Familar

[fredless]

She managed to make it upstairs, and to their room without stumbling once, despite the fact that she seemed to be forcing every bit of any real sort of cognitive focus into the more important things -- like remembering to breathe. All in all Fred counted twenty seven separate bursts of air from the bottom of the steps to the touch of the door, only the smooth familiarity of its surface didn't do anything to sooth or calm or anything else that might possibly endear itself to her at this moment. Familar things let the mind drift backwards, to dip and turn into old corners and older friends. Because familiar meant not having to pay attention to where you were going, or using anything that resembled focus, or....or paying attention to...


Cordy.


Fred stood in the middle of the room, refusing to touch anything at first, because she was suddenly aware, oh so very aware that she was in the most welcoming, loving room of the house. And she didn't want anything to do with it. It was just dressed up prettier than the others, that was all. It didn't make any hour any better than all the others, especially lately, and it was still that giving, grieving word. Familiar. The couch the carpet the windows, the whole of the world of it. It was too known and too worn and it allowed for too many thoughts. Fighting away pictures in her head if dark-eyed brightness catching light from behind an receptionist's desk that was just as known, Fred managed to finally make it to her desk, touching and fumbling until she found what she needed.

And then she fled.

Less familiar thoughts and less familiar actions, that's what she needed. Because if she was walking down a hallway she didn't know as well, she had to pay attention. If she didn't know how many steps it was till the corner, then she had to count them. If she'd maybe never even made it to one of the smallest, most tucked away of the bedrooms, then she couldn't possibly think back to remember what it was like. Move forward, not back. Think forward, not of her.


Think about the walls, clean and foriegn and not the least bit giving. Don't think about the smile that flashed as she came down those stairs like a princess, all in black and head held high. She'd been so small and resentful when she first put a story to the girl in the barn, and they'd lifted her up and taken her from everything else and she'd been so jealous. Because the girl's story got to be so different from hers, and strangers did nothing but to remind her how much. At least until the girl'd met the princess, and then even she could see the part where it became how could they not?

Because, how could they not?

She was one.

She dropped next to one wall, and gave up on the not remembering. Because it'd given up on her first. It had started anyway, and now where was nothing Fred could do but to let it happen, a stinging, ugly taste in the back of her throat. Tears that'd turned long sour from her not letting them out, maybe ruined past anything now. She let them go anyway, feeling them react with the empty air around her and burn at her eyes and skin. Fingers flew across the wall, pictures and pictographs and numbers and words blending into a messy story that only she could read.

Tonight, at least anyway. Because the water was in her eyes, blanketing them until everything looked that much different. Maybe the meaning couldn't translated when eyes were dry.

There was almost the man, with the horse, but it was immediately scratched away as a new image appeared next to it. A girl, with a stick of some sorts, tall and strong and bright and compelling. The girl hadn't talked to anyone in almost two years, after all, and she'd never intended to talk to anyone either. When they hear you, bad things happen after all. Bad things were sure to happen again.

But she shined so, and the girl wanted to be a part of her, a part of that. And if in the story, the one girl stood twice as tall and strong as the other girl, a small collection of darts and lines huddled in the corner? Well that was the truth, wasn't it?

The lines and the spaces contined the whole of the wall, telling the story all along the way. It went all the way from rooms, and isolation, to those first tentative steps, one girl with the other, all along the way. Coaching and teaching and talking. There was a flash of music notes, a whisp of ink that just might've been a ghost, a dancer, leg extended gracefully. To figures, loney and sad and seperated by the sky. And the other girl, not nearly as short or as huddled, better for the being near her, watched all the while. On and on and on until the black bled into dozens and dozens of figures, the math nearby to prove just how many. So many, the black of her ink almost gone, gone into their faces and their hearts and the very clothing the wore as the sun fell back behind a wall none of them could see behind, something like a star lost with it. And then there was nothing but the alone that followed.

And she hadn't stopped crying. Now that it had started, it wouldn't seem to let go of her, no matter how much she focused on the breathing again. She wished that it would, with everything in her. Because maybe, maybe? Maybe then the girl -- the smaller one, who'd gone on to learn and know so much -- wouldn't be able to read the story anymore. Maybe she was right, that if her eyes were dry it wouldn't make sense.

