Disclaimer: Since my name is not Joss Whedon, 'Angel' and all the characters associated with the show belong to someone who isn't me. I also don't own the storyline - that's taken from gidgetgirl's 'Twice The Trouble' Challenge, posted on the Chocolate Covered Strawberries Challenge Archive.
'Twice The Trouble' Challenge
A Fred Throwback. In season five of Angel, Illyria's attempt to takeover Fred's body is thwarted by the Powers that Be, and the result is that, when Illyria enters Fred's body, the body splits in half: into two identical little girls, save one has blue hair. The Angel gang has to keep little Illyria (if that's her name...) from taking over the world, and take care of little Fred. You take it from there.
Requirements:
The evil one must have blue hair.
Harmony must make an appearance in the fic.
Both Gunn and Wes must babysit... one of the girls must like each of them better than the other.
Author's Note I: To cloudofcalm - Don't worry, help is on the way in the next chapter, I won't drag on forever.
Author's Note II: To blackbeltchic – Firstly, Wow! You really put a lot of thought into judging. Secondly, thanks for all your interest in the story. If you want me to answer your questions, just send me your e-mail address.
Words in = Thoughts.
Chapter 10.
Half an hour later.
"Sorry that took so long." Lorne said apologetically. "If I had known that he had so many questions . . ."
"It's cool." The grim expression on Gunn's face let Lorne know that this was not the case. "I just hope that Fred's okay. I asked Jenny to keep an ear open for her, but still . . ."
"Come on." Lorne smiled. "What's the worst that Fredilocks could have done?"
"I'm about to find out." Gunn opened the door to his office. "Fred!"
The little girl started when she heard Gunn's angry bellow, dropping the handful of crayons she held, scattering them all over the floor. The angry expression in his eyes frightened her a little.
"I'm sorry." Her lower lip trembled. "I didn't mean to." She slipped closer to Lorne, putting her small hand in his large green one, relying on his protection.
"Oh, she's so adorable!" Lorne cooed, hugging her to him. "Look at this face. How can you be mad at her?"
"You're not helping." Gunn told him from behind gritted teeth. He turned his attention to the little girl hiding behind Lorne's leg. "Why did you do that?" He gestured towards his newly decorated wall.
Fred, knowing that she was in trouble, employed her best defence.
She burst into tears.
"Fred, stop crying." Gunn injected a note of sternness into his voice. "You're in big trouble and you're not doing yourself any favours."
"You're mean." Fred announced between sobs.
"She's just a little cutie-pie." Lorne interjected pleadingly. "Go easy on her."
Truth to tell, Gunn found the incident amusingly reminiscent of the adult Fred's wall equations nearly three years ago and only the desire not to have the rest of his office similarly adorned kept the frown on his face.
"What's wrong?" Angel, followed by Wesley who had been talking to a less that repentant Illyria, had been drawn to Gunn's office by little Fred's crying.
"Gunn's nasty!" Little Fred launched herself at Wesley, knowing that he would defend her. "He doesn't like my muriel."
"Who's Muriel, love?" Wesley asked, bewildered, scooping her up in his arms.
"My muriel." Fred gestured towards the wall. "I made it pretty and Gunn doesn't like it."
"It's a wonderful mural, darling." Wesley told her gravely, hugging her. "But I think that Charles is upset because you didn't ask first."
"He was gone." Fred protested. "I couldn't."
Wesley glared at Gunn. "You left her alone?" It was more of an accusation than a question.
"I was only going to be gone for a minute."
"long enough for her to do that." Wesley nodded in the direction of Fred's elaborate mural.
Little Fred snuggled into Wesley's arms, looking up at him with pleading eyes. "You like my muriel, don't you?"
"Your mural." Wesley corrected automatically. "Yes, it's lovely." He smiled at the sight of one of the figures. "Is this me?" The stock figure was distinguishable from the others by his brown hair and glasses.
"Uh-huh."
"But I'm hardly this handsome."
"Yes you are." Fred told him firmly. "Lots handsomer that the princes and the knights in those stories you told me. So I made pictures. It was going to be a surprise but then Charles" She gave Gunn a dirty look. "Started shouting."
It took a few seconds for Wesley to realise what she had been up to.
She had taken all of the fairy tales he had told her over the past few days and rewritten them, starring him as the hero.
He was touched.
"Aw! That's so sweet." Lorne exclaimed adoringly. "And she does have a point – the décor in this lace is duller than Grandma's shoes."
"Don't encourage her." Gunn hissed under his breath. "I've got meetings with half a dozen clients scheduled for after lunch. How can I expect them to take me seriously with that" He waved a hand in the direction of Fred's mural. "On my wall?"
"Relax." Angel's lip twitched as he made a valiant effort to suppress a smile. "You can use another office for today and the cleaners should be able to have this office cleaned by tomorrow."
