FRED

It was down to trust, then, and belief, since Angel couldn't confirm one way or another whether he was truly himself or not. Fred didn't believe for a moment that Angelus would actually say he was tricking her, because he wasn't just another vampire grunt, but actually had brains—but it was worth a try, anyway. Maybe he would slip up if he was tricking her, but so far, everything told her that he wasn't lying. She was comparing how he held himself to her memories of him, and sure, he seemed smaller, and more ashamed, but that was understandable, given that he'd just killed people and probably had all their screams echoing in his head in a way that Fred couldn't even begin to understand, given that she'd never actually killed anybody. "I-I can't tell," she said apologetically, as though it were her fault she couldn't quite trust him; it was. If she'd been smarter, and worked through her books sooner, and actually come up with a solution instead of huddling in the corner, terrified of what might happen if Angelus found her, then she would know for sure that this was Angel on the doorstep, and not be wary of the one person she wanted to be able to trust more than anything. She was supposed to have helped him, and found a cure, and not left it up to how much she believed him to decide whether or not he was really Angel again or not; belief couldn't be measured empirically, and right now, Fred thought she needed some solid proof. She didn't want to get tricked, and played, and treated like an idiot; if she was wrong, then Wesley and Giles would never forgive her. But...if she was right, and this was Angel, he needed her to trust him. Nobody else would. "I can't tell, Angel."

She knew, though; it couldn't be measured, or explained, or even trusted properly, but Fred felt that it was Angel who stood on the other side of the doorway, and he needed her to believe him. Fred had never been needed before, not by Angel, who was always so strong, so sure of everything. She hadn't been able to be the one to help him before, because she was scared and weak, but she was almost most willing to believe. Out of all of them, Fred could see that she was the least skeptical, because she had the most to lose by not having Angel in her life. The others would cope fine, and Wesley was a good leader of Angel Investigations, and their lives would go on, but Fred...Fred needed Angel.

Everyone else was nice, and she trusted them with her life, but they weren't him. They weren't the one who had saved her, and given her a name and a home and a life again. Without him, Fred might just as well have been as lost as she'd first been when she'd come back to Los Angeles. For that matter, she would have still been stuck in a cave in a dimension where they wanted to chop her head off just because she wasn't going to be their cow-slave. And he was desperate—anyone could see how desperate Angel was. He had come to her because he needed someone who believed in him even when the odds were against him, and Fred knew that was her. She had been determined not to give up on him, and by shutting the door in his face now, wouldn't she be doing just that? She was so confused! She could hear the others in her head, telling her that she was idiotic to even believe him for a second...but it was Angel who was standing in front of her, looking like he had lost everything. He had helped her when she had had nothing, and maybe it was time for Fred to return the favour.

"You trust me, don't you Fred?"

Of course she trusted him; Fred trusted Angel more than she trusted anybody else in the entire world. Did he not think that she did, or was it more that he thought he'd betrayed that trust by becoming evil and going round killing a lot of people? It wasn't Angel's fault that his soul had been taken away, as far as Fred could see; there was some clause in his curse that made it so that he couldn't be perfectly happy, but nobody seemed to think that had happened this time, as it apparently had the last time Angelus had been terrorizing Sunnydale. Fred had asked, but nobody seemed to know how the most evil vampire in the entire world had got back out at all. He just was...and now it seemed that he was back to being good in much the same manner – just, nobody knew what it was. She nodded mutely in reply, thinking his words through; it made sense that nobody else would trust him, that there would be stakes first and questions later, and by that time it would be too late, and Angel, her Angel, would be a pile of ashes on the ground. She couldn't let that happen; if she had to convince every single person in the Magic Box that he was really himself again, then Fred would.

She pushed the door to in order to slide off the chain, still hiding half-behind it as she opened it wider, cautious as she looked at Angel properly. He looked just the same as normal; worried, like he thought Wesley might come along any second and shove a stake through his heart because he'd done bad things this time around, and Fred didn't think that he would be able to look like that if he were even the tiniest bit evil. She lifted up a hand, pressing it to the barrier that she could neither see nor feel, the one that was blocking Angel from coming into the house, just a thin piece of magic blocking the bad vampires from getting at innocent people. "You're really you?" she asked quietly, stepping backwards and holding the door open. "If you're really you, you can come in."

ANGELUS

In order for it to work, he needed her trust. If she remained a skeptic and never let him in, then Angelus wouldn't stand a chance at doing anything more than standing at her threshold trying to convince her that he was Angel. The way to be convincing, he thought, was to practice the guilt and the desperation for someone to trust him. If he acted like the soul was a painful burden, one that was weighing him down from the inside out, then it'd be more understandable. He counted on it being difficult to think of a friend as evil when they were reaching out with that kind of desperation. The pain of having a soul and paying for every dirty thing he ever did was not one that he could forget. Even if he preferred forgetting the pathetic state Angel drifted into when he was cursed. He might not be able to feel it, because he was incapable of that kind of human emotion. Remorse was easy to approximate in an act, but he was unable to experience it on his own and he was grateful that disgusting human emotions didn't plague him. He was a vampire, a vampire with no interest in being anything close to a human. That was what Angel hoped for.

