The Long Journey Home - Chapter 5 - Day (Drop Dead Fred)
"If I lay here, if I just lay here,
would you lie with me
and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told,
before we get too old -
show me a garden that's bursting into life..."
-Snow Patrol
The sunlight streaming through the window woke Lizzie. She cautiously opened her eyes - in her room, in her bed. That was normal enough she thought, maybe it was just a crazy dream. Her hopes faded when she sat up and noticed she was still dressed in her clothes from the day before. Hope flew off and disappeared completely as she passed the mirror standing in the corner of the room and as before, she failed to make a reflection. That was too dang creepy she thought and went over with the purpose of turning it around towards the wall. Her hands couldn't grab it properly, but she did manage to knock it over with a loud crash, the glass shattering on the floor. Shaking her head, she left it there and went to open the bedroom door only to find that she couldn't make that work either.
"Ooooo!" she huffed angrily. "Fred!"
The sound of breaking glass had woken him up and he popped into her room beside her.
"Hey Snot-face...oooo!" he said, taking in the broken mirror. "Are we redecorating? Let's do this one, too!" With that he produced a hammer and before Lizzie could protest, smashed the mirror above her dresser as well.
"Fred! Stop it!"
"Why?" he argued. "It would've just pissed you off anyway when you passed it. It's better to just get rid of it."
The sincerity in his tone surprised her and she glanced away with a frustrated sigh. She'd known Fred long enough to realize when he was doing what he thought was best for her, but why did he have to go about it in such an exasperating way? The still closed door caught her attention and she remembered what had upset her in the first place. "Fred," she started, taking a seat on the bed. "Can I ask you...well...a weird question?"
Fred plopped down on the bed beside her. "Sure Snot-face! What's on your mind?"
"This." She tried unsuccessfully to grab her pillow, but her hands merely brushed the surface. "How come you can pick it up and I can't? How can you open doors and break mirrors and I can't?"
"I'm sorry," he replied loftily. "I can't divulge my secrets."
"Fred, come on, be serious." She knew he could if he wanted to.
He looked up at her through his lashes and grimaced. "Alright, what do you want to know?"
"Well, for starters, how the heck do I open the door?" She moved across the room to stand in front of it. "The harder I try, the harder it gets!" To prove her point, she focused with all her might and tried to turn the handle. This time her hand passed completely through the knob with out even touching it. "See! Show me how, Fred... please?" She jokingly batted her eyes at him.
"Fine...okay, " he sighed. "Here... you're both trying too hard and not trying hard enough, but not in the ways you need to be. Look," Fred moved around her and held his hand beside the doorknob, "right now, I'm thinking about how the knob will feel in my hand - the shape, the temperature of the metal, if it's smooth or rough, and I'm expecting it to turn when I turn it." He closed his hand around the knob and turned it easily, opening the door. He pulled it shut again and let it go. "Here's what you're doing," he once again held his hand beside the knob. "You're not concentrating on how it will feel, you're concentrating on the thing itself. And," he looked at her knowingly, "you don't believe you can do it." With that he passed his hand through the knob, touching nothing.
Lizzie was dumbstruck, "Oh...okay, here, let me try." She held her hand out and looked at the knob. She imagined the cool metal and the round shape in her hand. "This knob will turn when I want it to," she thought to herself. She reached out and felt the knob, turned it, and opened the door. "I did it!" She flashed Fred a brilliant smile. "Hey, you're a good teacher, Fred!"
An odd niggle of the feeling that woke him at night shot through his guts. He ignored it. Smirking, he closed the door again in front of her. "Well, Miss Smarty-Pants, the lesson's not over yet. Now you have to learn how to get through the door without opening it."
"Why do I have to learn that?" she complained. "The knob's right there!"
"Because it's more fun, of course! Come on, just think what you thought when you thought you couldn't open the door."
"What?"
Fred rolled his eyes, "Just concentrate on the door and believe you'll walk through it. Actually, walking through things is easy, just don't think about anything at all and just do it." With that he stepped through the door to the other side. "Come on!" he called through the door, "You can do it!" He waited until he heard a loud "thump!" on the other side.
"Ow!"
"Don't think about hitting your head on it, just do it!" he said. Another "thump" and another "Ow!" followed the first one. Fred walked back through the door.
"Okay, look," he moved to stand so that Lizzie was between him and the door, "turn towards the door, close your eyes, and picture the door in your mind...Are your eyes closed?"
"Yes, my eyes are closed," she replied.
'Well, it worked last night', he thought to himself. "Are you picturing the door?"
"Yes."
Fred pushed her through. He popped to the other side and caught her before she could fall.
"Fred!" she twisted herself out of his arms and smacked his shoulder - hard. "That's not fair! Quit pushing me around."
"Well excuse me for trying to help!" he countered. "I was only trying to make a point."
"Which was...?"
"You think too much, " he said, smacking her on her forehead.
"Ow! Fine! I need to do it myself, though," she said turning around.