Little Fred burst into fresh sobs, wrapping her arms around Wesley's neck and burying her face in his shoulder.
"He hates my mural!" She wailed, her voice muffled slightly. "It took me ages and he wants to wreck it."
"There, there." Wesley rubbed her back soothingly. He gave his friends a helpless look. "Maybe we should leave it." He suggested.
"No way!" Gunn was appalled by the idea.
"I don't wanna stay with Gunn anymore." Fred announced, clinging to Wesley. "He's nasty. I wanna go with you."
"It's alright, darling." Wesley rocked her for a few moments. "You can come to my office if that's what you want."
"Not so fast." Angel had a sudden vision of the entire building being adorned with Fred's crayon wall art. Wesley seemed to be physically incapable of saying no to the little girl and, although she usually behaved for him, there was no telling what she could talk him into letting her do. It was with a sinking feeling that Angel realised that he was the only member of the group with any parenting experience. What would I do if it was Connor? / He winced at the pain that thought caused him. "Winifred and I need to have a little talk first."
Fred's eyes widened at the utilisation of her rarely used given name.
"I'm in trouble, aren't I?" She already knew the answer. Apart from her grandmother, nobody ever called her Winifred unless they were mad at her.
"Yes." It would have been impossible to overestimate the effort it took for Angel to keep his expression and his tone stern when faced with Fred's puppy dog eyes.
"Is this really necessary?" Wesley reluctantly set the little girl to her feet and, with her hand held securely in his, he stood glaring at Angel.
"We can't have her doing stuff like this all the time." Angel pointed out logically. We have to teach her right from wrong or she'll never learn."
"It's not your place to teach her." Wesley argued hotly, his own memories lending vehemence to his tone.
"One of us has to." Angel said simply. He met the other man's eyes. "She'll be fine." He reassured him gently. He reached out to take Fred's small hand, drawing her firmly from Wesley's protective grasp. "I'll drop her over to your office as soon as we're done."
Keeping her hand firmly tucked in his, Angel led the little girl out of Gunn's office, completely at a loss as to how he ought to proceed.
Angel's Office.
"Now," Angel sat down in one of the chairs in his office, directing Fred to stand in front of him, leaning forward so that there faces were level. "Would you like to tell me why you drew on Gunn's wall?"
"I ran out of paper." The four year old mumbled, her eyes on her shoes. Even to her own ears, this was starting to sound like a feeble excuse.
"Why didn't you ask someone? I know that Gunn wasn't there, but his assistant was right next door. You could have asked her. Or you could have waited until Gunn came back. Why didn't you?"
"I don't know."
"Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's not nice to draw on walls?" His tone was almost hopeful. If she answered in the negative, he could assume that she didn't know any better and avoid his unpleasant – not to mention awkward – duty.
"Mommy and Daddy say not to." She admitted reluctantly.
"So why did you?" She shrugged. "I want an answer, Winifred." Angel's voice took on a warning note.
"I don't know." Little Fred was close to tears. She had always been able to get around her parents, but from the looks of things, Angel wasn't going to let her get away with this.
Angel sighed, gently cupping her chin with one hand and tilting her face so that she was obliged to look him in the eye. "You're old enough to think before you act and you should know better than to draw on other people's walls." He would have given anything not to have to do this. "I'm afraid that I have to punish you."
"How?"
Angel had no idea.
The childcare manual that over the past few days had become his Bible had advocated making the punishment fit the crime, but he was shrewd enough to realize that making her wash the wall she had 'improved' would result in the wall, carpet and child becoming thoroughly soaked, without actually shifting any of the stains. Even if Wesley didn't stake him for it, Angel could never bring himself to hit a small, defenceless child, particularly one who was a miniature version of one of his closest friends. Confining her to her room would have been pretty pointless – for one thing, it was full of toys, for another he wasn't willing to leave her unsupervised.
He wasn't left with many options.
"Corner." He replied at last. He stood, taking her shoulders and steering her towards the far corner of his office. "I want you to stand here, facing the wall."
She pouted. "For how long."
/An hour? No, that's too long. Five minutes? Too short. /
"Fifteen minutes." He announced after a moment of deliberation.
Fred's brown eyes filled with tears. "That's too long."
"No arguments." Angel frowned reprovingly. "Corner. Now."
Sulking, the little girl obeyed, kicking the skirting a few times to vent her frustrations.
Angel set his digital watch for fifteen minutes and returned to his desk, busying himself with some paperwork.
/It's only fifteen minutes. / Angel told himself firmly. /It'll be over soon. /
Five minutes later.
Angel was in Hell.
Little Fred had been crying softly since her punishment had begun, making him feel like the world's biggest bastard – as she intended.
Only the knowledge that to remit her sentence would both confuse her and shatter the slight authority he and his adult friends wielded kept Angel from running to comfort the little girl.