Despite being the farthest thing from human, the vampire with a soul strived to have that human connection and to feel anything resembling real emotion. It made Angelus sick and it was so predictably boring. But, no matter how close the so-called Champion came, he couldn't be fooled into thinking he was less of a demon. That was what he was. An evil demon forced beneath the mask of a good guy. Angel wasn't meant to exist. It was Angelus. Right now, he needed the dismal hero to play on Fred's conscience—to make it nearly impossible to leave him on the other side of the door. He would spin not trusting him into giving up hope. And hope was something that her friend wouldn't have done to her and hopefully she would remember that. Remember it well enough to fall for his games. He wasn't going to admit to her skepticism as being smart or that her inability to trust was the wrong course. If she wanted to stay alive then it was the best thing for her. But, Angelus didn't care about her well being. He cared about his own pleasure.

"Look at me," he didn't sound convinced that that would help. If anything, he sounded like he was shooting in the dark, attempting to give her whatever he could to make her believe him, but at the same time realizing that there was absolutely nothing that could give her full trust. He pretended that it hurt and that he was even more lost at that kind of realization. Looking at him wouldn't do any good. It wasn't as if the two were any different in physical appearance and while his movements and stance tended to hold more of a dramatic air than Angel's, he had no problem taking on his every move. It worked both ways too. Having a soul might have changed the way he acted, but it didn't make him incapable as acting as if he had one, or Angel acting as if it was gone. If he wasn't pretending though, the malice and cruelty would have slipped so easily into his expression; into his eyes. Right now, he didn't let up. He was sure that Fred was studying him for any mistake and for any reason to see through an act that might get her killed. It was precisely why he was being strict on his game. She hadn't been able to experience what he was capable of yet. He counted on her not knowing how convincing he was, or how easily he could use the belief of a friend to tear them apart. What he assumed was that she was filled in on little details. Surely the group wouldn't leave her in the dark about how he might behave. But, hearing stories wasn't the same as experiencing it. Oh, but Angelus was a generous vamp, he'd give her that chance. Buffy's friends (aside from the ones that he'd never had the pleasure of meeting the last time he was free in Sunnydale) already knew him. They already witnessed him. While he wasn't pulling out the same stops he did the first time, he was sure that none of them would even consider opening the door for him if he showed up like that.

"You're really you? If you're really you, you can come in."

The time she took to make her decision, Angelus progressively became a little more anxious. By all means it would be difficult to keep that kind of patience if he was waiting to be let in and in that kind of emotional state. Especially when there were people out there that would be more than comfortable wielding a weapon before talking to him. It made him wonder if the same thing would have happened to Angel if he did regain his soul. Would they attack him without thought? Without belief? Oh, that would just kill him. And it should. Right now, there was a real risk of being interrupted and he wasn't going to stand around and test their protective instinct over Fred. It was strong. He already knew that. Angelus knew his team and he wondered if any of them forgot it. Angel knew each one of them probably even better than they considered, because he didn't comment on every little thing he discovered, heard or became aware of. Every observance of character was Angelus' the same it was Angel's. His hand moved to hover right in front of Fred's, feeling the magic barrier beneath him. He nodded, insisting that he was really him. "I am," and then... The invitation came.

An interesting invitation at that: 'If you're really you' He understood what she meant by making that little clarification, but it was impossible not to be himself, regardless of that fluffy little soul. He couldn't necessarily be someone else, could he? No, and that was what made the barrier give way beneath his fingertips. It didn't necessarily matter if she meant the invitation to only work for Angel. It didn't work that way. Besides, they weren't technically two separate vampires. With the door held open, he walked right through and inside before turning. "Thank you, I didn't know who else to go to. They'll kill me, they should—I'm sorry, Fred." He wanted her comfortable enough to get away from the door. As much as he was ready to drop the act and get down to the part he would relish in, the vampire didn't want to run the risk of her finding out in seconds and running out the front door and into the night. Now, he could catch her if she decided to take that route. Angelus wasn't questioning his speed. But, it would be an extra amount of work he didn't want to take part in. He wanted to be able to take her straight from the house, to let them know he'd been inside when he got a hold of her. It was a huge affront and while he wanted Fred badly, he thought he could kill two birds with one stone and let Giles and Angel Investigations aware that they weren't safe... Anywhere.

