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

[justcharles]

Charles couldn't help it, he was curious. He'd visited the bedrooms of a few of his closer friends within the castle, but he hadn't seen Fred in some time. When he enters her room, he's struck by the sight of it. "It's like the cave in Pylea..." he thinks to himself as he rises from his chair. He takes a cursory glances at the scribbling on the walls, troubled by what he sees. When his eyes finally find Fred among the gloom, his heart breaks. He rushes over to her, crouching to get a better look at his friend.

"Fred? What's wrong?"

[_fredless]

She's stopped writing for the time being, her hands tracing over the words that are already there. They go so high. She wonders how anyone could get that high. At the voice she hesitates.

"They keep doing that. Coming through here, looking for Fred. It doesn't make any sort of sense."

She looks at the cave walls again.

"...they don't even know who she really is."

[justcharles]

Charles gets on his knees, examining her writing. Talking about the life she had as though it was something foreign and strange.

"I know...I know they don't. But I do. I didn't mean to, but I saw it all. Your youth, your entrapment and slavery, and how hard you struggled to make something of yourself after you were freed. You are more than this. That you survived at all is proof of that."

[_fredless]

Pure terror seems to settle over her as Fred scurries backward, Back and back still until the cave wall prevents her from going any further.

"...you were in my head?" The words are broken, unfinished with real pain threading one to the other. "What do you want with my head?"

They could have her body, they could even take her voice with their rules and their silence. But if they finally took her mind? There wouldn't be anything left. What if there wasn't anything left?

[justcharles]

Charles doesn't move, but remains where he is, his expression one of concern and friendship.

"I was, but you know this already. I was afraid our friendship would end before it even began, because of what I knew. My only wish is to help you, Fred. I'll do whatever it takes."

Putting a hand to his chin, Charles thinks of exactly how he might make good on that promise. His friend Erik, and all the anger and pain in his mind immediately springs up in Charles's mind, and how Charles had helped him overcome it. Laying his fingers to his temple, Charles searches for the brightest corner in Fred's mind, willing those memories to reassert themselves in the young woman's consciousness. He can only pray that it will help to balance her despair.

[_fredless]

The images come in fractured bursts, starting in the corner of her eyes and bleeding across until they fill the whole of her vision. It's all that she sees.

Sitting on a weathered front porch, her folks on either side and sticky, homemade popsicles sitting in between. Koolaid and fresh strawberries, losing a battle with the Texas heat and staining all of thirty fingers. Two names carved into the ancient oak that shadows that same porch. A college acceptance letter, and a small gold chain being slipping around her neck.

Loving voices. A reassuring touch.

Following by another kind of touch altogether. A sense of space being eliminated and a warm, tugging heat. Fingers brushing over a scar. Exploitative hands against flushed skin, brushed against a collar bone. Her neck.

A collar. She jerks from the images, twisting slight. He's so close now, he sees so much. What will he think of her if he sees that.

Her voice is broken, still caught and lost in the pictures.

"...that isn't me, that's her. Those things happened to her."

[justcharles]

As the memories fade from their vision, a tear slides down Charles face. He recalls his own childhood, the five blissful years with both of his parents before his father was killed at the close of World War II. After that, of course, came his mother's alcoholism, abuse at the hands of his stepfather, and discovering his telepathy.

"But it is you. Every part of you, everything you've been though makes you who you are. I won't deny you your pain, but there's so much more to you than that. More than just pain and anger. I'm just trying to help you see it."

He moves closer, slowly. He doesn't want to startle her, but he also doesn't want her to think he doesn't want to know her, all of her.

[_fredless]

She closes her eyes. Tightly. Painfully.

Enough to bring pinpoints of light tugging beneath her lids. But even those aren't strong enough to chase the images away. They're still with her, lingering. Lingering in a way the others used...

There's a sharp intake of breath.

[justcharles]

Concerned for his friend, Charles moves even closer, he's within inches of her now, and he lays a hand on the side of her face.

"Fred? Are you all right?"

[_fredless]

When she opens her eyes, he's everywhere. Everywhere that he hasn't already been. Instinctively she stiffens at the invasion.

No one gets this close to her. Not unless it's to take of necklaces or put on collars or...

She forces herself into stillness.

"...I don't know."

No.