Fred, Interrupted

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Mutant Enemy owns this character. I intend no infringement of copyright.

Distribution: /mysticmuse.net

Sure, wherever you like. Just please let me know where it's going.

Spoilers: None—This is just Fred's back story.

Feedback: Yes, please!

Pairing: Just Fred

The brown-haired girl stared at her reflection in the cab window as it was intermittently criss-crossed by the insubstantial, palm-studded scenery of Los Angeles.

There's nothing solid about this town, she thought. It was like golden light drifting mockingly above a filthy sidewalk. You take the path only to discover the gold was the fool's kind after all and your feet are mired in the crap underneath. And she wasn't even going to start on the euphemism that was the La Brea tar pits.

Couldn't go home, though. No way. Moving here was the one thing she had ever done that she was really proud of.  Such a challenge. So much terror that she had been surprised it didn't stream out of the Greyhound exhaust and mingle blackly with her mother's tears.

Fred, baby, you'll be so far off.

Mama, I'll phone y'all every day…

The first fear-filled days in the city—applying for jobs she needed but didn't want, hunting for apartments she needed but turned her stomach. Map of the freeways in one hand, mace in the other. Classes that sailed past in a blur of algorithms and formulas she had mastered at thirteen. Faces of men and women both who smiled patronizingly at her flowered sundresses, pastel twin-sets and gentle voice. Blinking in the harsh sunlight that was so different in hue from the Texas farmland she knew.  A walking statistic. A Country Gal In The Big Bad City. Shoes that were splitting at the heel and a warped kitchen sink stained with rust.

There had been dates. Well, she amended, tripping gracelessly up the wide library stairs, there had been date. One. A disaster of striking magnitude. Her cheeks reddened again as she remembered the clumsy goodnight kiss that had capped an evening of her droning endlessly about Vygotsky and tapping her spoon annoyingly on her sundae bowl.  And what had happened after that kiss when he took her possessively by the hand and led her, trembling, into her apartment. She had become somebody else for those few hours, but not enough to let herself make a sound.

"You're cute," he had told her afterwards, while he dressed, his expensive jacket settling across his broad shoulders with an elegance she couldn't have achieved even with years of practice before her bedroom mirror.  She had smiled, the bedclothes drawn shyly up around her slender frame. Then he had said something else.  "Not my kind of cute, but still cute."

It echoed in her head for the five-hundredth time. Her reflection stared back at her, dotted with terra cotta and cigarette advertising. She had never seen him again. Not anybody's kind of cute, are ya, Freddy girl?

The car drew to a jerky stop. "Thanks," she mumbled to the cab driver, who sat sweating with bored indifference on creased vinyl. She handed him an equally creased note dug hastily out of her cheap bag. "Keep the change."

The driver squinted at her. "A whole dollar for me? Well, Jesus wept."

Fred blushed and maneuvered her way from the sticky back seat. Exiting into the glare of mid-morning, she straightened her skirt clumsily as the cab roared off. There was something derisive in the sound of it, the girl was sure. As derisive as an engine could ever get, anyway. Well, there are some theories on the correlations between synthetic mechanisms an' sentiment—Apothecary had an interestin' thesis on it just the other week, not that annotated version, the full text from Professor Whatisname an' I really should have been takin' the bus anyway...

She sighed. So many things she would do, Fred promised. One day. When the grants started rolling in. When, for example, the labs at Duke realized she'd already disproved three of their published suppositions. Or Harvard caved and gave her that four-year tenure waved so tantalizingly in her face at their intake round last fall—the one they implied suited her perfectly, yet refusing to commit themselves to offering such stature to a twenty-year old prodigy—and a woman, at that.

So many things she would change. Starting with herself.

She pushed open the double glass doors of the entrance, skillfully avoiding her reflection in either of them. The air inside was cooler, musty, the smell she loved so much enveloping her comfortably. Libraries had been a refuge for her entire life—in elementary school, away from the vague taunts of others who were aware that she was different but unable to quite articulate why.

High school, where the taunting had become more pointed, calculated with the devastating cruelty of teenagers to hit her where she lived. "Virgin." "Mary-Sue." "Freak." "Skinny-ass cornbread bitch." Among others. It wasn't the words that she had minded so much, but the knowledge she was universally recognized as separate. Apart. Beneath them. It was exhausting, heart-breaking. And part of her foundations now.

