I dreamed I had a name...

[_fredless]

Who:Winifred Burkle and YOU
What: Her Headspace
When: Anytime After Friday Evening
Where: Fred's Room (She won't be leaving it)
Rating: TBD (Darker themes present including slavery and torture)

Comments

[zone_of_truth]

Sweets, frankly, finds this whole thing fascinating. He's a psychologist, after all -- getting an unbidden look into the mindscapes of the rest of the castle is almost like a dream come true. He wants to wander around taking notes, finding out what makes everyone tick.

(In some instances he did, but that's besides the point, and he's not about to tell anyone.)

This trip to this room isn't for research, though. This is just to see a friend who he hadn't heard from since the announcement that Lorne had gone home. Sweets is going to miss him to, miss the element that he brought to Caritas, but there's always the chance he would be back. Some people always came back.

First he knocks. When there's no answer, he slowly pushes it open, and what he finds isn't what he expects. In fact, it makes his heart drop to his stomach in a way he hadn't expected.

"Fred?" She's standing in the corner, writing on the walls, and he slowly makes his way forward, placing one hand on her arm gently, not wanting to startle her. "Fred, are you okay

[_fredless]

Fred continues her scribbling, tracing out another view of the collar that's still sitting around her neck -- few new notations getting scribbled underneath. At the sound of a voice she hesitates, working her way from one word to the next to the next. The entire process feels elongated, as if she's not especially intimate with certain words anymore. Voices, even.

In fact, she seems to settle on the notion that it's all in her own head, not even bothering to look over her shoulder.

"I'm not really in the mood for conversation right now, there's too much to do. So you all need to hush up."

[zone_of_truth]

"Fred," he repeats softly, just wanting to pull her away from the wall and get her to look at him for a second. He thinks that maybe if he can break the trance there might be some way of getting her to snap out of it and realize where she was.

It is a long shot, but Sweets thinks it's worth taking. He tugs a little more insistently on her arm, trying to get her to turn around. "Fred, look at me."

[_fredless]

She stills at the physical invasion, but for the moment? She doesn't pull away. Instead she stares down at the limestone rock in her hands, the edges dulled and sacrificed to wall after wall after wall.

Stone to stone, but there's so much that hasn't been said yet.

"Fred isn't here...she's there." The walls. The phrases. She looks at the words, and can't remember writing them.

[zone_of_truth]

Okay. Fred is in the walls. "If Fred is there, then who am I talking to now?"

He keeps his voice soft and gentle, not wanting to push her in a way that would get her to pull away.

[_fredless]

Her head tilts again, following the soft modulation of the voice. It fills the space, but not in an overwhelming way. But she listens closely, something sharp in how she holds herself. Waiting for it to edge into something like pity.

He's asking questions. Questions she can't seem to find the answer to. And despite everything that seems out of reach, everything that's been forgotten? She knows how important answers are.

Not having them hurts. Hurts just as much as the things on the walls.

"...I don't know."

[zone_of_truth]

"Okay." He's careful to keep his tone even. This is what he does best, after all. This is his job. "My name is Lance. Do you remember me?"

[_fredless]

She continues to hold herself tight and small, occupying as small a space as possible. For a moment, she closes her eyes. And while they're closed, everything seems to fit less. The dirty clothes and tangled hair seem more like a costume, less a part of the woman that sits crouched down low. When she finally looks up, tilting to meet his gaze?

There's a glimmer of clarity.

"I know who you are. It's never been that I don't know who you are..."

It's that she doesn't know how to be herself. To reconcile both women into one space.

[zone_of_truth]

He gets that. In a strange sense, he gets that. In this headspace, it makes sense. But he doesn't say that. He keeps the technical out of it and instead he just smiles.

"Maybe I can help."

[_fredless]

She can't see the smile. It's past her somehow. Something that's beyond her comprehension. So she simply doesn't see it.

"...people don't help here." She thinks about the first days. Her arrival. The curiosity that overrode all of the fear. She walked right into it. She didn't even fight it, not at first. "Or if they say they want to, it certain isn't what...it's not what they really mean."

[zone_of_truth]

"But you remember me," he says simply, not pushing, but not backing off either. "You know that I mean what I say, don't you?"

He lets his hand slide down her arm to her hand, and gives it a soft squeeze. "Let me help you, Fred."

[_fredless]

She doesn't pull her hand away, but her gaze is on some distance space. She's trying to connect pieces and places and people. Working to make them fit.

It's always so much work.

"...you're nice." It's not a flat, pale word when she says it. "You have a nice smile."

[zone_of_truth]

"So do you," he says with a nod. He wants to make that work easier, to try and bring her back together more, but he isn't sure if he can. He's good, but ... he's not sure if he can just do it right here, right now.

Things like this usually take time.

"I've always liked your smile."

[_fredless]

Did she used to smile? It feels like a very far away thing. A person she doesn't remember how to be.

"I smiled? A real one, I mean? An actual smile?"

Sometimes she fell on them accidentally. She'd be talking to herself, shouting to herself really -- anything to have a conversation. Even if it's just one sided. And it'd just happen, it's there. And she thinks...that's what it felt like.

[zone_of_truth]

"Yeah, a real one. I've seen a few of them. They're very nice."

He still isn't sure what's going on, but he'll get there eventually. All he needed was a little time.

[_fredless]

She tries then, to smile. To remember what it feels like. There's something about him that makes her at least want to try.