Fred gave up the argument. Fighting with Lizzie was pointless. One minute she'd be fine and happy and then something he would say or do would piss her off, and he'd spend the next half hour trying to figure what he'd done wrong. This 'grown up' version of Snot-face was too confusing, things had been much easier when she was seven.
Lizzie focused on being angry at Fred instead of getting through the door. This time she didn't bang her head. "I did it!" she stuck her head back through the door to look at him. "I did it!"
"Bravo!" he replied. "You need practice, though. Come on!" He took her hand and ran with her down the hallway and then through the door. They spent the next hour passing through the doors and walls of the apartments around them, knocking over things and throwing objects across rooms. They managed to convince several people of the existence of ghosts in the process.
They came out of a wall on the far side of Lizzie's apartment. Fred fell to the grass, howling with laughter.
"Did'ja see that guy's face?" laughed Lizzie.
Fred held his hands up like claws and shouted, "Curse of the possessed Salad-Shooter! Run for your lives! Hey! I've got a great idea! There's somewhere I want you to see."
"Um, okay. Where is it?"
"It's a surprise!" said Fred, cryptically. "Listen, I've never tried to take someone with me when I pop off somewhere, so if this doesn't work, I'll be right back. Here, hold onto me." She looked up at him warily, then nodded and reached out her arms. He wrapped her in a bear hug and they disappeared.
The next instant, Lizzie found herself transported to a place she'd never been before. The first thing that hit her was the dry heat and she knew she wasn't in New England anymore. Next she noticed the sky. It was no longer smoggy and gray, but a brilliant, opaque, seamless blue, like something out of a calendar - one of those with the pictures that made you wish you were somewhere else each month. She stepped away from Fred and took in the rest of the view. Now she could see that they were standing beside what appeared to be an abandoned or rarely used dirt road. About 100 feet in front of her was a wayside marker next to a waist high guard rail. The rail was flanked on one side by a sheer face of reddish-orange rock and the other by a few short, twisted, scrub trees and boulders as high as her head. Beyond the guard rail, the ground seemed to be broken off in mid air and disappear. She walked to the rail and looked over. Below her was a canyon so deep and expansive it took her breath away. She was struck speechless by the beauty of it all. Fred spoke first.
"Pretty neat, huh?" he asked, in a quiet tone, coming to stand beside her.
"Fred, it's beautiful!" She was amazed. "Where are we? How did you find this place?"
Fred rested his arms on the rail and looked over the side. "Well, I'm not sure where we are exactly, other than somewhere in Arizona. The family of one of my charge's used to come here a lot. They probably lived close by."
"You don't remember?" she asked, intrigued. She knew so little of Fred's past, in fact, she couldn't remember him ever talking about it before.
Fred seemed to hesitate and then said , "No, I don't remember."
"Huh," she paused, considering. "How many charges have you had, before me and Natalie?"
"More than one." His slight grimace and tone of voice told her it had been many, many more than one. He sounded defeated and it was so uncharacteristic of himself that she decided to change the subject...for now.
"Well, it certainly is beautiful, Fred. Thank you for bringing me here." She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. As she expected, it snapped him out of his dark introspection.
"Hey! Blech!" he laughed, wiping off his cheek. "Don't get all mushy on me or I'll have to vomit on you! Besides, I didn't bring you here for the scenery, I brought you here because it's time you stopped living in a box and learned to have some fun."
He hopped over the railing and stood at the edge of the drop-off. She started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She watched as he took two steps back until he was standing on nothing but air. He held out his hands towards her.
"Come on, Snot-face!"
"What?" she cried. "Are you crazy? There's no way I won't think I'm going to fall, and then I will and I'm guessing it'll hurt a heck of a lot more than smacking my head on a door!"
"No you won't. I won't let you fall. Come on!...You know you want to...," he sing-songed. She did want to, he knew it - he could feel it. He grinned.
"Fred," she started. "I can't, I'll..."
Fred saw through her words, he saw her body unconsciously lean forward, her hands grip the rails a little tighter, and her eyes widen just a bit. He caught her eyes. "Come on...just one step at a time."
Surely just standing on the other side of the rail wouldn't hurt thought Lizzie as her body seemingly moved over it and towards Fred of it's own accord. She glanced at Fred, his hands outstretched and then at the breathtaking vista surrounding them. She was crazy - had to be crazy for even considering it- yet things were different now, weren't they? And Fred was right, he knew her better than anyone ever had. How many times in her lonely life after Fred had been taken from her had she dreamed of doing something amazing, but had been afraid to take even the first step. Now, here he was, figment of her imagination or not, the only one that had ever made her feel alive. Gravity be damned!
She reached out and grasped his hands tightly in hers, never taking her eyes off his. He led them backwards, one step at a time, until they were halfway across the divide. The wind whipped at her clothing and blew her short hair into her eyes. She turned into it to clear it from her face. Fred stopped walking.
"Okay," he said, "now for the fun part!"
"I thought this was the fun part!"
"No, no, no, this was just how you get to where the fun part starts."
"I think this is plenty of excitement for me, thank you," she replied.
