It's nighttime, and Fred is in her room. She's been reading for a few hours -- more than a few, really. She tends to get lost in her own world so easily that she'd barely realized that it was late
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Wes woke up a bit disoriented to find more than a day had passed. Apparently time in the bar could be a fluid thing at times. Something else worth studying perhaps.
But for the moment, his first thought was to come check in on Fred. There had been a distance lately, but the passing of a few days.... Well.
"Don't ask me, I never knew what day it was back when I lived somewhere that obeyed most of the laws of physics. This place is weird in more ways than I can keep up with."
She picks her book up off the bed.
"I've just been reading. You know, you can get any book here? I bet the bar could give you those magical books that could be anything, except it wouldn't need to, because it can already give you anything. It makes it especially easy for those days when I just cannot deal with being down there with all the crazy."
Something about her is much more reminiscent of the way she'd been when she first got out of Pylea, but she doesn't notice it, herself. It's just how she deals with situations that defy logic. She retreats, without even knowing she's doing so.
Wesley remembers those days all too well, but he can hardly blame her for reacting to the place that way. He's been here less than a month and still finds it overwhelming at times.
"I hadn't thought to ask the bar for anything like that. I wonder if she would have access to the Pnakotic Manuscripts. Worth a try, I suppose."
That distracts Wes, so there's a few moments of the two of them staring aimlessly into different points in space.
"Oh, it's um... nothing of much interest, really. Not even originally from our world, as far as I can tell." she says, somehow feeling nervous about telling anyone about this book in particular, though she didn't know why.
"It's just some stuff about interdimensional spaces, places out of time, like this one. I spent my entire first week here trying to figure out what made this place work, and I guess I'm still doing that, but this one's barely even in English." she says, with a sheepish look.
She doesn't notice, but she's absently tugging at her pajama top, as if to cover the faint marks that just peek out along the edges of her collarbone if one looks very closely.
Fred lets out a little yelp of surprise and pulls away from him, her hands automatically going to cover the marks that are now safely re-hidden under her shirt.
"Fine, it's nothing, I'm fine!" she insists, flustered, and sounding almost angry. "Really, just... I can't explain. Just leave it. I can't."
She's inched back away from him to sit in the middle of the bed, her legs tucked up under her in an attempt to make herself smaller, perhaps invisible.
It's just Wesley, for heaven's sake. He didn't mean... why are you acting like a terrified child?
Which, of course, is just what Fred ought to do ... if she wants to make Wesley truly worried.
"Fred--. It's not nothing, surely." He walks to the edge of her bed. He wants to reach out to her, but her resistance is palpable, keeping him at a distance. And once again, Wesley finds himself yearning to help her, and restrained from doing anything about it.
"Have you been to the infirmary, at least? I've met one of the doctors here. They seem quite competent. And burns--you should have them looked at."
"I told you, it's fine. This wouldn't even have gotten me the afternoon off from work back at home."
Which was probably true, given who they worked for.
Some part of her mind realizes that she is being unreasonable, and so her tone softens slightly.
"I'm sorry, I know I should have gotten it looked at, but it honestly wasn't that bad, and it's healing properly. Honestly. It's not the injury itself that's freaking me out. It's..." she hesitates, biting her lip. "... I can't do this, you're just going to worry and when you worry you look at me like you're looking at me right now, like poor Fred who can't keep herself out of danger and I just can't deal with that right now, okay?"
He says only her name, but behind it is the years they spent around each other. And, for all too short a time, with each other. And the respect he has for her intelligence and her spirit. That same respect that makes it impossible for him to believe she can't truly remember something like this, even if some of the details may not be entirely clear.
And somewhere, behind all that, at a depth even he won't acknowledge, Wesley is sensing something else. Some part of what she's concealing. A character trait he knows too well now. One that had great and grievous consequence for her. And for him.
"Okay. You want to know? Of course you want to know, you're Wesley."
