FRED
Fred was hiding. On many occasions, she would have denied completely that this was what she was doing, but this time was different; she was perfectly willing to admit that she was hiding. She had gathered up as much food as she could carry from the kitchen, taken the books which had proved most use thus far, and locked herself in her room. It was no use waiting outside, anymore; she'd spent hours poring over every spell book in existence, attempting to find something that would make Angel's soul return and revert him to the self that didn't want to kill everyone who'd ever spoken to him…Fred had come up with nothing. She was useless and incapable and stupid, and she was giving up. It wasn't safe outside, anyway; she'd tried her best to keep on going along the path of progress, knowing that Angel wouldn't want her to be taking two steps backwards for every step forward while he was...absent, but she hadn't been able to do it, not even for him. She'd snapped; sitting outside in the sun hadn't worked, and she didn't feel safe around Giles or Charles or Wesley anymore, and Fred had had something akin to a breakdown. She couldn't deal with this; she needed Angel back.
She had thought that she would be alright with the knowledge that he had become the evilest vampire ever to walk the earth, because it wasn't as though he'd been around much lately anyway, but she wasn't; Fred was scared. Terrified, actually, because she didn't want to die. More to the point, she didn't want Angel to be the one to kill her. She trusted him – had trusted him – more than anybody else in the world, and he'd exploited that. Already she felt used, and Fred didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. This wasn't good, and why wasn't he fixed yet? Until they fixed him, and made him good, and she could find a way to get over how betrayed she felt by him, even though it probably wasn't his fault, Fred was not coming out of her room. Not for anybody. She was safe in here. She wouldn't go hungry, and she could try, and try, and try again to find something in one of these books that were stupid for not having 're-ensoulment' in the index, and she could try and think of something of her own that might work, and she would hide. Hiding was good; even if she was terrible at helping the person who'd helped her so much already; Fred knew she was good at hiding.
She desperately wanted to help Angel; Fred felt she owed it to him, after everything that he had done for her. Without him, she would still be stuck back in that cave, a fugitive from demons that would execute her without even a second thought, crazy half out of her mind. She loved him; she didn't know how anyone could not, when he was so brave and handsome and champion-ish, and saved crazy girls from the monsters even when he didn't know them, and let those girls stay in his hotel without ever having to pay rent and bought them ice cream and tacos and made them feel safer than they could ever remember feeling. Oh, she knew perfectly well that he would never love her back, and that it was just puppy-love anyway, but Fred couldn't help it. He was...Angel. And she had to help him. She couldn't let his soul just float away and not try and get it back – and try she had done.
She'd stayed up so late reading that the words had swum in front of her eyes, making themselves into indiscernible patterns that didn't spark something in her brain any more than the words in the correct order did. She'd gone through every spell book in the Magic Box, and tried to formulate an equation wherein s symbolized the soul, going as far as attempting to break laws of nature to make s the subject of the formula, and therefore reachable, without any success. Half of her wall was covered with equations now, all of them trying desperately to turn ensoulment into a science rather than a magic. Fred didn't think it was possible, though; there wasn't anything in the realms of science that talked about souls. They were not within her area of expertise, and though she tried, she couldn't bend that so that she could do something. That was all she wanted, really; if she felt like something was happening, then perhaps Fred wouldn't have felt such a drive to hide away from the world. If she believed that Angel was coming back, then she might have wanted to venture out of her room.
She wasn't sure she did believe that, though. Angelus was strong, everyone knew that (even she knew it, and people had been very careful so far to make sure that she didn't hear anything that might scare her...but Fred could read just as well as they could), and it had taken gypsy curses to get his soul back inside him before, and that spell hadn't worked this time. If it hadn't worked, didn't that mean that there was something else at play, something darker and scarier, and something that meant that it might be a long time before they got Angel back? She couldn't think that, though; Fred had to believe that he would be back, that his soul would just pop back into his body and make him good again, or she'd be crying in a corner right now. Angel was her hero, the champion who'd saved her from a life of enslavement, the one who always saved her. Without him, she'd have been nothing; a girl without a name, without a life, without anything. She had things now, and she didn't want to lose them.
