this story is almost nearing an end...well, a few more chapters left of course, and a small epilogue at the end.
Stay A Day in My Coffin
Chapter Eleven
The Funeral, Take II
Fred took the wreath out of its place and looked at it. He went over to the clock and brushed his fingers at the place where his handle used to be. He supposed that he was ready to remember everything. He took a deep breath and felt like his lungs were on fire. And then let Percy tell the rest of his story…
It was nine am on someday of the week in someday in late May. It was sunny, but not the sunny that came with beautiful summer days, but the blissful sheen that sort of nudged you to go out into the lake for a swim.
He could practically feel the life being squeezed out of Percy with tombstone details, funeral arrangements, memorial details, the memory, the memory, the memory of Fred's body hitting the floor. It was the most disconcerting thing to see yourself dying, but the ear-shattering shrieks that followed afterwards left Fred's blood curling. That was how they sounded like? He'd wondered. That was how it was like. A numb Percy watching George collapse in front of his twin's body; Fred could practically see the life drain out of George, losing him, losing George forever in that same instance that Fred's body had hit the floor. There was a genuine smile etched on Fred's face when he died. Look, mate, I was happy. You've got to believe me, Fred let his shoulders drop in contentment. He watched Percy hold George, and Percy could remember how sulphurous, bloody and dusty everything smelled like.
"It's okay," he kept repeating. Percy, who spent half his day wishing he was dead, now holding onto George so hard that he could hear George's heart pumping into his ears. "It's okay, George, it's okay."
He could very clearly remember the hours and hours of crying and shrieking and blaming (mostly blaming Percy, as if he'd plunged a knife straight into Fred's thorax when everyone else wasn't looking). Seeing George unravel quicker than a Christmas present genuinely stunned Fred. It wasn't anything like he'd ever imagine. The pain was raw, palpable, indescribable. Both George and Percy's bodies were covered in thick sheens of sweat and coated in a thin layer of debris from the war around them. There was an exhaustion in Percy that transcended anything that he'd ever felt before, like his muscles were about to melt off and he'd never be able to move again. Fred (and Percy, to be fair) didn't know how he'd managed to take George down to his room, helped him take off his bloodied clothes, force him to take a bath and drink something. The stages went as such: the hours and hours of crying, then a sudden silence. And after an hour or two of silence, Percy walked in to see him. There was something glassy and broken in George, and there was something that had long been glassy and broken in Percy. But the second that George's eyes landed on Percy, a pure and unadulterated contempt shone through. George's hair was a mess, his skin deathly pale, and he looked so unlike himself that even Fred had trouble recognising him.
Hours felt like days and days felt like hours. As time passed, Percy became quickly agitated because nobody mentioned anything about planning a funeral. And when Percy had mentioned it, his mum had grabbed his arm affectionately (the first time that she'd touched him in years), "Oh, sweetheart, that would be nice. You arranging the funeral." Percy wasn't volunteering at the time. But then his mum looked at him with pleading, soft eyes.
But when he came home that night after being overwhelmed with coffin sizes and colours and prices, Audrey didn't look happy. In fact, she looked rather seething, stood there over their kitchenette counter, with all these brochures about death and burying your loved ones at home.
"Love, I know you want to help," her voice was so compassionate compared to how irritated she looked. She didn't look like she was annoyed at him, and for some reason, Percy knew that she wasn't. "But do you really think that you should be helping plan a funeral in the state you're in?"
"I'm not helping plan his funeral," Percy's voice was flat and indifferent. "It's just me."
"Just you planning the funeral?"
"Just me."
"But Percy, do you think planning a funeral is—"
And then Percy winced. "His name is Fred, you know. It's not a funeral or the funeral. It's Fred's funeral," he sounded more emotional than Fred would ever imagine Percy to be. "Fred, my little brother Fred. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Audrey was ever so compassionate. "I'm just worried about you."
"Well, then you're the only one."
"Percy, your mum and dad know that you're really, really depressed. You've just started getting better with the potions and-and you're about to go to therapy again, remember? The therapy." She paused for a few moments, as if waiting for Percy to agree with her, but he said nothing. "I wouldn't want you to be planning Fred's funeral."
"Well, to them, I'm cured."
"Cured?" Audrey echoed incredulously.
