Title: Some Company
Author: Minnie-May
Distribution: I don't care as long as I know where it's going.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Angel (although believe me I wish I did) they are all owned by Joss Whedon and the fine folks that produce and make Angel. Lucky!
Summary: Set after Heartthrob, fluffy little Fred fic about how she overcame her fear of coming downstairs. Please read and review! I love feedback ^_^
Some Company
Fred stared at the wall in front of her, wondering what to add. Her thoughts jumbled about in her head so that it was hard for her to pin down one of them to write. Fred had been doing this since she had gotten back from Pylea. It was something that she had used to do in that other horrible world, well actually terrible would do too. Or umm what was that word Cordelia used sometimes? Wiggy? Fred shook her head again and tried to remember what she had been thinking about, this happened a lot. One minute she would know what she was doing, where she was going; would be so close to having that 'snap' moment when everything made sense. Then she would lose it.
When that happened everything fell back into chaos again and she would have to sort it all out and put it in little boxes inside her head for her to examine later. One thing at a time, one thought each moment. It was how she had kept some semblance of mental health in the demon dimension and it was how she was trying to cope here. Writing down what she thought helped; it helped her see where she had come from, and helped her to remember the important things that she would otherwise forget. She still couldn't believe that she had only spent five years in Pylea; it felt like a hundred!
"FIVE!" Fred yelled suddenly, blushing a bright crimson when she realized that she had shouted aloud. Sometimes that happened too, she got mixed up and couldn't tell what was coming out of her mouth and what was racing around in her head.
But five she should remember because that was important, Fred assured herself. Unfortunately she couldn't at the moment remember why it was so important. She pressed the pen to the wall and wrote five down on the wall in her neat and concise handwriting. It had always been one of the things that she had taken pride in, her handwriting. Fred had taken the neatest notes in school, which was important when you were going to be a physician, but it had also come in handy when she was in Pylea. Fred could always read her own handwriting scrawled out on the walls.
She stared at the word until her eyes started to tear and her brain got fuzzy but she still couldn't think of what it was supposed to mean to her. Maybe it wasn't useful at all it might not even be important. No, Fred thought quickly, it was important she just couldn't remember why.
She walked backwards from the wall, tripping on the side of her bed and falling down bum-first on the bedspread. She sat there, thinking and staring for a long time and finally her thoughts ran to Angel. They did that a lot. Every since the handsome, brooding vampire had saved her from that hellish place her thoughts had been filled with him. Fred was finding more and more that this wasn't such a bad thing. He was so nice; the only one that she wasn't completely at ends talking to. She was embarrassed in front of the others. The way she was now wasn't normal; she knew that and she knew that it just made them uncomfortable. Fred didn't like to be pitted even when maybe it made sense to pity her. Although no one had for the longest time, not in five years away. Five, there was that number again, crawling at her brain and making her sure there was a reason she should remember why this was a special number. Of course she didn't so she moved on from that train of thought and back to her previous one.
The LA fang gang, or at least she had heard them referred to as that once, had taken to her immediately and put her up in the hotel. Still, she wasn't sure what she thought of any of them, apart from Angel. Cordelia, who was often referred to as Cordy but she didn't really think that she was on friendly enough terms to call her that since their last real conversation had included the advancements of tacos in the last five years. Anyway, Cordy seemed to be the girl lead in the group, the one who was important and adored. She was the head cheerleader to Angel's football player. Well...ok, logically not really seeing Angel as the football player type but hey this was an analogy right? So whatever, he was a football player. Cordy was the cheerleader type, the popular, pretty type that was a little self-involved. Fred wasn't sure what to think of her; she had never been in good with the cheerleaders in high school. However, Fred could also see something else there, call it the crazy or whatever but she could see that Cordy was suffering. It wasn't even so much that it was because of her own life but more because of the visions that she had. She was forced to suffer like the people in her visions, forced to see the dark and horrible in the world that she hadn't raised a brow to before. That seemed to bring her down a peg and made her easier to handle, and nicer too.
Fred wasn't sure what to think of Wesley or Gunn. Wesley seemed nice enough and really smart especially when it came to things with demons and monsters involved. She would really love to look at his books sometime and see what that was all about; maybe she could even help. But to do that she would have to go downstairs and she wasn't loving that idea. Something flashed through her mind and she struggled to hold onto it, she was sure that it was important and something that she would want to write down. But it was gone too quick and she was left with nothing but a weird feeling.