Even if everyone else gave up, saying it wasn't possible, and moved on to trying to kill the vampire that was destroying half the town, Fred was determined not to give up on him. He wouldn't have given up on her – he hadn't, even when she'd been at her worst. She had to remember not to give up; Fred uncapped a pen, of which she had several dotted round her room, and wrote, 'don't give up' in capital letters on the wall above her bed, directly underneath where she had written Angel's name over and over, and then struck each one through with a single thick black line. He wasn't Angel anymore; she had to remember that. It was difficult, and she believed that one day, he would just turn up and be good again, but until then, she had to remember that he wasn't Angel. He was Angelus, and Angelus was evil.
ANGELUS
Angelus had favorites (who didn't?). There were several people in Sunnydale that he could, and most likely would, kill for befriending Angel alone. But, there were a few that really topped that list out. Buffy, of course, was one of them. And she would be until he finally finished her off for good, but with that girl, he had to take his time. After all, being alive was what gave her so much trouble and he had no plan of answering her death wish. It wasn't like a few years before, when Buffy's team was his main focal point. No, because Angel had gotten himself his own little team of heroes that trusted him. And instead of staying in Los Angeles, they tried to track Angel down when he didn't contact them. They cared. They cared and Angelus wanted to exploit that. Now that they knew that Angelus was out of his cage, however, there was a lot less caring and more worry, worry and no doubt plans to either ensoul or kill him. He would ensure that they didn't accomplish either. Of all of them, there was one... One that he was practically squirming to get his hands on. Fred. Sweet, scared little Fred.
Since that night in the Magic Box, she had been a very present thought. She trusted him the most. The rest of his team, while Angel thought trusted him, would always have some amount of reservation. His pathetic counterpart would have claimed he deserved it after the way he treated the team the year before (even if he did it to protect them from himself). Talk about miserable self-loathing—Angel had that down pat. If he were to kill Wesley or Gunn, he was sure it would involve a real fight. Wesley would attack the situation through his knowledge as a former watcher, and with all the disposition of a leader and protector of the team in Angel's absence. Gunn would see a soulless demon and dive into kill mode. Now, Cordelia was a woman that left him wondering. Oh, she liked Angel to think she would have no problem killing him... But, he had his suspicions otherwise. None of them were targeted that night. Eventually, he would find out for sure how each of them would react, rather than predicting their reactions. Tonight, his motives revolved around one member. And that was Fred.
If there was one person he could count on to retain hope that there was a way to bring Angel back, it was her. With Buffy's death and then her revival, Angel hadn't spent a lot of time getting to know Fred. But, he saved her from that hell dimension and she trusted him despite the monster that was inside of him. She wasn't afraid of him before. Of his entire team, she was the sweetest and most innocent of the entire group. She was a strong girl, living through all that she had, but it also left her jumbled and timid—something he could really use to his advantage. He recalled the night he found out she was in Sunnydale, and how she'd hugged to him and seemed much better with "Angel" close by. He was supposed to protect her and because she looked at Angel like some kind of hero, he imagined she wasn't so willing to let go of it. If there was any way to bring him back, he thought that it would be Fred that led that front.
Sure, he expected his friends researched it and that Buffy would want to force his soul back in him instead of killing him for a second time, but when they all gave up, he didn't think the brunette girl would. He wanted to witness the breakdown of her trust first hand. He wanted to tear at it layer by layer and expose her for the scared, crazy girl he knew she could be. And she wasn't a match for him, not physically, not even close. It was everyone else he had to worry about. After all, how could anyone want to leave Fred for the wolves? No doubt they all wanted to protect her. His team would, anyway. Angelus was a little vague on what Buffy's team was up to. With Fred in Giles' home, he was confident that he would protect her. But if he was careful, no one would be around to save her. Angelus wasn't foolish enough to attack with everyone in reach of killing him. But, he didn't sit around and wait for someone to come to him either.
