that's what is't for, right Wesley? I mean, I know how you feel about Wolfram and Hart...obviously I do. And all your work over in England. This is sepratete though? Helping them...the girls?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He was quiet as well, thinking, wanting to answer her honestly.

"Nothing is separate. Everything we do is connected. Wolfram & Hart is a threat to the world. And a threat to the girls. The girls are Chosen to be Champions and Defenders of the world. And they need to be able to protect themselves. To be able to fulfill their duty. But, yes. It is about helping them in that. Not building my own personal army." If the last was slightly defensive it was only because people had told him he should for too long last year.

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

"You're right," Fred agreed quickly. "I know...yes everything is connected. But I think we have a choice on how closely. And I know that you're angry..."

Even if they didn't hardly talk about it.

"Just promise me you'll keep that seperate? Please?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"Keep the anger away from the girls?" He liked to confirm what he was promising to. "I promise."

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

"No Wesley," Fred tried to make him understand. "From you."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"It's my anger," he said softly. "My journey and path."

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

"And what are you so angry at?" Fred considered her next words. "That it's become your journey?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"What they stand for. What they...did. What I did. It has to be fixed."

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

"Is it all that vague in you head Wesley? Or are we just not really talking about it. I know...it's hard, and that I really wasn't around for that part of the story. But is it really that vague?"

Fred was not on the steadiest ground, and she knew it. But she had lost Wesley before, and seen what felt like an entire world fall apart because everyone stopped talking.

She liked...loved this one too much to loose it too.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I...it's not vague. I know what I did. What they did. I just...no one...you don't need to know. Not on my birthday. Please, Fred."

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

"Not on your birthday," Fred agreed to only the last part quietly, because she'd never agree to her not needing to know.

"I'm sorry I got carried away."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"No. Don't apologize. It's all right..."

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

"Is it really?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"It is."

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

Fred found a small smile.

"Good."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"Mum called this morning. She asked about you."

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

"Oh no," Fred flushed a bit. "I think I really, really confused her before."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I explained, so she's sorted. She wanted to know how you were doing, just to check in."

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

"And what did you tell her?"

Sometimes other peoples opinions could be just as telling as your own.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"That you seemed to be adjusting far better than I could have hoped and that you were carving out a life for yourself and seemed happy."

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

"All of those really good things," Fred agreed happily.

"You didn't think I'd adjust?"

She'd never really considered it quite like that before, just how far the worry might go.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I knew you would eventually. You're incredibly strong. But I was afraid that the time shift would bring back memories of Pylea and that it would...take longer for you to feel at home here. Or that you'd keep trying to find a way back."

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

"I won't lie and say it didn't...Pylea I mean. I wasn't ready, which that sounds silly because when are you ever ready for that kind of thing, but I really wasn't Everything was starting to feel right again, and then it was just...gone. And there was this empty apartment with empty walls, and I wanted...so badly I wanted to write on them. To fill them up with anything familiar, because it was all so different, no matter how much I tried to tell myself it was the same. I kept trying to get back too, more than I ever really told anyone. I've got pages and pages of notes. And it wasn't like I expected to be rescued, you just can't plan on that kind of thing...but maybe?" Fred got that much more quiet. "Maybe I expected...I mean, from where I disapeared from. Maybe I expected themt to try?"

Fred brushed most if it away.

"Your mom is wonderfully sweet."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"Perhaps they did try," he said softly. "I wouldn't have stopped. I know that."