Angel felt very awkward about disciplining someone else's child. He knew that he would have been pissed off if a stranger had presumed to chastise Connor, had he grown to this age in his father's care.
/Who would have thought that Fred would have been so much trouble. /
Nine minutes later.
/Come on. Come on. Come on. / Angel glared at the counter on his digital watch, willing it to move faster.
There was no doubt in his mind that this punishment was harder on him than it was on Fred, whose heart-rending cries had died off to an occasional whimper once she had realised that her tears were not having the desired effect.
Thirty seconds to go . . .
/I don't care what Fred does from now on. / Angel vowed inwardly. /I can't go through this again. I can't be the 'bad cop'. /
Fifteen . . .
/I hope that she doesn't hate me for this. I couldn't take that. /
Five . . .
/Four. Three. Two. One. / Angel counted silently.
BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP.
/Thank God! /
Angel let out a sigh of relief and thanksgiving. He walked over to Fred, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Times up." He told her. "You can go now."
Fred turned, holding out her arms in a mute appeal to be lifted up.
Angel scooped her up, grateful that she didn't seem to resent him – Illyria had torn the room apart when she was punished – and carried her back to his desk, sitting her on his knee. He searched through his drawer until he found a handkerchief, then tenderly dried her eyes.
"Feel better?" he asked after a minute or so of rocking.
"Uh-huh." Fred snuggled closer to him. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry.' Angel gave her a lopsided smile. "You're four. It's your job to make trouble. Just try not to be a workaholic, okay? I don't want to have to do this again."
"Me neither." Fred made a face. "Corner time is boring."
Angel chuckled. "I bet you're hungry. I'll take you to Wesley's office for your lunch. And then a nap." He added, seeing her unsuccessful attempt at suppressing a yawn. "And Fred?"
"Yes, Angel?"
"Try not to get into any more trouble, at least for today. Okay?"
Little Fred nodded solemnly. "I promise."
Nine o'clock that night, Fred's room.
"It was a very strange thing indeed. She quite caught her breath as she stopped to look at it. A boy was sitting under a tree, with his back against it, plating on a rough wooden pipe. He was a funny looking boy of about twelve. He looked very clean and his nose turned up and his cheeks were as red as poppies, and never before had Mistress Mary seen such round and such blue eyes in any boy's face. And on the trunk of the tree he leaned against, a brown squirrel was clinging and watching him,"
Wesley paused in his reading, glancing down at the sleeping child in his arms.
Little Fred was out for the count, her eyes closed, her cheeks rosy with sleep flush, her breathing soft and even.
Moving slowly so as not to wake her, Wesley gently transferred the little girl from his lap to her bed, tucking the quilt around her and making sure that Feigenbaum, whose unearthing had been met with a joyous reception on Fred's part, was placed securely in her arms.
"Don't stop." A small voice interrupted from the corridor. "Continue reading."
Wesley frowned at the intruder. "Illyria." His voice was tinged with distaste. "You ought to be in your own suite."
"I couldn't sleep."
"And what, pray tell, do you expect me to do about that?" He asked icily.
Ignoring the curtness with which he spoke, Illyria approached, a little shyly, and sat down on the end of the bed.
"My world is gone." She sounded desolate. "My army has been destroyed and I have no faith in my worthless Qwa'ha Xhan's ability to raise a new one. My powers are crippled and even when I join with the other half of my shell, I am less than a shadow of what I once was." Though her words were mature, her voice became more childlike and her eyes filled with tears. "I'm starting to forget things I used to know and remembering things that never happened to me, things that happened to her. I can't remember where my first temple was or how I was defeated in my last battle, but I remember climbing a tree to try to touch the sky. I remember falling. I remember catching a bee, wanting to learn how it flew." She looked down at her small fingers, frowning at the memory. "It hurt. I remember games and ice cream and that." She gestured towards the stuffed rabbit clutched in the sleeping Fred's arms. "Feigenbaum. I remember these things but they never happened. Not to me." The tears started rolling down the little goddess's cheeks. "But I can't remember what did. Her memories displace mine, more every day. I can't live like this. I can't stay in this world. If I do, I will be little more than a human child, in mind and in body. I don't belong in this world." Her voice was barely audible. "I want to go home."
"Don't you think that I would send you back if I could?" Wesley demanded harshly, more moved than he cared to admit by the little deity's words. "I would like nothing more. But I can't. You're stuck with us and we're stuck with you."
"Wesley," He flinched as little Illyria reached out to lay a tentative hand on his shoulder, clearly uncomfortable. "I need your help." She paused before continuing. "Please. If I can't go home, then I need you to help me find my place in this world. Will you help me?"
It was on the tip of his tongue to refuse, but she was so like the woman he had loved, the child he had come to adore.
"Yes." His voice was quiet. "I'll help you."
TBC.
Extract taken from 'The Secret Garden' by Frances Hodgson Burnett.