"Snot-face! You've gotten this far. The next part's even more fun, I promise. If you don't, you'll live to regret it."
"Um yeah...operant word there being live!"
"Come on, Lizzie," he said, "don't you trust me?"
She though for a moment, "I don't know, it depends on the situation."
Her comment stung him. Sure, he'd wreaked havoc in her name, gotten her kicked out of restaurants, made people question her sanity, but that was just him messing with her. He liked the way her eyes flashed when she got pissed off. This was different, though. Didn't she know him well enough to know that he'd never let anything hurt her? He took a step towards her. "You know I'd never do anything to hurt you!"
"Whacking me in the head with shovels and kicking me in the shins hurts," she said coolly, "just so you know."
Crap, he supposed she had a point. He hadn't really done much to garner trust in himself.
"I'm sorry, Snot-face, I really am, but I promise, I swear, I'll never hurt you again," he pleaded.
Lizzie knew she was just stalling the inevitable. If she said no, he'd just make her walk back across the canyon by herself while he popped off somewhere. That sounded a heck of a lot worse than anything she could imagine he had in mind.
"You swear."
"I swear." He let go of one hand and held up his pinky just like when she was a child. She smirked and hooked hers around it, sealing the deal. Fred was giddy with mirth, his eyes shone.
"Okay...take a deep breath, hold onto me, and don't let go."
Lizzie moved her hands up to hold onto his arms.
"You're gonna want to hold on tighter than that," he laughed.
She looked at him uneasily and instead put her arms around him in a tight hug. She felt his arms tighten around her as he whispered in her ear.
"I promise I won't let you go."
She didn't have a chance to respond before Fred threw them headfirst from the place they'd been standing, barrel-rolling straight down towards the canyon floor. Over and over they spun, and Lizzie knew she was screaming, but the wind ripped the sound away. She screamed and screamed until she couldn't scream anymore. The fall seemed to take forever and ever, on and on until she knew any moment she'd feel the impact of the rock at the bottom and it would all be over. Then suddenly, there was nothing but darkness. She had just enough time to think that she was probably very dead now, and then the world popped back in and she found herself standing with Fred, safely behind the guard rail. He released her, too quickly, and she lost her balance and fell to the ground.
"See, that wasn't so bad was it?" asked Fred, dropping to his knees beside her. "Hey, are you okay?"
Lizzie was still having trouble putting a coherent thought together. Instead of answering, she rolled over onto her back and stretched out on the ground with her eyes closed and struggled to catch her breath. Finally, she opened her eyes to look at Fred who was sitting beside her, waiting anxiously for her response. She could tell she was making him nervous. She stared at him for a second before bursting into laughter. "You were right, Fred, I don't think anything is going to top that."
He smiled gleefully and nudged her shoulder, "See I told you so!"
He lay back on the ground and they were both quiet for several minutes. Lizzie was almost asleep when Fred broke the silence.
"No..," he said "crap! Crap! Crap! Crap..."
"Fred, what's wrong?" asked Lizzie, sitting up. Something was most definitely wrong with him. His face had turned white as a sheet and his eyes looked like a deer caught in headlights, staring into the unseen.
"I have to go," he whispered. "I'm sorry, Snot-face. You'll...you'll have to find a way to get home. Just...just...you can do it if you think about it, just...or just stay here and I'll try to find a way back..."
Lizzie got up, went over to him and gave him a shake. "Fred, what are you talking about? You're starting to scare me."
Fred finally looked at her, his blue eyes frantic. " My assignment, with Natalie... it's up... I'm being called back."
"Well, just stay here! Don't go back!" Where was back, she wondered?
"I can't Lizzie, it doesn't work that way. I can't stay in your world without a charge. Any second I'm going to disappear, whether I want to or not."
Lizzie tried to process what he was telling her. He was going to leave her alone again - this time in a world where no one could see her or hear her! "Take me with you!" she blurted out before she could think twice about it.
"No, I can't take you with me! It's not the kind of place you'd want to go." Even as he spoke, he sensed her resolve grow stronger.
"I don't care, Fred!" she said. "I'm coming with you. You're not leaving me here all by myself!"
Fred found himself faced with two impossible choices. On one hand, he could leave Lizzie here to find her own way back and possibly get lost or hurt and try to find her after he returned- continuing his endless string of charges and assignments. On the other hand, he could try and take her with him to a world just as dangerous and perhaps more so than this one, and then what after that? He couldn't very well leave her there and take another assignment. The pull of the call to return became stronger and he knew his time was running out. Well, if both places were dangerous, he'd at least feel better having her with him than off on her own somewhere. They'd just have to make a plan later.
"Lizzie, if I take you with me, the world we'd be going to isn't like this one. There are no fun and games there - it's dangerous, and you'd have to do exactly what I say, no matter what, to stay safe."
Lizzie didn't hesitate, "Let's go."
Once again, Fred hugged her tight, and they disappeared.
A/N: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol is like the penultimate Fred/Lizzie song. I'd do a DDF vid with it, but someone beat me to it.