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Familar
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.
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.
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"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.
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"...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."
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"Don't say what?"
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"It isn't," she countered, voice just as hurt, just as low.
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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.
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"Fred..." He reached for her again.
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The word was sharp enough that it cut the insides of her mouth.
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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.
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"I haven't been here for you."
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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."
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She did lift her other hand though, and settle it over both of theirs.
"...how?"