She can't help but smile slightly at this, as she reaches over to retrieve a notebook from the bedside table's drawer. She flips through a few pages until she comes to one that is covered in drawings of this symbol, which she then hands over to Wesley.
"That's the symbol that's burned into my chest. I don't know what it is, or what it means. I don't even know where to start looking. All I know is that one minute I was having a conversation with this woman, she was a scholar, a physicist, and she knew more than I do, more than anyone in our time does. She offered to let me see her library, and she could get me out of the bar, so... I went
( ... )
Wesley comes very, very close to laughing. A dark, horrible laugh. But instead, he keeps that laugh inside, shoves it deep, down where it's been poisoning his spirit for what now seems like ages.
(She was curious.... How things work. What makes them special. She was always searching for what other people couldn't see.)
"She offered to show you her ... library...."
(She was just curious. I think I hate her a little for that.)
And then the laugh comes. It starts low, and quiet. And there can be no question of him laughing at Fred. No, this is a laugh at Fate, and how perfectly this incident foreshadows what's to come.
And only now does Wesley realize that he's been allowing himself to hope. Ever since he came to this place, to hope that this Fred was different. That somehow the both of them being here--Fred andIllyria--meant that somehow this Fred would not leave him, not die
( ... )
"...Wesley?" she says his name in an incredulous tone, unable to even use the fond shortened version that she normally would have.
"Can you maybe react a little better to this? You asked, you wanted to know, I knew it wasn't a good idea because this? This is exactly what I was afraid of."
She sounds more than a little angry right now, mostly because she's scared of his reaction.
"What was I supposed to do? Can you tell me that? I was trapped here for months, I couldn't leave, I couldn't go back home even if Bar would let me out, and I'm trapped here with a freakish blue version of me who knows my every thought and who occasionally sees fit to yell at me for endangering her future body. So someone nice and mostly normal comes along and offers to let me look at books. Just BOOKS, not demon specimens or robot ninjas or ghost vampires or evil puppets! What else was I supposed to do?"
She sounds very near to tears by the end of her long tirade.
Wes woke up a bit disoriented to find more than a day had passed. Apparently time in the bar could be a fluid thing at times. Something else worth studying perhaps.
But for the moment, his first thought was to come check in on Fred. There had been a distance lately, but the passing of a few days.... Well.
Reply
"Hey." she greets him warmly. "Come on in. Your timing is perfect, I was just wondering what you'd been up to."
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Wes smiles. "Traveling through time, apparently. I seem to have lost a couple of days. Does that happen here usually?"
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"Don't ask me, I never knew what day it was back when I lived somewhere that obeyed most of the laws of physics. This place is weird in more ways than I can keep up with."
She picks her book up off the bed.
"I've just been reading. You know, you can get any book here? I bet the bar could give you those magical books that could be anything, except it wouldn't need to, because it can already give you anything. It makes it especially easy for those days when I just cannot deal with being down there with all the crazy."
Something about her is much more reminiscent of the way she'd been when she first got out of Pylea, but she doesn't notice it, herself. It's just how she deals with situations that defy logic. She retreats, without even knowing she's doing so.
Reply
"I hadn't thought to ask the bar for anything like that. I wonder if she would have access to the Pnakotic Manuscripts. Worth a try, I suppose."
That distracts Wes, so there's a few moments of the two of them staring aimlessly into different points in space.
Wes snaps back. "What have you been reading?"
Reply
"It's just some stuff about interdimensional spaces, places out of time, like this one. I spent my entire first week here trying to figure out what made this place work, and I guess I'm still doing that, but this one's barely even in English." she says, with a sheepish look.
She doesn't notice, but she's absently tugging at her pajama top, as if to cover the faint marks that just peek out along the edges of her collarbone if one looks very closely.
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"Fred, what--." And then he realizes they're burn marks.
Alarmed, he steps closer to her. "Are you all right? What's happened?"
Forgetting himself, he reaches up and pulls the pajama top, exposing the burn, oblivious to what he's doing in his concern about her safety.