And then she could start believing it wasn't true.

Comments

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He was still refusing to believe it. He wouldn't, no matter how many news channels they watched. He finally extricated himself from Methos' arms, worry about Fred penetrating the haze he'd been in.

"I should..."

Methos nodded. "Go." He didn't want to overwhelm her, and as worried as he was about Wesley, about his denial, letting him go after Fred could help.

It took him a few tries to find her and when he did, he didn't know what to say. He'd never seen her cry like that, and part of him was terrified. Even when she'd...she hadn't cried.

He couldn't run away from it though, so he settled next to her, one arm sliding around her shoulders.

He didn't have any words for either of them.

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

Fred stiffened at first, so lost in her own quiet tears that she hadn't heard anyone come in. That was another one of the lessons, after all, and one you had to pay attention to no matter what. Unless you were willing to go deeper in, the crying had to be silent, or else all you were was nothing but a map, for them and to you.

Then she recognized the arms around here, and paused somewhere between breath four hundred and seven, to eight. She'd been trying counting again, and it wasn't helping.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

Wes tightened his arms, just a little, but not enough to trap her if she tried to break free. He still had no words, but he was there, and he could feel the grief he wanted to deny spiralling through him.

There weren't sobs, but there were quiet tears as he held her.

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

Fred held her breath until it burned, welcoming the pain that flared there. At least it woke her up enough to press her face into his chest, still crying.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He ran his hands over her back, stroking gently, crying into her hair. He didn't make any sound, but he let the tears come and that was something.

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

She felt it, the damp in her hair and it first it didn't make sense. It never rained like that, not in as far as she was. Until she looked from the wall, down further to an arm that wasn't her own. It wasn't what she thought at all.

Fred burried her face even deeper into her chest, and finally made sounds, whatever the were caught up in the fabric and the buttons and creases, catching in the spaces. Maybe it might be deep enough he wouldn't hear.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He heard, but he just kissed her hair and brushed his fingers through it and let her cry.

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

Her hands were twisting his shirt and pants into messy, wrinkled circles, little mountain ranges of fabric formed with pain. She smelled the ink from her hands, and looked down, embarassed at the own visible trails she'd left, impossible to hide from. Muted black stains transfered from walls to fingers to clothes, both of theirs.

It was enough to make her quiet again.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He finally looked at the walls, following the story and holding her tighter as he did. His throat felt tight and dry and he thought if he made a sound it wouldn't be understood, or it would make the world shatter into even smaller pieces.

He smoothed fingers over her cheeks, brushing away her tears as best he could.

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

They were back to not talking. Of course they were back to not talking, but now that she'd stopped counting her breaths, Fred couldn't find the air to deal with it.

She just tilted her face up towards his, watching him read what she'd written.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He looked down at her, pain reflecting back in his eyes, though he was trying to hold it in, for her sake.

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

Fred's color was high, she could feel it pulsing through her cheeks and her forhead and behinf her neck and ears. Because when she looked at him she saw, saw, again, how he didn't.

No one else could have done what he just did. Looked over those words and scribbles and heart-hurting pictures and read it. Actually put it together and understand what she was trying to say. Read a paper published for a silly magazine, read a wall, read herself. He was the only one who did it in just that way.

And he didn't even see.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He should say something, but what was there to say? There were words of remembrance, but they both remembered. They both knew. And he did understand, did know and it made him ache inside at the loss they'd both...

But she wasn't gone.

But she was.

Wasn't.

Was.

It slid around in his head until all he could do was pull her tight and bury his face in her hair as his shoulders shook with silent sobs.

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

There was a moment where Fred hesitated, holding herself stiffly. If he pulled her closer, there'd be even more to read there, if he tried to. The hot stickiness of her skin, the knots in her hair, the way her own clothes were already soaked through, even the way her puslse still threaded. No one had even been so close for this, and the familar panic flared again.

It was everything she tried to keep hidden from her folks, in those first months, only now, it was even worse. Eased lately into talking and remembering the past, and the the very first one who had tempted her out of it, pulled her from there and started the entire wonderful journey that'd at least gotten her here, this far, was gone. And she was soaked through.