"Cured," Percy confirmed with a lofty sigh. Before Audrey can open her mouth and ask what in Merlin's name he meant by that, Percy started to speak. "Are you going to be helping me, or are you going to be in my way?"
Audrey flinched. "Of course, I'll be helping you. Of course."
"Thank you," he replied in a strained voice.
Percy wanted to tell someone how badly he felt like, but if he told Audrey, she'd be worried unnecessarily. And if he told anyone else from his family, they'd be thinking that he had no right to be in such pain. Considering how little he and Fred actually talked in the last few days.
You absolutely plonker, Fred thought when he realised Percy's line of thinking.
He had felt so bad since the war that Fred couldn't really describe how he felt like. When you were so crushed, mentally, emotionally, physically, how would you notice if you felt even worse? If you already were so short of breath, emotionally unavailable and physically exhausted? When your head was so heavy that everything felt like a dream? When things were running into your mind and you remembered the echoes of screams and the smell of blood and death everywhere you went?
The weeks afterwards, Percy somehow was getting worse. If your usual normal was waking up wanting to die and going to sleep wanting to die, Fred didn't think it could get any worse. But he was surprised that it could. Here, Percy was, stood there, making those same kinds of deranged fantasies that he'd made when he'd had the fight with his father. Every time he picked up a quill, he imagined stabbing it into his carotid artery. The mere thought of it was the only thing that kept him almost sane throughout the day. He was trying to contain the massive agony in his body, trying to contain it with soft, fuzzy purple coats that were twice as big as Percy was. But he could still feel it threatening to spill from his buttons. And all those feelings that he had before he'd come around the Burrow, his hands full of papers he could barely carry, as he tried to mechanically move through dreadful venues, services that he did not want to think about and wills he definitely didn't want to entertain.
There were so many times that he had come close to breaking down himself. He could feel his hands twitching, his heart churning, his stomach bubbling nauseously. But he had to hold his mum because she was crying, and he wasn't allowed because he was the poor quality second-hand spello-tape keeping his family from going mad. He was the sensible one, the one that Ron and Ginny looked at and scoffed at because "of course, Percy would be able to do the paperwork while Fred rots away". He couldn't bear it anymore. Every hour, every second, he couldn't bear it.
Percy almost felt a guilty relief when the funeral had been arranged and everything had been done. He had felt like a weight was off his shoulders, and all he had to do was somehow seamless make it through a few hours of torture before he could come home, drink a serious amount of sedating calming draughts and sleep his way well into the next week.
"Percy, you're doing so well," he could remember Audrey telling him, stroking his arm just before he'd left for the funeral. "So, so well."
He was not doing well. He was seconds away from gauging his own eyes out if anyone gave him so much as a look he didn't appreciate. The funeral was a disaster from the second that Percy stepped in, and he felt everyone's eyes around him. His wife had ironed and spelled his suit clean and proper. She'd even bought it for him, and his tie was practically garrotting him from when he'd tied it that morning. Percy vowed not to say a single fucking word because it wasn't like anyone else was listening. He had his speech written out, which left a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He hadn't rehearsed it. As the ceremony went on and George collapsed onto the ground, with his clothes so comically loose on him, you'd think it belonged to someone much bigger. As his family contemplated about what-I-could've-done and how-did-this-happen through sobs and tears. Percy took a deep breath and tried to remain as neutral as possible because he knew how he would be like if he broke down. If he broke down, he'd throw himself over the coffin, smack his head against the gravel and let them bury him alive, he was sure.
You are doing so well, Percy recalled Audrey encouraging him, spurring him on.
When they'd gone back to the Burrow for the memorial service, Fred genuinely thought about ending it there. It was too much to try to remember. The Burrow was absolutely adorned with black wreaths and petite white flowers everywhere (he wouldn't know the names of them, to be honest). Covering from wall to table, and there were pictures of his face everywhere, of memories that Fred would've called the Great Highlights. From experiments going awry, from the warmest Christmases, the coolest summers, the best years, all plastered before his eyes and even Fred, who supposedly didn't need to breathe because he was dead, found himself breathless. There were canapes that Fred would've dove into immediately, of things that he liked to eat. Even the smells that hung in the air transported him back to his childhood years. Reminded him of how the Burrow felt and smelled like when they'd moved in from the safe houses, the first night. Percy had really outdone himself, and to be in Percy's body and to know how absolutely draining it was for him to arrange all of this, coupled with the fact that Percy was fucking skint afterwards, left him feeling stunned and speechless.