He would actively lurk. While he might not come into contact with any of them on a regular basis (there'd be more death and torment if that were the case), he kept a close watch. Angelus practically invented the art of stalking. Hiding in the shadows was something that he perfected over two hundred years prior. He could keep out of sight, but it didn't necessarily mean that he wasn't paying attention to them. Now, anyone that had dealt with him before or knew even the basics of the kind of vampire he was would know it. He was always close, and letting them know it was taunting itself. But if there was ever an opening and if they ever let their guard drop, he would know about it and would be right there to seize up on the opportunity.
Creeping around Giles' property had the potential to be a dangerous task. He was well aware that Buffy's dear Watcher wouldn't have any qualms about finishing him off. He didn't think he would succeed, but he didn't want to be caught off guard either. After what happened the last time he was out, Angelus was sure that there were still bitter feelings towards him. You don't just forget about your girlfriend being propped up and left nothing more than a corpse in your bed. People move on, and they get through it, but it's never forgotten. And while his relationship with Angel seemed to improve since then, having Angelus at his doorstep was asking for a crossbow pointed at his chest. Since his team was holding up there, it was one of the places he would to stalk. That and Buffy's house, which just had that air of familiarity about it.
Giles' house should have been safe for Fred. After all, Angelus couldn't just walk inside to see her. All she had to do was stay in and he wouldn't be able to touch her. He didn't see that happening tonight. He planned to get her to let him in, to trust him enough to get close and then, she'd be his. If anyone might fall for him, he believed Fred would. Wiping the smirk of anticipation off his face, he slipped out of the shadows and rushed to the door. Dedicated to the part, Angelus' face was masked with concern and he rapped on the door. "Fred! Fred, come to the door! —Please." There was an urgency in his voice, the kind that only Angel would carry if the situation was that dire. It took so little for him to pull off that disguise and so easily pretended to be in a hurry or even panic over something. Fred might know that Angel lost his soul, but he didn't have any trouble pretending it was back, if only to gain trust enough to get to her. Oh, tonight, his little Fred was anything but safe.
FRED
It should have been easy to get Angel back to how he'd used to be. After all, if his soul was just floating round in the ether, how difficult could it be to capture it again? It was possible to capture individual photons, after all, invisible to the naked eye but used to determine some of the most important things in quantum physics, and Fred rather thought that a soul was bigger than that, even if it appeared to just be a bunch of glowy particles, apparently, that got caught in that orb thing. Fred didn't understand why spells to recapture it weren't working this time. It couldn't have just disappeared, because nothing ever disappeared; things were used up in reactions, or made into something else, but they were always balanced and every tiny atom was accounted for. Did that mean, then, that Angel's soul had become something else—something bad? Something empty?
Fred didn't like that idea one bit; it had to be out there, and all they needed were extremely powerful gypsies to stick it back in him...right? So, they had to get some gypsies. Even if they had to fly them over from wherever it was that they lived, surely having Angel back and good would be worth the expense of the flights? And they'd come, Fred was sure, because it had been Angelus who'd killed one of their own a century ago—at least, that was how she thought the story had gone. Fred hadn't read his past before he'd gotten his soul all too closely, because it was kind of scary, and she didn't like the thought of Angel – her Angel – being nasty like that. He wasn't; he was good. He just lost right now. His soul was lost in the sky somewhere, in that place where souls went when people died, or became vampires, and once they found it, they'd find him again. Fred knew what that was like; she understood being lost better than anybody. If that was what had happened, and she believed it was, then she owed it to Angel to help him be found again. He had given her a place in the world, but that place didn't quite exist without him in it. Angel was lost, and they had to help him, just like he had helped her. He shouldn't be lost—he had to be hating it.
