hellmouth_of_la (Intro for Fred) - "A Part of Me..."

I won't lie. First, because it isn't right. Secondly, because somehow a lie just felt dirtier here. I had already washed my hands...lots of times today. Too many times. And not just because I worked in a lab.

Just because mainly.

But I knew why.

I revisited the lying. What was that about? Oh yes...I liked laughing again. Selfish maybe, but there it was. Silly, selfish Fred laughter. But I missed it. And I guess, that meant that I had missed me. Or at least whomever I had been. Lost in events of the last year. So yes, I liked the laughing.

It felt easy and natural. Knox's care in introducing me to the lab had quickly escalated into a fast friendship. Or at least something fast. And again, I liked that too. He and the laughter seemed to go hand in hand, right with that lost part of myself.

The girl who could smile. And the girl who could be useful. This was this whole part of me that had been tucked away for so long. Not not needed maybe, but certainly unused. And a little less known everyday.


So laughter, Knox, and more than a little of the lost scientist in me later I was heading towards the lobby elevators. It was late, past eight certainly. I paused at Wesley's door, only a half step maybe, and gave him a smile. Maybe he was finding things too. Other than books.

But as Knox tucked me into the limo that would take me to my apartment (my apartment?) I had to wonder, why did we have to go to Wolfram and Hart to find all of those things. And did it mean they were even real?

I practiced different laughs the entire drive..home. Maybe if I became better aquainted with the artificial ones, I would know a real laugh when I felt it. Bubble, bust, break free...whatever it is a good laugh is supposed to do.

I was too the heartiest of my fake laughs when I finally turned the key to the door I had been sent too, and I stopped cold. The laughter did too.

How had they done it? And why was I even asking that? Evil, manipulative law firm remember Fred? I wanted to add creepy to that list, but I couldn't. Because at much as the scene before me knocked something inside me in crazy ways, it wasn't all unwelcome.

It was my apartment. Not a dorm, or a cave, or even a hotel room. This place was mine. Literally. I stepped into the bedroom, turning on a soft table lamp before spinning pocessivley in the shadows. Everything that I didn't have before. It was here.

The dresser that dad and I had bought all those years ago, when I complained old white one I had was for 'little girls' sat up against one wall, owning it.

Pictures.

Of me. My life...memories...of Fred decorated the borders of the mirror, just where I would have placed them. Who did that? Who knew me so well? I gently touched a picture, slightly faded. What was I? Five? I almost didn't recognize myself, holding a tabby cat tat...I don't think it liked being held. Is that how my parents had seen me? Did they still?

Everything else was here too. The white hat I used to wear when gardening with Mom, the wide brim shielding that unrelenting Texas sun. The scarf Beth had brought be from India sophomore year, pinned to the wall. The shdowbox of shells, all delicates pinks, picked up from the Gulf Coast...the quilt Granny had made...even the carpet! The carpet....

It was all me. All here thanks to our bargain with the more-than-the-devil Wolfram and Heart. This was my room...my home. And again, I couldn't lie.

No lying.

That made me laugh a little. For real. Fred real.

As I drifted off to sleep, I began planning my next day. There would be a next day because I would be going back. To the building, and to the lab. There were still eighteen more quadrants to work. I had broken the entire facility into twenty squares, and I wouldn't be satisfied until I had poked, prodded, and cataloged every corner. Until I knew what each machine, potion, and person could and would do.

A soft bed and a few pictures might a home make, but they weren't going to make me loose whatever edge I had.

Or my name isn't Fred Burkle.

I closed my eyes.

Winifred!! I meant Winifred! This job was going to be big in the little details, I knew. And with that final thought, I slept.