There was Audrey there too. Fred hoped that she'd stayed. He guessed he quite liked her now that he knew her more. Her voice was the only thing that seemed to soothe Percy, it was like she herself was his calming draught. "Fred was beautiful," she'd mentioned, and Fred found himself grinning. Well, it wasn't 'absolutely stinking handsome', but he'd take it.
But when George had walked in, Fred had thought that his twin had really lost the plot. He'd called Audrey a 'pregnant tart' coming to his brother's memorial. Fred had winced himself upon hearing this.
"Who is this?" Molly looked a little confused. She looked like she didn't appreciate Percy for it. Fred thought that was unfair, considering he'd fucking planned the whole thing himself to begin with.
"Don't talk to her like that," Percy had said.
"I'm nobody. I'll be going," but the way that she looked at him, even if they hadn't been wearing rings, was telling. Fred didn't know how Percy could get so lucky as to meet someone like her. He didn't think he'd ever seen someone love someone as much as Audrey loved Percy.
"Oh, your wife." Fred didn't really like George's tone here. "You brought your wife for us to meet. First time ever. At Fred's funeral." He supposed that he could understand how George felt like. He'd almost forgotten that neither of them knew Audrey before but…
"It wasn't to meet. She was…" he gestured towards the arrangements. "Helping."
"Helping," Bill had come into the scene. He looked suitably furious too. What for? Fred thought. He wasn't exactly helping around himself, was he? "You couldn't find anyone else to help you, Perce? You don't have a family that could help you with your brother's funeral?" Fred thought that that was uncalled for too. Everyone knew that Percy had been planning the funeral, knew the date, knew everything. You'd think one of them would reach out and try to help? So, what was the point now? "This isn't the bloody time for you to bring your bird over to help."
"Don't talk to him like that," Audrey was pretty calm for someone that looked seething. Fred knew her enough now that he knew how she looked like when she was furious. "He's arranged all of this by himself. He's—"
Exactly! Fred thought.
"She might as well stay, Perce." When George spoke, Fred could see Percy wanting to garrot him with his tie himself, which Fred wished he'd gone for because George wasn't making any sense. He couldn't believe it. What George had told him about how he'd mucked around in his funeral, Fred hadn't believed but now that he was reliving this with Percy's eyes, he could see that it really had happened. His fucking twin, the villain of the story. It was eerie. "I bet she has a lot to say about Fred, doesn't she? She's known him so well! She could probably share a few memories that even I didn't know about!"
Well, after that display, Audrey hadn't left. Fred had felt detached, hearing speeches and memories about him. It was so strange hearing about yourself in the past tense, hearing about things that you've done when you were a kid. Hearing about the way that people had thought about you. Hearing about how they loved you. Feeling like you'd missed on an opportunity just because you weren't breathing anymore, and it was no fault of your own. But the speeches were broken apart with Percy's narratives, him constantly feeling like people were watching him and breaking him down, wondering why he was there, wondering why he was involved, wondering why he wasn't more involved. Wondering why he bothered, wondering why he didn't bother more, wondering why he didn't cry, wondering if he should be crying after everything that had happened between them. It felt like he was manoeuvring a game where every move he made was wrong, but he was trying to choose the least offending turn.
"I could've pushed him away, Gin," Ron said, not to Ginny as much as he'd said to everyone else. Percy tried to block him out too. "I think I was close enough to do it. I could've pushed him away. I could've done something." His voice strained at the end, like he couldn't believe it. "He was our brother."
"It's not your fault." Ginny's voice was not comforting. "Percy was right next to him, and he probably couldn't have saved him if he'd tried." If he'd tried, Percy thought, and he felt his breath hitch into his chest. Suddenly, Fred could remember very clearly. Percy was so close to him he could feel Percy's breath on his neck, the sweat coming off their exhausted, bone-weary bodies. He'd felt like he'd had his whole family complete in that moment. Percy hadn't abandoned them. He was there with them, and that had been all that mattered to Fred.
But you've abandoned him, he could practically hear Audrey saying. And she was right. They didn't barge into Percy's flat and tell him that he had to join them, that they wanted him to be there. Percy came of his own accord.
