Fred Burkle

Sometimes, despite where they live and where she and Jason both come from, life can feel downright normal. She goes to work at the lab, he goes to work and the station, and sure, sometimes there's a vampire— both friend and foe— or some kinda weird Darrow thing involving bees, but other times, they can just spend a friday night in with a big bowl of popcorn and a movie.

She's maybe having second thoughts about letting Jason pick it, but she has a feeling he wouldn't really find the documentary she's got on loan from the library all that interesting. Still, any time spent cozy with Jason is a win in her book.

He's sprawled out in her lap on her couch at the moment as she reaches over to the side table for her soda. Though, a tell-tale slurp from her straw reminds her that she drank the last of it fifteen minutes ago and was too preoccupied with the movie to want to get up. Plus, she's really with the super comfy right now.

Picking up the cup, she dangles it just in Jason's line of sight, hoping to save herself the trip to the fridge.

"Jaaaaason. Any chance of a refill?" she asks.

Fred has to keep reminding herself that this isn't the first time she's seen snow in years. Maybe Los Angeles never saw any in her time there, but there was also the island. The island where she remembers it snowing in December and turning into 18th century London. Where she remembers going sledding in way too many skirts.

That memory is what brings her outside today, bundled up in a coat and hat, wrapped in a bright yellow scarf to try and keep out some of the chill.

Maybe she's been through a few winters in dimensions like this, but that doesn't mean she's not still a Texas girl at heart. Or at least so far as it counts towards being used to the cold.

She heads toward the park, taking her time, not in any particular rush, mostly because the snow is just so pretty.

She hasn't been able to get him out of her head, not since that day at the diner.

There are a lot of things that Fred is good at; put a formula in front of her or a puzzle and she'll figure it out. Even the supposedly unsolveable ones— she's seen a lot of those— and given time, she'll take it all apart, put it back together, figure out how it works and solve it.

In Darrow, she's been given two unsolveable problems. One of those, the city itself, is one she's still convinced she'll work out given time. Five years, she spent in Pylea, working the problem, shouting incantations until her voice gave out, scribbling on cave walls just to get the numbers out of her head, and here with resources and actual books, she knows she can do it.

The other problem?

Well, that one isn't as easy.

What are you supposed to do when your head tells you one thing, but everything else in you says something different?

Because she knows that there's something about the police officer she met on her first day in Darrow that she can't exactly explain. Something weird and familiar and unfamiliar all at once. And now she's started remembering things that don't make sense. Snow and sand and sleds. Herself on a stage in front of faces she can't quite make out.

Fred's not exactly sure what to do about it all, which is why she looks up Jason's address and finds herself outside his apartment.

She's going crazy. She can't be going crazy.

She knocks.

In the weeks since finding that reel on the bookshelf, Fred hasn't done much. The first week or so was mostly spent in the compound, either in her room or in the rec room, pouring through spell books and dusty volumes in languages that she has to cross-reference with others just so she can understand them.

But this isn't like last time. It's not like when she first arrived and she spent her days cooped up looking for a way off of the island. Her gears have shifted, and while her nose is still in a book for more than a few hours each day, she's not keeping herself confined to the concrete walls of the compound. Today, for instance, she's settled in at Jason's, sitting on his floor with a stack of books next to her that she's been adding to just about every time she comes by to visit.

"You know, there's actually nothing in these that actually talks about the Old Ones, but they're alluded to like crazy," Fred says, not looking up from a giant volume in some language that she can barely translate. She straightens her glasses on her nose before running a hand through her hair, "This doesn't make any sense."