Fred had hated it, after all. She knew that the two of them weren't the same – weren't anything like the same, in fact – but nobody liked being lost. First you didn't know where you were, and then slowly, you didn't know who you were, either. Even if you had a library card or a driver's license with you, you didn't know that it was you; she was just a girl from a world that was different to this one, a world that probably didn't exist because you'd spent years trying to get there to no avail, and it was simply a story to give you hope. If you believed there was something better out there and that some day you might find it, then it gave you something to keep going for. That and you didn't want to die – even when you were at your most lost, you knew you didn't want to die.
That was why Fred had kept going so long, and why she was determined to do everything she could to find Angel's soul for him. She believed it was out there, and she believed it was redeemable, and so she was going to search as long and as hard as she could for it, because even the searching for it had to be better than sitting in her room, upset because Angel was gone and she didn't feel safe, and she didn't think she would feel safe again until she knew he was back and didn't want to kill her just because she happened to be someone that he had saved. What sort of logic was that, anyway? Fred (fortunately) didn't have insight into the mind of a psychopathic vampire, but it didn't make sense to her. Surely there were far more important people he could be concentrating all his will to kill on than her, since Fred didn't think she was even the remotest bit special...not that Fred wanted Angelus to kill important people or anything. She just didn't want him to kill her, either. She was quite happy being alive, thank you very much.
Maybe this wasn't living, as far as some people were concerned. Maybe they wouldn't want to spend their time hiding in a room with the light as dim as it could go while being bright enough for her to be able to read by without straining her eyes. Perhaps they wouldn't like the idea of not letting anybody in, and sitting on the middle of her bed until she passed out, trying to find something in a book. They wouldn't want to be writing on the walls, anything that might help her in some way, or huddling in a corner when the realization that Angel was gone hit her like a ton of bricks in the stomach, and she couldn't bear it. But it was good, for Fred. She was happy here – well, perhaps not happy, because Angel was an evil monster that was probably going to terrorize half the town, but that aside, she was as content as she was likely to be, given that this was a new town and she was still figuring things out in her mind. The Angelus problem had kind of put Fred's own problems on the back burner, because it was far more important to her that she figure out a way to give him his soul back, and she probably wouldn't stop until she found something that worked. Long after everyone else had given up and were going after him with stakes and crossbows, Fred would be working on the problem, because it was the only thing she could do. She couldn't fight him. She couldn't attempt to capture him, or reason with him, and she knew that if it came to it, she wouldn't be able to kill him, because he wore Angel's face and Angel was her hero, and Fred could never kill him. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she plunged a stake into his heart like he was any other vampire. He wasn't; Angel was different. Angel was special.
"Fred! Fred, come to the door! —Please."
Angel was...here? Fred froze, glasses sliding down her nose and pen in her hand, listening to the voice from outside. It sounded like Angel, except it couldn't, because Angel wasn't himself anymore. What was she supposed to do? She didn't think there was anyone else in at the moment, but she couldn't just leave him there. What if somehow, he was himself again? If she let him wait, then the moment Giles came back, or Gunn or Wesley, they'd stick a stake in his heart and not give him a chance to explain what had happened. If he had found a way to get his soul back, then Angel deserved the chance to explain, and if not...well, Giles had done the spell that rescinded his invitation, so he couldn't get inside anyway. Still clutching her pen, Fred cautiously opened her bedroom door, looked up and down the corridor before stepping outside, tiptoeing like she was a mouse. Did mice tiptoe? And why was the saying 'quiet as a mouse', anyway? There had been mice in the biology laboratories on campus, and they had never been quiet, so it was a bit of a stupid saying, really, if you asked her, unless by 'quiet as a mouse' they really meant 'squeak loudly'. Okay, so Fred wasn't tiptoeing like a mouse, but instead really quietly; she reached the front door, hesitating behind it for a moment.
Wesley would shout at her for doing this, Fred knew that. He only shouted when he really cared, but Fred didn't know whether he would do it this time because he cared about her being hurt, or Angelus getting one-up on everyone. But what if he wasn't Angelus anymore? Fred had to take the chance, didn't she, because nobody else would. Checking the chain was still on the door, Fred opened it the few inches it would go, peering out from behind the wood, looking up at him over the top of her glasses. "A-Angel?"