FRED

How could she even think of letting him down? Part of life was believing in yourself, trusting in your instincts enough to make a leap of faith, and though Fred remained wary, she didn't know how she could really refuse to help Angel. Wasn't that what she had been trying to do, alone in her room? All the flipping frantically though books, writing on walls and thinking aloud until her brain hurt and her eyes were fuzzy—that was all for Angel. He would do the same for her, if she got lost again; Fred didn't doubt for a second that if something happened to her, Angel would come and save her. So now it was her turn. It was her turn to be the one on the outside, instead of the victim, trapped inside her cave, and it was her turn to find the answer. She always found the answer; it might take a while to come to her, but there was always one there. Even the most seemingly impossible problems had solutions, and those solutions were normally far simpler than their problem might have betrayed; Fred was sure that this was one of those situations. The answer was simple: save Angel. How she got to that point, though, was problematic. Did she trust him now, and hope that that was it? Simple methods were often deceiving, or proved to cause complications later, but it seemed so perfect. Ignoring him meant that she was giving up on him, and there was no way that Fred was ever doing this. Even if they sent him to hell, she would search for a way to bring him back and make him good again. The world was a better place with Angel in it. And he was right here.

Angel was here, on the doorstep, and all she needed to do was believe. It wasn't a story, or a lie, or a game made up to make things easier; it was real. Sometimes it was hard to work out what was a reality, and what was simply a faded memory or a fabricated falsehood to make things easier, but Fred knew this was real. She knew Angel was standing out there – if she dared to reach out her hand, she could touch him – and she knew that he needed her. All she had to do was take a leap of faith. And that was hard—what if she was wrong? What if he was so good an actor that he'd fooled her, and he killed her the second he crossed the threshold? What if she wanted this so badly that she was just kidding herself, a foolish girl who should have stayed locked in her room and let the grown-ups deal with this? But that was exactly why he'd come here, and come here now; because the grown-ups wouldn't believe him. Fred did. She just had to convince herself that letting him in was the right thing to do.

"Look at me,"

At his words, Fred looked up, taking off her glasses and folding them, putting them into her pocket, regarding Angel with searching eyes; she was searching for any indication that she was wrong to trust him, that she should just shut the door in his face and go and cry in her room until someone came home and found her. Why did he have to come now, when she was the only person here? She understood it, from his point of view, because everyone else would be less willing to believe in him, because he had always been a monster to them—but to her, he was the guy who'd saved her from the monsters. That didn't change, even if he'd temporarily become one. Fred viewed Angel and Angelus as two different people, even if they shared the same body, the same memories...it wasn't Angel's fault he'd had his soul ripped away, any more than it was her fault she'd tumbled through a portal into Pylea. It wasn't as though Fred could see any reason why Angelus would want to talk to her, anyway, aside from wanting to hurt her, but then, why would he go to all this effort to pretend to be Angel? Fred wasn't one of the special ones in the group; she wasn't Buffy, or Faith or Willow, and she wasn't Giles or Wesley—she was just...Fred. Fred who hid in her room all day, working on a way to find Angel's soul, even when everyone told her it was a lost cause and she could give up.

And see, she'd been right not to give up. Here he was, and she didn't know whether it was one of the muttered spells she'd attempted or pure coincidence, but he was himself again. She just knew, and she had to trust him; opening the door was all it would take to prove that Fred trusted Angel without a doubt. Even if she was terrified, it was would be worth it, to have him back. She'd been waiting for him to be back for months.

"Thank you, I didn't know who else to go to. They'll kill me, they should—I'm sorry, Fred."

Fred looked down at their hands, so close to touching; it was how she felt all the time. So close to everyone, close to normality, close to sanity...but just that slight gap separating her from them. Just a little further to go before she was there, and there was always a distance. With Angel, she'd never felt that; he had been the only one to accept her how she'd been, and she missed that. Everyone here looked out for her, sometimes to the point of being too protective, but Fred yearned for that gap to close and for her to be part of the group, or normal, or sane...or touching Angel's hand, reassured that by stepping back and letting him into the house, she had done the right thing. It wasn't even her house, after all; she just lived here now. She quietly shut the door behind him, wrapping her arms around her middle, uncertain around Angel in a way that she'd never been before. He'd been drinking human blood, so did that mean that she would smell more like a meal to him than she once might have done? She didn't want to even be temping, but just the idea made her heart beat faster, like it was thudding in her chest, trying to get out. "I don't know how I can help you," she whispered, looking at him cautiously, still wary even though she trusted him enough to let him inside.

There was a difference between giving him shelter, after all, and trying to convince a whole group of stake-happy skeptics that he was really himself again, when she was the only person who believed him redeemable. Everyone was redeemable, and everyone needed redeeming. This was her chance to help Angel, if only she knew how she could do it. But she didn't know; for all the things going round in her head, all the things she was currently working out, Fred didn't know how to help. Still watching him, she edged towards the telephone, picking it up and shrugging apologetically before beginning to dial. "I can tell Wesley, Angel. He won't kill you—I won't let him kill you, but I'm not the right person to help you."