Party
Fred tugged at the hem of her dress. Rationally she knew it wasn't any shorter than the rags she'd worn in Pylea, but no one in Pylea looked at her like the guys at this party were looking at her. It made the skirt feel very short indeed and she wished she hadn't let Cordelia talk her into getting it.
In fact she wished she hadn't let Cordelia talk her into coming to the party at all, but Angel had said it was a good idea so Fred had agreed.
She felt that coming to the party was a good compromise measure, since he'd also decided that they wouldn't be sleeping together anymore and that she fully intended to argue about. That time, when they were falling asleep together was too precious to Fred to give up, especially when Angel couldn't come up with anything they hadn't already discussed as a reason why. When compared to that, the party hardly seemed worth thinking about, let alone arguing about. However, now that she was there, all Fred wanted was for it to end… all these people, and none of them real. They jabbered on about celebrities and such endlessly, leaving everything real at the door.
They were here to see and be seen, to find or be found. Fred knew beyond all doubt she didn't belong here. She seemed to remember that this hadn't been a problem in the old days before Pylea, when she had found herself in one of these situations back then everyone else had only had to take one look at her to know she didn't belong and then they left her alone. Unfortunately Cordelia's choice of clothing and her efforts with Fred's hair and make-up had effectively camouflaged her and now she had to deal with all these people who thought she was like them.
With a feeling of relief, Fred spotted a guy who looked as out of place as she felt. She sat down beside him, hoping the invisible bubble of not belonging that surrounded him would extend to herself as well.
"H…Hi, um…" he stammered.
"I'm Fred," she introduced herself holding out her hand to him.
"David," he replied taking it awkwardly. "David Nabbit, technically your host. Mostly I try to stay out of my guests' ways. …I saw you come in with Cordelia, are you a friend of hers?"
"I work with her," Fred explained.
"You… wow," David exclaimed. "That's really wow. Are you, like a witch or something?"
"A physicist specializing in dimensional portals and magic," Fred explained. "I do research on general demon phenomena too. What do you do?"
"Oh… me? I um… I'm the head of a multi-billion dollar software company."
"You are? I used to be into computers. That was seven years ago, but then there was the wholebeing dumped into a medieval-equivalent society without even electricity, so you can just forget about computers; I got rusty. After I got used to being back I asked everyone…well Angel, Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn, if UNIX still existed, they'd never heard of it."
David half smiled. "Oh it's still around, in fact…"
From across the room Cordelia smiled contentedly at the sight of Fred and David Nabbit engaged in an animated conversation. She'd know this was a good idea, Cordelia thought as she refocused on her own conversation.
"So… um… I really liked talking with you… and … um… would you like to… I don't know… go out to a movie… maybe… sometimes?" David stammered.
"Could Angel come too?" Fred asked.
"Oh…" David said, shoulders slumping. "I… guess it would be cool if you brought the whole gang. I like hanging out with them."
"Why'd you blow off David?" Cordelia asked as the two girls made their way home. "You looked like you liked talking geek with him. Sure he's a little strange, but he's nice and about your speed socially, plus no-kidding, richer than Midas."
"I don't feel like that about him," Fred said.
"You might if you gave him a chance," Cordelia said bluntly. "Really the chances of you developing feelings for David are about a bazillion times better than the possibility of you and Angel having a future. First off, Angel is never going to really get over Buffy. Second, if he did fall for you he'd loose his soul and then we'd have to kill him or be horribly tortured by him before he killed us. You're much better off with David or anyone else really. Angel's a really sweet guy and beyond gorgeous, but he's strictly off limits romantically, so you'd better just get over whatever idea you've got about him in that department."