Never, never like this, and never for anyone to see. But then she'd made it easy enough, hadn't she with determined footsteps and unlocked doors? Fred didn't know if it was more eveidence of just how much the loss of Cordy had shaken her, or the softer, smaller possibitiy. That somewhere she'd gotten herself in a place where she was willing to be found. Because she didn't know.

A few of Wesley's own tears caught her cheek, shaking Fred from whatever place she was, and slowly, softly her body softened to pull him closer into her, finally lifting her own arms to hold him.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He was still determined not to break. Not on her. Not on him. The realization of what he'd done to them had hit hard with the hurt in Soren's eyes. He hadn't done much better at home than he had away. So, he could be the strong one for her, but the strong and there one.

It was hard and determined, and when her arms wrapped around him, he felt it slide away into harder sobs.

ooc: Help me find Tara icons on your day off? *g* I'm hunting instead of working. It's SO bad.

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

She didn't shush him or quiet him, because she wouldn't stand for being shushed or quieted herself, not went it got like this. The only reason that after whatever hours it's been, her own tears had slowed now is that she'd reached the dry point. Where her body simply couldn't produce anymore. It didn't mean Fred didn't want to, or didn't need to, but there just wasn't anymore. Just the dull, dry scraping as her insides fought each other was all that was left, angry by the lacking.

She did tug him closer though, her best attempt to be a sounding board for his tears. Better that than walls and rocks, because at some point she would remember when she'd angrily pounded at her last picture, and all the black, wishing that would make it go away, or change, or read like she wanted it to. Pounded and beaten at it and been so angry at their old, beautiful house with its sturdy, strong walls. But at least walls weren't rock, and there was at least a dent or two her hands would feel later.

It wasn't anything she hadn't done before, when she'd lost the math, or at least the ability to read it. Then she'd beaten it until her hands bled, not that it did any good except leave a few faint scars no one ever seemed to see. Maybe it was because the way she carried her own hands. Mostly, she thought, it was the way they saw her.

Doing her best to snchor the shaking, Fred let one of her hands trail up and rest on Wesley's neck, fingers making soothing circles in his hair.



smallSO on it!!

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He didn't like sobbing. Hated to cry, and even more so in front of others. Too many blows when tears just meant more of the same until he stopped.

He couldn't bring himself to make any noise, irrational fear sliding over him as he tried to be quiet and just cling to her.

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

Fred hated the thought that flickered through her head, the one that there was just as much a wall between them now as the time she'd visited him after Billy, and first heard Wesley cry. She hadn't been able to reach him then, and she really wasn't sure she would be able to now.

Instead she just thought of Cordy, stuggled with the her dry and scraping insides again, and held Wesley even tighter, trying to be thankful for what she did have. Have...left.

She still couldn't find the right words, or even the wrong ones, but Fred might've managed a soothing sound here, there, against his skin. She really wasn't sure.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He clung to her tighter at the sound, shaking a bit as he felt the grief spin through him. He fought the breaking, knowing it would come if, when, he was alone, but.

"It can't be true..." He sounded steadier, more insistent than he thought he could.

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

Fred hesitated at that, because after the first desperate spirals of her own thoughts, it'd never occured to her that it wasn't true.

"He wouldn't do that," she managed, her own voice changed. Raw and deeper from all the hours of tears. "He wouldn't tell us and do that unless he was absolutely sure."

She didn't want to be the one to say those words. She would give anything in the world to not have to to further the evidence. But in the past year she'd gained a harder, realer view of mortality that she simply couldn't shake.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"She can't be gone..." There was no blame for Methos. "The news...they have to have gotten it wrong..." He clung to that desperately.

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

Her eyes drifted to her cellphone in the far corner of the room where it might've been thrown.

"Did you try and call? I know I....she would've picked up, with all the news, to let us know. And...Kara. A message too, and it's..."

Her body seemed to be actively reproducing more tears at a rate it never had before, and in ways she couldn't understand. But then, it was Cordy.

Was. Cordy.

The damp was behind her eyes again.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He nodded. "I left a message. She'll call back."

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

The denial is Wesley's voice was speaking, screaming to another thousand other doubts and fears that Fred had never once given voice to and she was crying again, fast forwarding the words to another five, twenty, thirty years from now.

