Spirit

Spirit : Strong loyalty or dedication

"Angel's just go to realize that I'm just not as qualified for this as..." Fred marveled as Charles looked down at her, how quickly a single look could kill the words a body was so intent on saying. It didn't seem like it should be that, not that way at all. After all, for all the things a pair of eyes can say? For all the things his brown ones were saying to he just now? They were all silent. A voice was something else, and when paired with actual words, there was a whole world of possibilites. There was tone, or a tremble, you could be outraged or just plain old outspoken. Words were the scissors to a looks' paper, she was quite convinced, with one clearly able to handle the other.

Of course, that was for anyone else but her.

"...as some people."

Because see? That was defeat, there, in her voice. Or something awful like it, enough that she didn't like the way it sounded, the way she carried herself. And so much more than just a look. Charles decided to test his own voice out.

"Yeah, well, "some people" aren't around anymore. So, you're just gonna have to learn to get good at
it..."

Her own voice leaped and crackled, much more spirited as it crossed the room to where he stood, one person's turn near on top of the other. "Well, but, what if I fail? What if I can't find anything to help us?"

And there it was. One of the things she was afraid of most. Maybe even most of all. That for all the time she'd been an addition into their lives, and their world, that when the time came for her to actually step up, and take part in it? She wouldn't be able to. Oh, she'd done well enough as a pinch hitter every now and then. But this? Fred was something close to sure she would never be able to be. Not the way the she couldn't help that Angel, or at least Angel's grief, wanted.

One person simply couldn't replace another. One body couldn't ever slip in and fill exactly the same space and place. There'd always be holes. Always be things that were missed.

She couldn't be Wesley. And that was only part of what she'd been desperately trying to point out to Cordelia just hours before. To try and get her to use her voice too, to help.

"Why? Why can't you? You've known them both longer than anybody. Angel would listen to you...look. Whatever he did... It's Wesley. You care about him. I know you do. Can you imagine the pain he's in, how
horrible he must be feeling--

They weren't going to be the same without him, because they weren't the same without him. It was all very simple, basic bath, and it didn't take any higher sort of education to understand. You just couldn't spread out five people to fill in the space that six once took up, no matter how hard they tried.

With a mutter and a sigh, she turned the next page in the text, and compared it to another, which lead her to compare it to another. She'd figure this out, she promised herself. But not just for tonight. More than anything she was focused on getting the lot of them to tomorrow, so they could keep on figuring.

About the important things.

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Taking Aim

The morning after the funeral, Fred was the first one to wake up, and complete the ritual where you make yourself get out of the bed. If she wasn't the first one exactly, she could admit to not looking that closely for once. Maybe she was just the first one to stop pretending to sleep. Maybe they'd been the last to actually close their eyes, and now something like rest'd finally fallen over them. It would, she just had to trust, all somehow sort itself out.

She forced herself to the business at hand, before allowing her thoughts to travel too far away. At least yet. On that she was so determined that all consideration of breakfast was put away as well. Just like her thoughts, it would have to wait. Was it lucky, she wondered, that there was still a collection of paint cans and swatches of carpeting tucked away in the attic, remenants of the renovations? It kept her from getting into her car. But it also kept her from driving.

The concepts should not have warred so directly against one another. And yet, somehow, they did.

The paint can was collected dutifully, the color one of three or four that had been used in the various bedrooms. It was deep enough that she might get away with not repriming the surface, and that was a hope she was content to hold onto for a while. There was a roller, a pan, a box of newspapers all of it nearby as well. If they ever got around to casual conversation at the breakfast table again, Fred intended to let both Methos and Wesley know that had a very accomidating attic. There was everything a girl could possibly need to cover up a little bout of self-destructive behaivor.

The next part shouldn't have been so hard. It was just getting dressed. And just like getting out of bed, if you emplyed the concept of one leg in front of the other, it seemed to her you would always get there. Even if there was sometimes more of the eventual behind it than Fred would have liked. But this was painting. It was time for clothing that had a dozen years of stories worked into the fabric, with holes that worked like windows. Backwards working ones at that. They were aged, and faded, and yet you always knew they'd be only the more beautiful for the stains you were about to subject them to.

Or? Not. Fred rumaged in the drawer for a moment, not wanting to wake anyone else up, but wishing it went deeper all the same. She could move every stich of clothing from one side to the other, but it still wouldn't change things. Nothing there was more than a year old. Nothing was so faded, nothing so soft that it brushed against forgotten. It could only be jeans and a tshirt then, and her hair tucked up into another bun. It was to keep it from getting to the paint, and the brush, and smeared into the wall. It wasn't because she felt anything like less young. It wasn't.

An hour after that, all of the evidence was gone.

An hour after that, breakfast had been addressed.

An hour after that her thoughts were finally in full swing, and centered on her clothes.

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