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

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

Fred's eyes narrowed and she stared at the receiver of the phone.

"Yes," she confirmd. "I'm...it doesn't fit me the way it used to. Or maybe I don't fit it. I don't know, it's just...they don't need me. They've got plenty of people, and maybe it wasn't the answer. I don't know. Everyone's been really nice, truthfully. And I'd assumed that because that's where I landed when I just showed up that it was where I was supposed to be. Only now I'm not so sure. I...I just need to find what fits."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

Not. Dancing. Or even bouncing.

"Have you had any thoughts about what that might be?" He wouldn't push, but he couldn't think of any place he'd rather her be than with him. But he wouldn't say that now. That would be too much of a gift to even hope for.

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

"I'm not sure," Fred danced through words she had thought a thousand times. "I thought maybe I could teach...or there's always what we used to do. Helping people. I thought about setting up an office in my second bedroom, and taking on cases one at a time. There's still got to be peopel out there who I could help."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He nodded. "I'm sure there are. We were...you and I...I mean she..." It faded sometimes, the remembering how things had changed. This seemed to push back all the unhappy memories, but there were happy ones, too, and he wasn't sure he wanted to lose those. Or what they meant now. But.

"Last fall, I started an agency. Before everything went..." Bad. "I rescued a cat. Just the one case and then everything. And then Lilah found me."

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

"Lilah?"

Fred worked very heard not to grown, but she wasn't sure she succeeded.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"After you...she...left. I didn't do much except drink. Lilah came by one afternoon. Offered me the job at Wolfram and Hart. That was the end of the agency," he said softly.

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

"The drinking didn't bring her back though," Fred saw the chance to make even the smallest dents in one of her biggest worries when it came to Wesley. "And maybe...then maybe me leaving Wolfram and Hart can be the beginning of mine."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"No, it didn't," he acknowledged. "It doesn't ever fix anything."

He smiled slightly, voice warm. "Maybe it can at that."

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

Fred smiled brightly at how quickly Wesley got the point. Only maybe...maybe he had always had the point, but still drank anyway?

What did that mean, then?

"It's one of the ideas."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"Teaching being another? What would you want to teach? Physics, or more the sorts of things you applied it to, learned in the last few years?"

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

"Would you believe I actually haven;t gotten that far? I mean, I considered both of those, but in most places the school year has already started, and getting certified for this year might be hard, so it could be just subsituting. It seems like so much to think about...but then I don't mind a bit."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"Private schools won't require certification," he pointed out far too casually.

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

"...and that's another idea too," Fred agreed warmly.


Truthfully, her mind swam with them.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"There are lots of possibilities," he echoed unknowingly. "You have to decide what's best for you and what your goals are, what you want to achieve and where the best place is to do that."

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

"I know," Fred agreed warmly, and I will." She already felt better about her decision.

"But enough about me...today is your birthday. You should get to direct the conversation a bit too..."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I..." He chuckled. "I like talking about you. I thought we'd covered that. But..oh!" He sat up a bit. "Did I tell you about the girl I met, Antonia? She's a Slayer somehow displaced through time even farther than you. She died, though, actually. In the nineteenth century, then somehow has found herself alive here again. It's most puzzling. But she's...well. She's Richard's daughter."

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

Fred immediately began to tug at her hair in thought. "I ..I might have met her. I think she tried to contact me through my journal, but she wasn't very coherant at the time, and I guess I just didn't know what to make of it. There's so many people I don't know and...but she asked about my family, which could make some sort of sense."

Fred's thoughts raced.

"So she died...and found herself here. I mean the order's off, but that doesn't make her situation that far from mine at all. Only it'd be foolish to think they're linked just because of that. Richard's daughter? Buffy's Richard?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"Buffy's Richard," he confirmed. "He's from the past as well, though I never did ask him how he got here. He and Antonia weren't...close. Her Watcher raised her, it seems. She's going to help find him. Then help me with the girls. It will be good to have a Slayer on staff."

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

"It's the same girl then, because she said as much to me, about how she was raised. About not really...having anyone." Fred made a quiet decision to meet her as soon as possible. "You haven't really told me much about your plans..."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"We're looking for somewhere in the New England area, a property large enough for us to live, plus to build a school of sorts. I've got several started throughout the world already, or in the process of it, but I wanted to oversee this one personally. We'll bring the girls here, then work to train them. See that they are schooled, both in regular academic subjects, but also in demonology and their own history. We'll have them trained to fight. And not just Slayers. Watchers, too. And witches who want to learn. Ideally letting them form friendships and their own teams."

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

Fred nodded.

"I never knew as much about that side of things, it was something you, and Cordy and Angel all shared. But it sounds...right."

[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?"