Gunn seemed nice enough too, and brave like Angel. She had the least experience with him and although she wanted to meet him, Fred didn't really feel ready yet. Fred glanced in the direction of her digital clock and took in the bright red numbers. 8:00, maybe she should go down and see everyone; Angel would probably be up at least.
Then she finally remembered. Five! How could she have forgotten? Five was the amount of times Fred had ventured out of her room since Angel had come back from his retreat or whatever. She still wasn't sure what that was about. Cordy had said something about an ex-girlfriend and a big thud but then again it was hard deciphering Cordy speak. It should be it's own language, studied in schools all over the globe. That would be interesting.
Fred counted the time that she had gone down and been told to go back to her room as a time too. After that there had been a few other occasions, but she had never made it all the way down the steps yet. She was about half-way to the bottom and that made her a bit nervous because sooner or later she would come to that last step and then what if everything hadn't 'clicked' yet? She was trying to do what Angel said though, small steps.
Fred eased off of her bed and approached the door, tucking a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear and resettling her glasses nervously. Wait, she didn't need her glasses if she wasn't going to write. So she took them off and walked back into the room, placing them on the bedside table. Taking a deep breath and counting to three, she gathered her courage and walked briskly to the door. Taking the knob in her hand and feeling the cool surface she turned it and opened her door. The hall loomed in front of her, bleak and unpromising. Taking a step out into the hallway she felt the sudden urge to go back into her room and hide. But she knew she couldn't, she had come this far already and she wasn't about to turn back now. Fred left her door open though, as a sort of safety net as she headed to the set of stairs that lead the way down into the main part of the building. When she appeared on the landing she saw that everyone was gathered in the main part of the hotel, talking to each other about something or other.
Wesley was the first one to notice her standing on the landing and didn't say anything, just stared at her as if he had never seen her. Although, well he hadn't for a while so Fred couldn't really blame him for his surprise. Usually when Fred decided to come down it was with Angel, or sometimes even Cordy. This was one of the first times she had come down by herself, just because she wanted to. Wesley's sudden silence tipped off that something was amiss and the rest of the gang turned around to see what he was gaping at.
"Hey, look who it is!" Cordy said excitedly, gesturing for her to come down and join them. Fred smiled shyly and descended about halfway down the stairs before freezing up. All her old instincts from Pylea had begun to kick in as usual and the fear set in. She was afraid of going back there, afraid that she would have to live in a place where no one cared whether she lived or died. Where no one cared about her at all.
"Why don't you come down and join us?" Wesley asked Fred, then noticing her reluctance he added, "only if you want to." Fred shuffled down a couple more steps, she only had five to go before she would reach the bottom, but there was no click. There was nothing and she was beginning to panic. What if it never came, what if she was like this forever? Always mixed up and confused, never knowing which way was up and which was down and what was right and what was wrong. As long as she was in her room, all alone, she could ignore the fact that there was a whole big world out there that was waiting for her. But standing on the stairs, so dangerously close to the bottom she suddenly felt the pressure of the whole world on her shoulders.
"Fred" Angel said, and it was only a quiet word really but it made all the difference. Because suddenly Fred thought that the world might not be so bad. Really, maybe she had this click thing all wrong, like when she had the right numbers for a math problem but the wrong equation. Maybe it wasn't a big click where all the sudden you knew where you were and what you were supposed to be doing. Maybe, just maybe, it was a gradual thing, and the only way to start on that path (the right one) would be to just get out there. Even if she was wrong, there were worse people she could be wrong with.
Fred glided quickly down the rest of the steps and awkwardly walked over to the rest of the group. "I'm sorry I was gone so long. I was just a little....lost", Fred said, looking in turn at each one of the beaming faces smiling at her.
"Have you found what you were looking for?" Angel asked her, not at all unkindly. Fred smiled and shook her head no.
"Not yet, but in the meantime I thought I could use some company, you know of the non-wall type," Fred said, babbling slightly. Angel's face broke into a wide smile and so did Wesley's and Gunn's. Cordy slung her arm around Fred's should and smiled at her.
"How about some tacos?"
END