Title: With Her
Summary: It is forever with her, forever haunting her, forever following her through time and death… Possibly the weirdest Fred fic ever written.
Author: ShawThang
Disclaimer: Neither Fred nor Angel: The Series belong to me.
Spoilers: None.
Author's Note: This is possibly the weirdest fic I've ever written. If anyone agrees send me a review and tell me what you think, 'k?
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With Her
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It's hard sometimes. She finds it difficult to hide it from the others, and not just because of the physical lack of control. She doesn't want to keep it from her friends, from the people who saved her from hell. It feels like she is lying to them or betraying their trust. What would happen if they found out? She doesn't want to think about that. They would be disappointed in her, and she hates the thought of upsetting her newfound friends. She knows that she can never tell them, but that part inside her sometimes has its own mind. It doesn't like being controlled. It doesn't like being pushed down, fenced deep inside her like Angel's demon, always screaming to be let out. She can not do that, though. If she did, it would be the end of everything she knew.
She can not remember when it happened, or how. The memories are hazy, as though it was only a dream. But it wasn't a dream because it is there during the day too. It's always there, howling and raging inside, desperate to be released. When it chose her it didn't expect her to fight it. It didn't expect her to win. So now it is stuck within her, waiting for the day when she will slip up, waiting for the day when it can finally do what it came here to do. She knows its plan. She can hear its thoughts, feel its emotions, and from time to time she can feel it physically- raging inside her soul, her core. It hurts when that happens, but it is not unbearable. She learnt long ago that pain is of no consequence to her. Pain is not an issue, because no matter how deep or intense or powerful the pain is, it can always be pushed aside. Pain does not hinder her.
Which is why she is sneaking out of the hotel now. She is going to search for the demon that hurt Angel the night before, and she is going to kill it. She respects Angel and in a way loves him. It is not the love between a husband and wife though. The feelings she has for him is like someone feels towards their protector, their guardian. And although she is quite capable of protecting herself, he does not know that and she appreciates the trouble he goes to keep her out of harms way. It is not often someone or something affects her this way. Nevertheless, she does not like it when he is injured, and she plans on teaching that demon what she does to people who hurt her loved ones. He will try and kill her, she knows that, but she feels no fear. What is there to fear? Death? Death will only release her from this world and send her to another place and time. It will follow her, like it has ever time she has died, and again and again she will feel its prick in her soul. Every time it happens she remembers that it has always been there, and then the memories of her other lives float into her mind. She has lived for so long that she can barely remember the first time she walked the earth. Long before humans took control of this world.
She shakes her head and resumes her search for the demon. She finds it and it trembles when she strolls into its den.
"You hurt him," she says, her voice empty and hollow.
The demon drops to his knees and begins to weep. He grabs a knife from somewhere and proceeds to plunge it into his own stomach. Before it can kill him, she stops it and manipulates it so that the blade pierces his skin slowly. Millimetre by millimetre it forces its way in. The demon is screaming now but it can not stop. His own hand leisurely pushes the knife in, and finally his eyes roll back into his head and he falls forward. She watches as he collapses, and ponders why it is taking him so long. She sees the air move out of the corpse's way, the ripples it makes as it separates before the carcass. Before he hits the ground she is back on the street, walking along the path. An old man gives her an appreciative glance and looks her up and down. When he arrives home later that night he finds his wife leaving the building with his children, claiming that she will not live with a cheating sleaze.
She does not do such things often, but every now and then some people just need a little slap on the face. So she will give it to them. It makes them better people, she believes.
A vampire walks past her, and as she continues to saunter down the road he turns and follows her. Another five steps and he trips over his own feet, landing on a misplaced slice of wood. A cloud of dust explodes into the air, but she keeps walking. She must get back before the others notice her absence. They will worry, and she hates upsetting them. She looks up at her room from the ground and when she is in her room, safe in the confinement of the walls, she sits on her bed and waits for Angel to knock on her door. A moment later there is a soft rapping at the door and she opens it. The vampire smiles softly at her and asks her if she needs anything. No, she tells him. She is fine. He nods and retreats down the hall.
He is a champion. That is something that she finds curious: how can something so dark fight for something so light? She does not really care about the answer. She only finds it interesting. The light or darkness?