"Fred knew what he signed up for," Charlie had said. Alright, truth was, Fred didn't really bank on the idea of him dying, but he really couldn't envision a better way to snuff it out. If he could choose he meant.
"Fred was a kid," there was Bill, going on with how much older he was than everyone else. "What did he know?"
And there was Percy, in all his insecurity, waiting for someone to tell him he couldn't have done anything. Percy couldn't have done anything either, he'd been wanting someone to say. And then there was Audrey, holding his hand, whispering to him, "Percy, you couldn't have done anything." But it didn't come from the people that he'd wanted it to. And he could feel himself tearing up, and he could feel his whole world spinning.
"I know," he did not know. It had gone quiet, and Percy didn't know. Harry was going on with his speech and Percy was completely wrecked, because they were right, weren't they? He couldn't even look up and smile at Harry without Ron giving him a nasty look that told him he had no sodding right to be able to do that.
And that was supposed to be the end. Arthur had even stood up and said, "Well, if…if nobody else is going to say anything, then I suppose we can get on with…"
But Audrey had nudged him. "Percy," she'd tried to pull him back into reality. "Your speech."
He had absolutely no intent on reading out his speech, thank you very much. He'd even looked up and saw his father looking at him, smiling. A genuine smile that meant that he wanted him to read whatever he'd written, but Percy didn't want to. He couldn't even remember what he'd written. Fred couldn't even recall what he'd written. He supposed that everything had been a blur for him.
"You'll do great," Audrey had operated on this belief that Percy was one of the family, when he was a pseudo-family member. Come on, Perce, Fred thought when he'd heard that.
But the second that Percy had stood up, all of hell broke loose. Fred couldn't anticipate how bad this was going to get.
"No, you will NOT say anything!" George had yelled so loudly that his voice had changed. He didn't sound like anything that his George had sounded like. "You have no bloody right!" Fred felt like throttling his own twin right then and there. "This isn't your funeral, Percy! This isn't about you!" well, it wasn't about George either, Fred wanted to retaliate morosely. George had grabbed a photo of Fred and had smacked Percy with it. The shock was so bad that even Fred didn't know how to react, but the glass had smashed, and Percy sustained a cut on his cheek. He could feel the wet blood running down his face. "THIS IS ABOUT FRED!"
Fred had no idea how Percy had held himself together. He was so frightened that Fred swore he'd heard a whimper leave Percy's throat.
"It could've been about you if you've tried hard enough," George's voice had gone down a few octaves, but it was still so loud, even if it were a whisper. Fred didn't even know he was dead when he'd woken up in Percy's body. His death must've been in a moment. How was Percy supposed to anticipate that? How was anyone? Fred was seething in his own right. "But there's nobody giving you badges for that, is there? So, you didn't bother!"
"I didn't know," Percy didn't sound convinced.
"You didn't know?" George shrieked. Fred wished it would end. "But you know everything, Perce!"
"Not everything," Percy couldn't sound any more broken than he did. "If I knew, I would've tried harder." Fred didn't know how he could get through this particular moment. "I'm your brother, George. You have to believe that if I knew, I would've tried harder."
"Are you?" George was relentless. "After what you've done?" his whole body was trembling, shaking. Fred knew that he was in pain, but so was everyone else. So was Percy. It was just he couldn't see that, and Fred didn't know how to feel about that either. "He died just as you came back. What the hell am I supposed to think, Perce? Huh?" there were accusatory wags everywhere. Why wasn't anyone stopping him? Fred reckoned he would've done something if one of his brothers started throwing glass at the other. "Coincidence of the ages, don't you think? You've distracted Ron. You've…you've done something."
"I didn't kill him," Percy didn't even sound or feel like he believed himself. "You have to believe me."
When Percy handed over his speech to George, his brother ripped it from his hand.
"Yes, you did," George accused. And he'd started reading the speech. Percy didn't remember what he'd written but whatever was there, had softened him enough. Probably reminded him that he wasn't the only one that had lost someone. "Fine, Perce. You can say your speech if you want."
The whole scene felt somewhat frozen. Had it felt like that in his mind? Was it really like that?
And here that was when Percy's already heaving mind started to jump from one thing to another. Fred could barely even unravel the thoughts that he'd started to be thinking about. Percy felt like he couldn't breathe. He wished that he couldn't. I killed him, I killed him, I killed him, rotating around in his mind.
