walkswithheroes | For Spike

Fred's not sure if she feels better or worse now.

Sure, she should be glad; she finally understands what the dreams mean, why so many little things have seemed familiar to her, like something just on the tip of her tongue, something she couldn't quite grasp. But it's not exactly easy, realizing that whatever's brought them all to this dimension has screwed around with her head.

An island dimension, the same one everyone else has talked about ever since she arrived in Darrow. She was there for a long time, longer than she ever would have thought. But Fred remembers it all now: the cave she showed up in, the council speech, Spike and Jason... all of it.

But that doesn't mean it's clean and simple. Because Fred remembers falling asleep next to Charles, but she also remembers that next morning. Professor Siedel and Wolfram and Hart. It's like she was plucked out of Los Angeles and brought right back there like nothing happened.

Whatever it is, as relieved as she is to have things finally making some kinda sense, she doesn't like it. Though, she's absolutely sure that she knows who she needs to talk to about it first, which is why she's knocking on Spike's door just as soon as the sun starts to set in the sky.

Hopefully he's home. Though, considering how sunny it's been today, she thinks it's a pretty safe bet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He'd been awake an hour or so now, heating a bit of blood in the microwave-- a human donor, this, though nicked from a clinic with a generous surplus. At the knock, he padded into the living room with mug in hand, wearing only his jeans.

He could smell her, through the door, and he opened it before bothering with a shirt or wiping away the smudge of red on his bottom lip.

"Evening, pet."

"I didn't catch you during breakfast, did I?" Fred asks, realizing that it's probably early in the day-- or night, rather-- for Spike. But it's not like this is something that should really wait.

"Or do you still call it dinner? I never figured out how you guys kept it straight."

"Blood's blood, no matter when you drink it. Not much point with labels," he pointed out, stepping aside to let her in.

Thumb sweeping across his bottom lip, he arched a brow and asked, "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Fred steps in, and while she's trying to come up with a subtle way to bring up what's happened, she's pretty sure there isn't one. The conversation's not just going to end up on how she remembers the other pocket dimension she was stuck in for over a year.

"Spike, I remember the island," she says, "Sorry. I was gonna try and lead up to it, but there isn't really any way to do that."

Arching a brow, he reached for the shirt hung across the back of an armchair and shrugged it on.

"Conversation like this calls for a drink," he said, walking toward the kitchen to grab a little something. "It's beer or bourbon, what's your poison?"

"Beer's fine," Fred says, and while that wasn't her first reaction to realizing that something's been messing around with her memories, it's still a pretty good one.

"I understand why you didn't tell me, though," she adds, "I"m not mad or anything."

Nodding, he came back with two beers, twisting the top off of one and handing it over before doing the same to his own.

"Wasn't sure you'd ever remember. Seems to happen quicker for some, than it does for others."

He'd remembered almost immediately, a fresh set of memories overlapping and fighting against the ones already in his brain. Often he still had trouble keeping track of what order they belonged.

Fred wraps her hands around the cold bottle, but doesn't drink just yet.

"The odds are pretty astronomical that it even happened at all," she goes on to say, "The confluence of events that brought us there and then back home and then here? It would have been kinda crazy to assume I might. But of course, this whole thing's pretty crazy in the first place."

And there's no Angel or Charles or Wesley this time either. She can't help but think it's odd that she and Spike are the only two they know from Los Angeles to be sucked into these alternate dimensions.

"So, you remember all of it, then? You know, on that island, you'd never met me, when I first found you. Took a while before you'd trust I wasn't interested in that pretty neck of yours," he said with a faint smirk. "Not that I blame you, with Captain Morality as your only source of information."

He rolled his eyes.

She makes a face at Spike's comment about Angel, but mostly ignores it.

"I think so, but it's all still a little cloudy. Like memory soup. Or stew. One of those," she says, because everything in her head feels like it's blending into everything else, all at once. She remembers not knowing Spike there, and she remembers knowing Spike all at once.

"When did it all come back for you?"

"I never lost it, really. Was a bit muddled at first, one reality riding on the back of another. Granted, I arrived here in broad daylight, so I was bit preoccupied with putting out the fire," he admitted with a smirk.

"From what I've heard, some people never forget, and others still can't seem to parse through it all. No rhyme or reason, far as I see."

For Spike

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