She does not belong to either. So many times she has been born into the light, only to be corrupted by humanity and dragged into the darkness. Now though, she walks somewhere between, fighting both as she pleases, helping both when she pleases. It keeps things in balance, and she never grows bored. The constant changing between the two gives her a challenge, something she craves for in these simple times. She keeps things in equilibrium. It pains her when one gains the upper hand. When one thing is gained, another must be lost. It is the way things must be, and how it shall be. As long as she is here, anyway. And that won't be a problem, seeing as though she is always here. Back in the beginning, sometime after her ninety-sixth death, she began to wish for things most people took for granted. Happiness and sadness; joy and grief; ecstasy and pain. She looked at blissful couples and wanted love. She saw people grieving for the dead and wanted to grieve. She saw people touching and wanted to touch. Most of all, however, she wanted oblivion. She wanted to end the constant cycle, the immortality that decided her rebirth and death. She wanted out.
She isn't allowed out. It won't let her. As long as it is inside her she will live. Unsurprisingly she does not care anymore. A few thousand millennia can do that to a person. Or a thing. Whichever she is; she certainly does not know. Sometimes, when she looks into the mirror she can see the person she could have been. Sees the spark of humanity that taints her. Every few lives she will grab a hold of it and push the demon further down. This existence is such a life. For some reason, this life, this person, grasps her interest. The young woman is intriguing, and she wants to see what will happen. So she was there when she went to college. She was there when she fell into the portal. She was there when she spent five years as a cow. She was there when a vampire saved her. She has been many things, but this was different. Not better or worse, just different.
She usually leaves when she reaches adulthood. By that time the turmoil has left her, the human inside her spent. But this one has not dimmed yet. She wonders when it will do so. For some reason, she does not want it to be soon. She finds this existence pulling on the thread she long ago abandoned. The thread of hope lying stagnant within her. The hope that someday, either tomorrow or another thousand millennia away, she will be released. She does not know how, or if it can happen, but the hope has not diminished. Never has the flame gone out, even if sometimes it has been nothing but a burning ember.
It does not want to be with her. It hates her, hates the way it banished itself inside her. All those years ago, when humans first began to breathe life, it chose her to become its shell. Only the shell it chose did not like that, and she fought back. It has unintentionally bound them together. It can not find solace in its place of origin, and she can not find the rest she deserves. Whenever the shell she is in fades away, she will only come back. And it will always return to her. She knows it is more desperate than her. She feels its impatience, its eagerness to escape. It will not escape, however. She will not allow it. When she thinks of this she believes that she is good, or what ever being 'good' requires. It is evil, that much she knows, and for some reason she feels no desire to see it free. Even if it means forever walking the earth. She knows that she is sacrificing every dream of being normal to do so, but it is of no concern. Maybe she is a champion too, like Angel. Only she has no care for such labels. She has been evil in past lives; she has murdered, stole and pillaged. But even then she would not allow it to rise. Even then she saw that she must not allow it to escape.
She suddenly feels like drowning in herself again and walks downstairs, giddily giggling at some joke told by one of her friends. She grabs a weapon, clumsily swinging it and listening attentively as someone corrects her on the proper grip. She could slice her instructor into a million pieces before he even saw her move, but she does not entertain the thought for long. Thinking such thoughts only brings it closer to the surface, and its taunts do not bode well with her.
It is fun, living this life. One of the few she enjoys, actually. It is a rare thing to be reborn into such a paradoxical being. She is so happy sometimes, and other times she can not stop crying. Sometimes she is bored and other times overwhelmed by the excitement. She lives in a world of death and pain, yet loves her friends without abandon. Sure, some of them die, but there are still others to satisfy her needs. This life has been fun, she admits.
But it will soon end. She can feel it in her blood, in her bones. And then she will rise again, and experience a few blissful years until it comes back to haunt her. Then she will continue to walk the earth, an empty, unaffected figure, until once again the cycle repeats itself. She does not like this. For the first time she does not wish to leave.
She follows her friends as they proceed to deliver this world from evil. It is the same every night, every year, and she wonders why she does not tire of it. She finds it enjoyable. She acts frightened when a vampire jumps out of the shadows, and pretends to be relieved when Angel disperses of it. The act is becoming tiresome. If anything, that is the only thing she does not like. She must be what she was born to be, and this life dictates that she is a coy, delicate woman. It is hard, but she must obey. Why? Why must she obey? For an awful second it screams, louder than it has been for a long time, and she reigns in the defiant thoughts. To defy what she must do is to end it all. She can not do that. But for the first time, she feels...rebellious. She feels anger. She feels fury. She feels…and she challenges it.
And then her friends lie still, bloodied and pale. And Angel stares at her, his eyes the last thing to turn to dust. It stands in front of her, finally released from its prison, and begins to laugh. The malice ringing in the sound burns her, and she feels blood dripping from her ears. It is no longer within her. The emptiness has gone, and she is complete. She has lost control, and it has escaped its shell. Emotions rage through her body, every feeling she should have felt passing through her. She sees everything she has seen in new eyes. She smells things that she did not care to smell before. And she touches. And she feels. And she throws every lost moment of her many lives at it.
