walkswithheroes | (no subject)

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When the last time you were stuck somewhere against your will maxed out at five years, a measly four months stuck in an alternate dimension is nothing. Especially not when there's a regular supply of money and a place to stay and someone Fred knows from home around. It's more than a few steps up from living in a cave.

Though, all of that doesn't mean that Darrow's stopped feeling like some weird place that Fred can't wait to figure out how to leave. Even without much success, she's kept up trying to figure Darrow out. Which is why she's holed up in a booth in a diner near Chelsea Cloisters, a small stack of books on the seat next to her while she flips through a book on magic that she's found in the back of one of Darrow's libraries.

There's a cup of coffee next to her that's gone cold, but every time she remembers to ask for a refill, Fred's distracted by something else in her book.

Just three more pages and she'll flag down a waitress.

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Andrea realizes pretty quickly she's not going to get Fred's attention by waving at her from across the diner, so rather than head to a booth of her own, she crosses to where Fred is sitting. For a second, she considers whether or not it's rude to just sit down without an invitation, but she figures Fred probably won't mind much.

"Hey," she says, sliding into the booth across from her, surveying the books she's got. Andrea is pretty sure the book Fred is currently reading is about magic and even though she's dealt with zombies and this place, the idea of magic is still so foreign to her. "Homework?" she asks with a smile.

She doesn't realize Andrea's even sat down until she's already talking, she's so into her current text.

"Hey," Fred replies with a sheepish grin, a little embarrassed that it took her so long to notice someone there. She's really got to start paying more attention.

"And it'd be homework for the strangest and most complicated class in the world, if it was."

"Hey, I've heard they offer some pretty weird college classes now," Andrea answers with a grin. "I just took regular law classes, but you never know. Maybe there's a magic college out there somewhere."

The waitress comes over with a pot of coffee and Andrea looks at her, then at Fred again. "Is it okay that I just sat here?" she asks. "It looks like you're busy, I can find another booth if you want to be alone."

"No, I could probably use the break anyway. How's it going?" Fred replies, and she makes a mental note of what page she's on and closes her book. Not that she was doing any more than just reading it for reference anyway.

"Can I get a refill?" she adds, addressing the waitress, who casts a judging glace at Fred's books before refilling her cup.

"Good," Andrea says, turning her cup over so the waitress can fill hers as well, then leans on the table, resting her chin in her hand. "Just got off work, actually, so now I have the afternoon to kill before I have to pick Clementine up from school."

She looks over the books again, waiting for the waitress to fill their cups and leave before she asks, "What sort of stuff are you reading?"

"A little of everything," she replies, pouring maybe more sugar than she actually needs into her mug, "Magic, a few on quantum subspace... I figure I'd better explore every possibility, you know?"

The strangest thing are all the theories by scientists and authors she's never even heard of. Most of the content is pretty much the same as what she's researched back home, but that doesn't make it any less freaky.

"Every possibility for why we're here? Or... how, I guess?" Andrea asks, curious about what Fred might have come up with. The hows and whys of what happens here are completely beyond her, but she'd be interested in hearing what Fred might know, even if she doesn't really have any interest in leaving.

"Would it help to know that Spike and I sort of left last week?" she asks. "I mean, for some additional information?"

"You left?" Fred asks, eyes wide as she leans in, interested. She was about to get into just what kind of research she's been doing-- and was likely on the verge of a whole lot of rambling-- but this is way more important.

"How? And why am I only just hearing about it? This is big."

She should be taking notes.

"Sort of," she says, because she still isn't completely sure how it works. Most of the time, she's sure it happened in an instant, that she and Spike never actually left, but it felt like longer and now that she's talking to Fred, she wishes she'd looked at the clock when they came back.

"We were at my place and then we were suddenly back where I came from," she says. "For a couple of hours, actually, but when we came back it was still the same night. I'm not sure how much time passed here, but when we were there it was definitely two or three hours."

"Did you do anything different right before? Maybe you read something in another language from a book?" Fred asks. She knows it probably sounds strange to Andrea, but it's a relevant question. Fred's learned her own lesson when it comes to reading things out loud from books when you're not one hundred percent sure what they mean.

It sounds almost like it could have been a spell or some portal as a result of a spell, but who knows. Darrow doesn't seem to work in ways that are exactly logical.

"No," Andrea answers, shaking her head as she wraps her hands around her coffee cup. She's quiet for a moment, trying to remember all the details of the evening before she and Spike had ended up in the church, but it had been so normal that it's difficult to remember everything. "We'd just had dinner and I was about to ask him if he wanted some blood. It was like my entire apartment just shifted and instead we were inside this church with the people I'd been travelling with before."

She pauses, then says, "It was like a loop, though, too. We kept experiencing the same thing over and over again."

Sometimes it worries Jason how much easier being a cop in this weird bizarro town is than being a cop back in, well, his own weird bizarro town. Right now, he's actually on a real coffee break, heading into a diner where no one knows him as anything but Officer Stackhouse.

Being Officer Stackhouse sure beats being Jason Stackhouse.

He spots Fred, a familiar face, and is about to greet her when he see all those books.

And then he can't move. He's slammed in the gut by the weird feeling he's seen this before.