"Mum? Dad?" Percy, who had never gone looking for reassurance for anything, barely managed to speak. He remembered looking at his parents, but he couldn't make out what they thought with their shocked, pale faces. "Do you really think that I've killed him?"
When there was no immediate refusal, Percy thought that that was it. That was all he needed.
Come on, Perce, Fred felt weary, but what was he going to do? Tell him not to hurt himself when he knew how this ended? Audrey held his hand, and he could remember how warm it was. How much he was sweating in comparison.
"Percy, let's go," Audrey was probably the most level-headed person in that room. "You should be ashamed of yourself." Percy felt all the blood drain out of his face, imagining that his wife was wrecking the rocky relationship that he had with his family. But here was George, looking like he'd finally sobered up after his rampage. "You're right. This is your brother's funeral. And you've turned it into a contest to see how far you could mock my husband without anyone bothering to put you in your place. You can't talk to him like that. And I won't let you."
Audrey had apparated them away, which Fred felt should've happened ages ago. Probably around when he'd been smacked by a sharp object.
Audrey was a state herself—a state of rage that was. Fred felt like he could feel everything that she felt like when they'd been at their flat. Percy was so focused on his tunnel vision. When they'd apparated, all the books on the shelves had started to fall from the sheer impact of their bodies hitting the floor. Audrey was up and undoing her plait as soon as she could. Percy's mind was reeling, and all he wanted to do was fix it. And that was when he saw the book, as if it had been waiting for him, as if it had been begging him to do it. Spells for all you desire. Percy greedily took the book in his hands. I killed him, I killed him, I killed him, the background narrative, almost like a song that you barely focused on. Percy could barely hear Audrey going on about how his family didn't have a right to talk to him like that.
Fred was almost shocked at the feelings that Percy had gotten when he'd gotten onto that chapter on BEREAVEMENT SPELLS. He almost felt lucky. He almost felt happy, and there was this indescribable elation. This almost childlike feeling of being able to undo something that had been haunting you. How lucky he was that he just happened to come across this heaving book, that seemed to have been put out by the universe just for him.
Fred could feel every breath that left Percy's body. It was almost like he was savouring the moment.
Percy was not thoroughly reading spells. The first spell he saw, he thought that would do. But then he looked up at Audrey and looked at her with glossy eyes. "You never told me about this."
"Percy…"
But Audrey, peering into the book, looked at Percy like he were mad. She kept on talking to him. The conversation in Percy's mind became blurred. He barely even heard what Audrey was trying to tell him, and Fred knew that Percy didn't care if he didn't live anymore. Percy had not gone home with the intent of dying that night, he had gone home with the intention of trying to fix what he thought was his mistake. He had tried to reverse it because he believed that if he wasn't there, Fred would be alive. It wasn't a suicide mission as much as it were Percy's idea of stitching back his family together. Even as Audrey was speaking, he could remember how nice it used to be. The good times.
Where there any good times? He could remember George asking. It was like Percy remembered all of them at the same time, just sat there on the ground with the book on his lap. He felt like this was his chance.
Percy was so depressed from a long time ago that he didn't care about being brought back, but this was not his intention. "You'll bring me back," he kept reassuring her. But his hand was shaking so much pulling it over his chest that he could barely make out how he was going to do this. Then with Audrey looking at him like she didn't know what to do, Percy knew he had a chance. He felt all his walls almost collapse. "Audrey… please."
He started crying and he felt every emotion he'd ever had drain out of his body. "You can bring me back. This is what you do." Here he was, lying on the ground, practically grovelling at this woman's feet. "My family hates me. You're the only one…" Percy was in the throes of agony, and he believed every word he said. "Please."
Godric, if Fred was there and Percy was throwing himself all over the floor like that, he didn't think he'd have said no.
"This is what I do." She'd picked up the wand. And here she was, going over this intricate spell, and Percy was just relaxing more and more until he'd lost consciousness. When he woke up, she was holding him, touching him, staring at him with those lovely eyes. "It's not your fault, Percy." She tried to reassure him. "You didn't kill him."
Percy didn't believe that. "Thank you," he felt the best he'd felt in ages. "Thank you."