"...she won't. She isn't," Fred just spoke what she desperately understood to be true. Really, what was to be found it denying it anymore, other than prolonging the grieving that she'd already started. Because it that hadn't been the worst of it, Fred didn't know what she would do, ir if she even had a chance to get through it.

"Wesley," she pulled back just far enough to that one hand gently touched his cheek. The words were simple and Fred swore she was living in two places at once.

"She's gone."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He shook his head sharply. "Don't say that..."

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

Her eyes locked on his, dulled and knowing, and even misted the way they were, there wasn't anything bright about them.

"Don't say what?"

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"It's a mistake."

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

One of Fred's hand drifted to the wall again and she turned her head to look at it there. She was close enough to hitting it again that she could feel the way it would shake through her after, the impact.

"It isn't," she countered, voice just as hurt, just as low.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He shook his head, mutely, not willing to believe even when he was forced to know it was true.

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

Is this what it was going to keep being like? Is this what they were going to have to keep struggling through?

When they lost Evelyn? If...and please, Fred thought, don't let anything happen just for her thinking it. If anything ever happened to Kara. Kara or Buffy, and even Faith? Is this what Methos was going to have to struggle through after? After....

Fred did hit the wall then, flushed and over focused, landing just to the left of where she'd been so focused on before.

"It is." How could she possibly be crying again. "She's gone Wesley, she is. Not admiting it doesn't make it any less true, and it doesn't bring her back. If we stay here we'll just get lost in it, don't you see. We'll be lost and drift, but everything is still moving and we won't even see it, and it isn't safe."

They couldn't linger here. Not the way he wanted to.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He blinked, startled by her striking the wall, almost jumping.

"Fred..." He reached for her again.

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

"What?"

The word was sharp enough that it cut the insides of her mouth.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry...." He flinched internally. "I know...I just...I'm sorry."

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

"...what are you sorry for?"

For some reason she she couldn't seem to let him touch her again until he saw. Not just the words on the wall, but her. Or even, at least, most of her. And Cordy too, and everything that really meant.

Her palm pressed itself against the wall, and fingers splayed. She'd almost reached the point of accepting certain things, herself. That in some way, some form, that the pedestals and lines would always be there. But there were other things, simpler things, she needed to him to understand.

The difference between him, and herself. Him, and Cordy. That if it didn't end well, then it was still going to end. A bit more of the 'other' world had started creeping into their livesm the past year. Cordy, married. Wesley and Methos, married. There were jobs, and apartments, and babies. You had time to go to the grocery store, and fold your laundry after washing it, and yes, even get in cars. If that time with Angel, a lifetime ago, hadn't finished them?

Then it was going to have to be the most ordinary, deniable, painful things that did.


Fred was picturing other stories and endings now, for her walls, and she didn't like how they danced through her head.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"I hadn't called her. In months. I hadn't..." He closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall.

"I haven't been here for you."

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

"We helped her Wesley," Fred voice softened slightly, testing the past-tense that slipped between them, unsure if it would stay there. "We helped her, and went to the doctor with her, and made sure that her baby was going to be ok. That is wasn't anything but her, and Orlando. I don't think it is possible to do anything more than that, for a person. You did for Cordy. A few phone calls doesn't take that away."

The next part was harder, but she finally pulled her hand away from the wall.

"I was willing to wait." It dropped into her lap. "I am willing to wait."

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He reached for her hand, curling his fingers around hers.

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

She let him touch her, even wrapped her fingers more over his own, but she still lokked at him and waited to see if he'd even heard anything she'd said.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"She's gone." He repeated it almost dutifully.

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

She nodded, silently, listening for the rest. That even for her anger, and it did feel an awful like just that, she'd still be there on the other side of whatever he was going through, waiting for him.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

He trembled and tried to pull his thoughts back together.

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

If she was willing to wait for him through on the other side of everything else, then she could sit through this too.

[wesley-w-price.livejournal.com]

"How..." He shook his head, fingers clinging to her.

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

She didn't understand the question, or if there even was one. Fred wish desperately she could be one of those to him. The ones that understood every look and glance, and knew exactly what he needed. But she didn't.

She did lift her other hand though, and settle it over both of theirs.

"...how?"