The cramped office she had to share loomed ahead of her, and Fred saw Vicki had beaten her to work yet again, despite the fact she walked. So promptness wasn't Fred's thing. She had other things that were hers. One day she'd figure out what they were.

The blonde at the computer smiled as Fred came in. "Hey, Texas."

"Hey, Vicki. Any calls for me?"

Her companion's smile widened. "The Time Life series came yesterday. It's on your desk. And Harvard has your home number, sweetie."

Cheeks warming for the tenth time in a hour, Fred ducked her head with a meek grin and a lightness she didn't feel. Vicki didn't mean to shake her up this way, she knew - there was genuine affection behind her teasing tone - but the words bit deep. Silly Fred. Best friends with a journal series. Head in the clouds, nose in a book. Or a beaker. Cute ol' stupid ol' Fred.

Vicki's voice interrupted her thought train. "And Walt said to tell you he needed you in periodicals as soon as you got in."

"Oh." Fred disliked Walt intensely. His eyes flickered over her in a way she couldn't control and couldn't account for in her head. "Did he say what for?"

"Having trouble with the catalogue, or something."

Fred also disliked the catalogue intensely. "Trouble?"

"He says your filing system isn't in English."

"My filin' system is in Dewey. This is a lib'ry. You'd think-"

"I think you should get up there, is what I think. Don't give him another excuse to make you work Sunday, ‘kay?"

Fred sighed, and then smiled half-heartedly. Giving Vicki a mock-salute, she headed away down the darkened hall and out into the shelves. Just ahead of her, she saw a small boy dart through the stacks with another in hot pursuit.

Children were okay. Kids she could deal with; to them she was just another adult, not the Brain From Texas.

"Hey!" she called out. "No runnin' in here, okay? Take it outside!"

One boy glanced back and flipped her the finger. Fred blinked, then felt her stomach clench angrily. Even the damn kids in this town were stomping all over her. Well, that's enough, damn it!

"Hey!" Her voice was stronger now, and she jolted into a run herself, skidding around the encyclopedias nobody used any more. She quickly caught up to the boys as they turned into a section Fred knew was supposed to be ‘Occult' but contained little more than books on incense and the occasional "History of Magic."

She lunged and grabbed one of the boys by the upper arm as he went into an accidental slide.

"I said take it outside!" she repeated, panting. "Didn't y'all hear me?"

"Yeah," mumbled her captive, kicking sullenly at the nearest shelf.

"Get movin' then," Fred said firmly. "Find your little friend an' take him along with you."

The boy stared resentfully at her until she let go of his arm. "Bitch!" he blurted suddenly, eyes popping with the effrontery of what he had said - out loud, no less - and kicked over the shelf. He turned and scurried off, cackling with laughter. "Dumbass bitch!" floated back to her along the stacks.

Fred stood there, glasses slightly askew, heart thumping noisily. Her cheeks were burning, her dress was rumpled, and suddenly, she was sick. Sick to her stomach, sick of L.A., sick of her own ineffectiveness, sick of the whole thing.

That's it! she bellowed furiously in her head. I'm leavin'!  I'm on the next bus outta this burg, I don't care what Daddy says about college. I can work in the lib'ry at home an' at least I'll be near family. I'm gonna go tell Walt exactly what I think of him!  I'm gonna tell my landlord to stick his "hold" money up his jacksie! The whole damn place can go to hell!

She sighed.

Right after I pick up these books.

Fred knelt, pushing her glasses back into place, and began to collect the twenty or so books that had scattered around her feet. One of them caught her eye—a plainly bound manuscript she had never seen before. And by now, Fred had thought she knew virtually every book the damn library owned.

She stood, and flipped it open. The musty pages turned almost of their own accord, coming to rest on what looked like free verse, but with one important difference. It wasn't English. Fred's brow creased into a puzzled frown. This book should have been in the Foreign Language section. But she didn't recognize this particular tongue. Its lack of vowels reminded her subtly of a form of Ancient Aramaic she had briefly become fixated with in the tenth grade, but other than that…

Aloud, she said, "Pthy fgldd zbnn qrt pltz grb hkllp?"

So intent was she on her strange find that she didn't notice the light change, take on a blue-ish tinge. She didn't notice a tear in the air behind her, silently opening into a circular pattern. She didn't notice the slight breeze that ruffled her hair, stirred her skirts around her knees.