After that, Fred continued on to the hours before the spell took place. George drunkenly barging into Percy's flat and apologising (as he should, or he would've really lost it). But even with George telling him that he didn't kill Fred, Percy didn't believe it. He had thought so little of himself he felt like George was just trying to make him feel better. Percy didn't care any less about dying. In fact, the dying aspect was an unexpected perk to all of this. And when Fred came back from his reverie, he felt a little shocked. No wonder things were the way that they were.
"Fred?" Molly had practically rushed to him, wrapping her arms around him. "What's wrong?"
"I remember everything," Fred's voice was hoarse. Like he was going to cry. "I remember the funeral. I remember what George said to Percy. I remember." His voice cracked at the end, and he was full-on sobbing.
He could feel another hand on his shoulder. "Fred," Arthur. His voice was broken. "I'm so sorry."
"It was so hard, mate," Bill added on. His sobbing had probably brought the whole house in. There was Charlie, Ron, Ginny, and even George stood there, looking pasty-faced. "So hard without you."
Molly tightened her hold around him, but she was starting to cry too. "We did our best."
"Mum, I'm scared," Fred admitted. "I'm scared how it'll be if I go." He'd decided that he knew that he was going to die, that it was the end and over the past few days, he'd made peace with the fact that it was his time, but seeing the funeral like that, it made it impossible for him to think about leaving. How could he? "I don't want that."
"It'll be okay," Molly cooed. "It'll be just right."
"Yeah, mate," George promised, lying down beside him. "We talked about this, remember? And the things I've told, Percy…I…"
"I know you didn't mean it," Fred mentioned but his voice sounded hollow.
"You didn't know that he'd been ill," Molly told them. "You didn't know what he'd had to come back from." Come back from, Fred remembered dizzyingly. All this time, they'd thought that Percy had mostly recovered from his depression—that what happened that night was because of the fight, and that they couldn't have known that he'd react that way. He couldn't leave with them not knowing.
"Mum, he was never better," Fred finally sad. "He'd always been sick."
Molly frowned. "No, that's—"
"Never," Fred cut him off. "Mum, the fight wasn't something that happened out of nowhere. It wasn't like…like he was better and then the fight made him so miserable that he couldn't cope with it. He was already… he was…"
Molly looked stunned. "Oh," her voice cracked a little. "But I thought that… he'd been doing so good."
"He wasn't like he were like before. He was sleeping. He was eating. He put on loads of weight. He was going out. He had social plans. He was…" Arthur was in disbelief himself. "You don't know, son. You don't know how he was like. He was perfectly fine. And then that fight happened, and it must've…"
"No, mum, dad." He knew what they thought, but it wasn't true. "I'm in his head, remember?"
"No, he can't…" he watched his mum start to cry again. "I wouldn't have ever let him go if I'd known."
"Never would've said those things," Arthur looked like he'd been slapped. "Never would've tried to… not when I knew that he were ill. I thought that he was—I thought that he'd beat his depression. His therapist had weaned him off his potions for Merlin's sake. Assessed him again. She said that he was as good as gold. That his depression was just a stage of his life. Probably something that he'd recovered from. He said that he was…"
"He didn't want to disappoint you," Fred explained, holding his mum's soft hand as tight as he could.
"Disappoint me?" Arthur looked like he'd been slapped in the face. "I was proud of him."
"That's it, dad. You told him you were proud of him for beating his depression, when he was going to tell you that…that he wanted to be committed," even the words coming straight out of Fred's mouth sounded a little shocking. "That he wasn't doing too good, you know, despite looking like he had everything together." He didn't feel like it were necessary to tell him how absolutely heartbroken Percy was half the time that he was living. "It scared him straight off of wanting to tell you all of that stuff."
"Oh," Molly looked desolate.
"Mum, you couldn't have known," Bill decided to say, and Fred had agreed with that wholeheartedly.
"I've always been proud of him," Arthur looked like he didn't understand how Percy had come to these conclusions. "Everything he's ever done—I've always been so proud. I'm proud of all of my children. Every single one of them. Even you two with your terrible antics, running around all the time."
"We know, Dad," Ginny placed a hand on her arm.
"He did it for me," Fred suddenly said, thought to bring this up and conclude that debacle once and for all. "The thing that he'd done. You know, the whole…the whole spirit swap. He'd done it for me. He thought that he killed me like…"
"Like what?"
"Oh," Fred's shoulders dropped and suddenly everything came together.