It screams. The shriek is so terrible that her eardrums burst. Blood is now flowing from the side of her head, streaming from her mouth and nose. She is crying blood. Crying for everything she has lost. All the families and loved ones she could never grieve for. Now she is laughing. Laughing for all the happy times she could never find amusing, laughing for the joy she should have felt then.
It moves, and she stares at it. It is powerful. Once, a long time ago, it had been a demon. The first to walk the earth. It had not been the biggest, or the scariest, but it was the most powerful. The child of evil. And she had been its pawn. No longer. She knows the world is ending. Half the world is already dead. No one can survive hearing its scream. Its scream is boiling the oceans, rivers and lakes. Its scream is dividing mountains, plains and forests. Its scream is crushing life. Why is she still standing?
She does not know why. Only that she is. She knows that because of her, the world is ending. Because she lost control, because she…
Wants to live.
She does not want to survive anymore. She does not want to exist. She wants to live. And this has released the child of evil. It is so unfair that she is trembling with rage. She wants to stop it, to kill it and destroy it once and for all. But she is merely a young woman, tiny and petite, unable to even hold a weapon properly. Doubt and despair clutch at her. Nothing can stop it now that it is free. With nearly half the world gone already, it is only seconds until it is completely ruined. She must do something, but what?
She has walked this earth since the first human. She has seen every sin a human can commit; every joy a human can revel in. She has seen every way a human can die, and every way a human can live. She has seen how a human can despair, lose, and jump back onto their feet to begin anew. She has seen how a human can be squashed, driven to the brink of insanity only to cling to the one sliver of faith left inside them. She has seen how this silver of faith can deliver a human from surrendering. And for the first time in her long existence, she wants to believe. She wants to have faith, and she wants to hope that there is a way to make things right.
As the world ends, and it grins at her, slowly advancing upon her, she retreats into herself. She unhurriedly delves further down, ever searching. She grabs things then discards them. They are not what she wants. Then finally, she finds it. A tiny ember, glowing red. She gently cradles it, willing it to grow. The ember turns into a tiny flame, and the flame grows until a fire is created. She smiles, and the fire becomes an inferno. This is her faith, her hope. This is something that no one can touch. Not even the child of evil. It realizes this and raises its fist to strike her. It does not matter. She believes. As his fist comes down, she raises her own and grasps it. There is a flash of bright light, and she knows that she will win. She will not let go. It begs her to, but she refuses. It burns, charring to black, and the flames lick its body. It explodes to dust, and she stares as the tiny particles float through the air.
She is free.
She hears her name being called, and shakes her head.
"Fred!" it calls.
"Yes?" she answers. She does not know who this is. Who is Fred?
"Behind you!" it yells, and when she turns she finds a vampire approaching her. She stakes it, and stares as Angel and her friends gather around her, protecting her. She knows that something is not right, that something has happened. If only she can remember it. Yes, that's right!
It is gone. She is alone.
She feels strange. She can feel the breeze on her skin, and it feels cold. She can taste the ash in her mouth, and it tastes dry. She can hear the noises of fighting around her, and it sounds alive. She can smell the crisp night air and the stench of demon blood, and it smells delicious and disgusting at the same time. She can see the brightness of life, and it looks beautiful. This is what she has missed. It pains her to see the uselessness of her existence until this moment. What a waste of time, effort and space. There is not point in dwelling on it though. She has finally been given a chance to live, and she will not waste a moment of it. They are back at the hotel now, and she eats her first meal. She feels her first hug, and sleeps for the first time. The world is safe. For the moment.
There is much uncertainty in this. She knows that she can die, and when she does she will not be coming back. She is mortal, easily killed and she must be careful. She is relearning to do everything, and it brings much delight to her. This is what she has desired for so long, what she never knew she missed. It is a constant thrill, a continuous journey of discovery and learning. One that she will never give up again. It has been defeated.
Her memories are slowly dwindling, and she can not remember every life she existed in. The details are sparse and hazy, and she finds herself confused more often than not. One day, she wakes up and she no longer remembers it, no longer remembers what she was. She is now Fred, nothing else. What she was is gone. No one, not even the darkness or the light can remember her, or it. She is free, living and human, nor longer the shell of evil, no longer a pawn of it. And it feels wonderful.
Back before the first creature breathes life, the child of evil awakens. It has learnt its lesson. It must choose another vessel; one that will not fight. It smiles, and walks into the darkness.
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The End
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