He's seen this before, except-- the edges of his vision are rounded out and the light is warm, and he's pulling her away from books, kissing her mouth, keeping her close.

"...holy shit," he whispers, and then the feeling passes.

Fred can't help but think that doesn't sound a whole lot like actually leaving Darrow. Her expression falls and her mouth twists into a small frown. It sounds more like a spell and less like a potential way out of the city than she'd like.

"Oh," she replies, "That sounds a lot different than actually leaving. Like maybe an pocket universe inside a pocket universe."

It's still fascinating, but she can't help but feel a little let down.

Fred looks up only because the waitress passes, and she remembers just in time that she wanted a refill on her coffee. She flags down the waitress, and only as her cup's being filled does she notice Officer Stackhouse. She hasn't really talked to— or seen him, for that matter— since all that weird stuff happened on New Year's Eve, but it's still good to see a familiar face.

She waves, casting a small smile in his direction.

"Fred," he breathes, and he doesn't sit down across from her. Instead, he takes a knee beside her booth, reaching up to cup her face with one roughened palm. He wants to recreate that feeling.

He doesn't know what the hell he's doing, just that something finally feels like home. Fuckin' magic.

"Hi?" Fred says, confused, but she doesn't move away or try to budge his hand or anything. There's something really weird about this, and she can't put her finger on it. It was the same on New Year's Eve, and she couldn't figure out just what was going on then either.

"There's... something really weird going on here, isn't there? Like, not just Darrow-weird, but really weird-weird, right? It's not just me?"

Because when a police officer you barely know suddenly kneels down in front of you for no reason, it shouldn't feel normal. But somehow, it kinda does.

"Yeah," Jason agrees, his thumb stroking the softness of her cheek. "Yeah, it's real weird. And I think I know how to get some answers." He slides his free hand around to the small of her back and pulls her forward, down to him.

He kisses her then, sure and sweet.

That memory light explodes in his chest for a moment.

Fred kisses him back, right there in the middle of the diner, because it feels right and she's not sure why. But there's something ridiculously familiar about all of this. Suddenly she's somewhere she barely remembers, sitting on a floor surrounded by books, and he's there, just like this.

Maybe she's going crazy.

But when she pulls away, her heart is racing and her face feels flushed and hot.

"That wasn't the first time we've done that," she says, and it's not a question. She's sure that wasn't the first time. Somehow.

"Not much help, though, huh?" she asks, her smile turning apologetic. "Sorry. I just thought it was so strange that you might be able to figure out some kind of explanation for it."

What she knows of Fred both from talking to her and what Spike has said about her is that she's a genius. And if anyone is going to figure this place out, Andrea has her money on Fred or Spock.

"No, it wasn't," he whispers. The ground might as well be moving under his knees, the way everything's spinning around and making him dizzy. "Baby, I know you."

He drops back on his heels for a few seconds, thinking it over, and then climbs into her booth, kissing her again. This time the kiss is hard and searching, seeking out that feeling again, the familiar taste of her mouth driving him forward.

"I can definitely look into it. But it sounds like some kind of spell," Fred says, and she's already wracking her brain for a better possible explanation. If it was a spell, then they have to wonder just who was behind it. But considering how Darrow generally works, it might have been absolutely no one at all.

"I'm glad you guys made it back, though. Can you imagine having to live the same thing over and over and over for eternity?"

He climbs into the booth and she slides back to make room without thinking, her mouth warm against his as she kisses him back. It's natural and familiar and Fred doesn't question it, at least at first. Her books and fresh cup of coffee are forgotten on the table, and she's find it it hard to care.

Fred knows it's kinda crazy to think, but she can't help but think that he almost feels like home. There's something about snow, and shoes that pinch her feet, and it's like when something's right on the tip of your tongue and you just can't put your finger on it, a fleeting memory that Fred can't quite grasp.

She pulls away again, and pushes him away, palms on both his shoulders as she slides further into the booth.

"Okay, but how do you know me? This doesn't make any sense. I know that I've met you before— before Darrow, I mean— and I know that we've... I know that we've done that before, but how?"

The feeling is so goddamn heady that he's prowling forward on her like some kinda goddamn were before he catches himself. "I don't know the how, I just know how it feels," he said, and probably overreaching himself, he presses a kiss, then two, then three, down her jawline.

Then Jason freezes, shifting back, the tips of his ears reddening.

"Uh, sorry. I probably shouldn't."

It's not that Fred doesn't like it, not that she doesn't like him, it's that she doesn't understand why she does, when she barely even knows him. She makes a small pleased sound for a second before Jason moves away again and is immediately embarrassed about it.

"It's okay," she says, "We can figure this out. You haven't been in contact with any witches lately, have you? This could be some kind of spell. Not that I'm any kind of expert when it comes to that stuff, but that'd be my first guess."

Even with Spike there, the idea of going through that over and over forever gives her chills and Andrea shakes her head. "No," she says, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. "I wouldn't want to be stuck doing that, it would be awful."

As much as she was happy to see Rick and Dale again, her life here is different and she's happy now. Killing the Hunters over and over again is the very last thing she would want to be stuck doing.

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