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Observations
Jan. 25th, 2007 08:24 pmFred considered herself a pretty observant girl.
It'd started when she was younger, an only child, doing all the things that only children do. Especially when summer came and the offerings of distractions and school friends dipped. So you play games in the singular, live in the imaginary, and spend an awful lot of time looking.
There was a lot more watching in her chosen major. And then, of course, came Pylea. Fred really wished so many of the things in her life couldn't be tied back to that place. She wished it so hard some days even still, that her head could hurt with it. But some things just aren't that changable, and you don't spend some five odd years running for your life without picking up a few new skills in observation. Then you get out, start working for a vampire, and spend many years after that running for every other reason possible and the skills get that much more perfected.
Of course, Fred's headspace argued, there was lots of evidence to the contrary. That really, when it came to everything she was clueless. After all, there was so much she hadn't seen with Wesley, even Charles. And when it came to Knox, she'd obviously been blind, for all she hadn't stuck around to follow that particular disaster through. It was still a neat solid stack of arguing.
Still, she liked the idea of being observant much better. Because she'd been seeing things the last few days. Small, indidual and oddish things all on their own that were adding up. And if she was observant, that made them mean something. And if they didn't, that just left her being crazy. That was a place Fred wanted to revisit even less than Pylea.
The same car traveling up their rode, twice, and Fred made routine trips to the store and the library, and then the local mall wasn't really alarming it itself. But there weren't all that many houses nearby, her head countered, and she felt like she knew their neighbors and what they drove. The newness struck her, and started to make it hard to sleep.
It wasn't that the bed seemed endless and more than a little empty, because Fred had sent ...well, at least one of them off with full consent. Methos and Wesley needed this time, and that was that. And that was what happened when you loved someone. On the days that you weren't being selfish, or tired, or taking for granted what was there, you did everything you could to make it better. Oscar was there, wonderful company all on his own. And what were they really going to do? Watch the cars go by with her?
But then there was the grocery store again, and the fact that a man managed to walk the exact aisles she did at the exact pace an order. Fred was a firm believer that everyone had their own approach to food shopping. Some hit the frozen first, or the produce department, some had to walk up and down every single row, and some only went for what they needed. Fred was a bit of a wanderer, but that was beside the point. The point was, someone wandered right along beside her.
Then there was the guy in the waiting room during her recent check up. There with a wife that never appeared, for all that Fred had time to come and go. Not in there with her, all odd questions and looks at her left had. It wasn't that Fred minded conversation, even with strangers, but they only seemed to be trying to talk about her.
Finally the visitor at the door, an old friend of Adam's, with so very little to say.
It was either something, or it wasn't, and Fred settled into her days trying to figure out which.
It'd started when she was younger, an only child, doing all the things that only children do. Especially when summer came and the offerings of distractions and school friends dipped. So you play games in the singular, live in the imaginary, and spend an awful lot of time looking.
There was a lot more watching in her chosen major. And then, of course, came Pylea. Fred really wished so many of the things in her life couldn't be tied back to that place. She wished it so hard some days even still, that her head could hurt with it. But some things just aren't that changable, and you don't spend some five odd years running for your life without picking up a few new skills in observation. Then you get out, start working for a vampire, and spend many years after that running for every other reason possible and the skills get that much more perfected.
Of course, Fred's headspace argued, there was lots of evidence to the contrary. That really, when it came to everything she was clueless. After all, there was so much she hadn't seen with Wesley, even Charles. And when it came to Knox, she'd obviously been blind, for all she hadn't stuck around to follow that particular disaster through. It was still a neat solid stack of arguing.
Still, she liked the idea of being observant much better. Because she'd been seeing things the last few days. Small, indidual and oddish things all on their own that were adding up. And if she was observant, that made them mean something. And if they didn't, that just left her being crazy. That was a place Fred wanted to revisit even less than Pylea.
The same car traveling up their rode, twice, and Fred made routine trips to the store and the library, and then the local mall wasn't really alarming it itself. But there weren't all that many houses nearby, her head countered, and she felt like she knew their neighbors and what they drove. The newness struck her, and started to make it hard to sleep.
It wasn't that the bed seemed endless and more than a little empty, because Fred had sent ...well, at least one of them off with full consent. Methos and Wesley needed this time, and that was that. And that was what happened when you loved someone. On the days that you weren't being selfish, or tired, or taking for granted what was there, you did everything you could to make it better. Oscar was there, wonderful company all on his own. And what were they really going to do? Watch the cars go by with her?
But then there was the grocery store again, and the fact that a man managed to walk the exact aisles she did at the exact pace an order. Fred was a firm believer that everyone had their own approach to food shopping. Some hit the frozen first, or the produce department, some had to walk up and down every single row, and some only went for what they needed. Fred was a bit of a wanderer, but that was beside the point. The point was, someone wandered right along beside her.
Then there was the guy in the waiting room during her recent check up. There with a wife that never appeared, for all that Fred had time to come and go. Not in there with her, all odd questions and looks at her left had. It wasn't that Fred minded conversation, even with strangers, but they only seemed to be trying to talk about her.
Finally the visitor at the door, an old friend of Adam's, with so very little to say.
It was either something, or it wasn't, and Fred settled into her days trying to figure out which.