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"Fine, it's nothing, I'm fine!" she insists, flustered, and sounding almost angry. "Really, just... I can't explain. Just leave it. I can't."
She's inched back away from him to sit in the middle of the bed, her legs tucked up under her in an attempt to make herself smaller, perhaps invisible.
It's just Wesley, for heaven's sake. He didn't mean... why are you acting like a terrified child?
Reply
"Fred--. It's not nothing, surely." He walks to the edge of her bed. He wants to reach out to her, but her resistance is palpable, keeping him at a distance. And once again, Wesley finds himself yearning to help her, and restrained from doing anything about it.
"Have you been to the infirmary, at least? I've met one of the doctors here. They seem quite competent. And burns--you should have them looked at."
Reply
"I told you, it's fine. This wouldn't even have gotten me the afternoon off from work back at home."
Which was probably true, given who they worked for.
Some part of her mind realizes that she is being unreasonable, and so her tone softens slightly.
"I'm sorry, I know I should have gotten it looked at, but it honestly wasn't that bad, and it's healing properly. Honestly. It's not the injury itself that's freaking me out. It's..." she hesitates, biting her lip. "... I can't do this, you're just going to worry and when you worry you look at me like you're looking at me right now, like poor Fred who can't keep herself out of danger and I just can't deal with that right now, okay?"
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"I worry because--. It's not because I don't respect you, Fred."
So much easier to say why he doesn't worry than why he does.
"Can you at least tell me what happened?"
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"But not because I don't want to!" she hastily adds. "I would, it's just that I, um...I don't exactly remember."
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He says only her name, but behind it is the years they spent around each other. And, for all too short a time, with each other. And the respect he has for her intelligence and her spirit. That same respect that makes it impossible for him to believe she can't truly remember something like this, even if some of the details may not be entirely clear.
And somewhere, behind all that, at a depth even he won't acknowledge, Wesley is sensing something else. Some part of what she's concealing. A character trait he knows too well now. One that had great and grievous consequence for her. And for him.
Reply
"Okay. You want to know? Of course you want to know, you're Wesley."
She can't help but smile slightly at this, as she reaches over to retrieve a notebook from the bedside table's drawer.
She flips through a few pages until she comes to one that is covered in drawings of this symbol, which she then hands over to Wesley.
"That's the symbol that's burned into my chest. I don't know what it is, or what it means. I don't even know where to start looking. All I know is that one minute I was having a conversation with this woman, she was a scholar, a physicist, and she knew more than I do, more than anyone in our time does. She offered to let me see her library, and she could get me out of the bar, so... I went ( ... )
Reply
(She was curious.... How things work. What makes them special. She was always searching for what other people couldn't see.)
"She offered to show you her ... library...."
(She was just curious. I think I hate her a little for that.)
And then the laugh comes. It starts low, and quiet. And there can be no question of him laughing at Fred. No, this is a laugh at Fate, and how perfectly this incident foreshadows what's to come.
And only now does Wesley realize that he's been allowing himself to hope. Ever since he came to this place, to hope that this Fred was different. That somehow the both of them being here--Fred andIllyria--meant that somehow this Fred would not leave him, not die ( ... )
Reply
"Can you maybe react a little better to this? You asked, you wanted to know, I knew it wasn't a good idea because this? This is exactly what I was afraid of."
She sounds more than a little angry right now, mostly because she's scared of his reaction.
"What was I supposed to do? Can you tell me that? I was trapped here for months, I couldn't leave, I couldn't go back home even if Bar would let me out, and I'm trapped here with a freakish blue version of me who knows my every thought and who occasionally sees fit to yell at me for endangering her future body. So someone nice and mostly normal comes along and offers to let me look at books. Just BOOKS, not demon specimens or robot ninjas or ghost vampires or evil puppets! What else was I supposed to do?"
She sounds very near to tears by the end of her long tirade.
Reply
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