"Jyydg," she continued, oblivious. Behind her, the portal grew wider. "Sdkh rmnb tfwz vdlk qtw- AUGH!"

The book tumbled to the floor, bounced once and lay still. And where seconds before, Fred had been standing, was now only a small dust whirl.

When she opened her eyes, it was to see trees.

Which was impossible. Of course.

So she closed them, counted to ten by fifths, then opened them again.

Trees. Interesting.

The slender girl got slowly to her feet, looking around, dumbstruck. She was in a forest. A rather large forest. Something skimmed the sky above her and she instinctively ducked. Watching the large creature (which was some kind of dinosaur, a corner of her mind noted calmly) flap away, she quietly assessed her mental state. Because quite obviously, there was something wrong with her. To be imagining stuff like this, there had to be something seriously wrong. Perhaps near-genius had a price she'd been unaware of until now. Even more telling was her eerie composure. She should have been screaming and running, but…

It could be worse, she supposed. There could be, oh, for example, a green man watchin' me right now. From over there under that tree. There could be, but there sure isn't. Because I'm definitely delusional-

"Cow!" bellowed the green man. "Where is your collar? How did you venture this far into the Madding Wood unaccompanied?"

"Maddin' Wood?" How appropriate. Fred glanced around, almost casually. Isn't there a white rabbit I should be seein' about now?

The green man came closer, and Fred was strangely unsurprised to see two small horns sprouting from his forehead. Despite herself, she began to giggle a little wildly.

"You mock me, cow?" demanded the green man. "You think levity is appropriate when you face the worst of all punishment?"

Fred's laughter increased when the green man reached over his shoulder and brought forth a coil of rope. Oops, he's gonna catch me! she thought a little unsteadily. Gotcha gotcha, now I'm gonna eatcha…

The green man had reached her now. He bent down and looped the rope around her ankles into a tight knot.

"They're comin' to take me away, haha," mumbled Fred, between gasps of laughter. "They're comin' to take me aw- Ggh! Ow!"

The green man had calmly backhanded her across the face.

Her hands flew to her jaw, rubbing it. "Ow!" she protested. "Hey! This is my delusion, thanks very much! Leave your slappin' little hands out of- OW! Aw, cr-"

She sprawled to the ground, ears ringing, jaw aching, earth in her mouth.  The green man stood above her, dusting off his hands.  He reached down and effortlessly plucked her to her feet, where she stood drooping and dazed before him.

"There is not much bulk to this cow," he said, seemingly to himself. "It will have to be grazed well."

Fred stared at him, taking in as much detail as she could through her rapidly blinking eyes.  For an illusion, he looks pretty solid, she thought. And that smell…

Something began to tick nervously in her chest. This is real ground under my feet. This is real sky over my head. That's a real green man tyin' my hands together. Isn't it? The book … did somethin'… somethin' really, really bad…

It was the two suns that finally did it. Fred blinked owlishly at the suns, her cheeks burning. I would never imagine two suns, she thought, the chill that began in her stomach rising to claim her throat. I never would. I'd imagine it bigger, or redder, but never two. Never two … it's not the natural order of things…

And the walls all came tumbling down.

"Where am I?" she shrieked suddenly, shockingly, the words braying from her in complete, unfettered terror, face mottled. "Where am I? What is this? WHERE AM I?"

"The only place suitable for your kind, filthy cow," the green man told her. "I know not what kind of beast you are or from whence you came, but Numfar will indeed do the dance of joy and unexpected prosperity when you are brought before him." He stepped forward and coiled the rope around his forearm.  "We shall be leaving now, and if your propensity for garrulousness continues, you shall find it a trying trip indeed."

Fred gaped, the first tears beginning to form. "Leavin'? Leavin' to where?"

His arm flashed again and she hit the ground, breath exploding from her lungs, knees grated and bleeding with the shock of it, tears of wind and pain stinging her eyes. Dimly, she was aware of being dragged along. The ground tore through her clothes, rocks scraping her flesh raw and the rope burning her wrists.

"Let this be your first lesson, cow," the green man said over his shoulder. "Flippancy will not be tolerated. Nor will your heathen speech. Your cow mouth shall remain closed from this instant, do you understand?"

It'll all be over soon, she told herself, disbelieving, sinking into a misty gray place where her mind fought for traction beneath a thick woolen blanket and suddenly the world was faint and distorted. Spots crisscrossed her vision and there was a keening sound that couldn't be coming from her. Could it? It'll all be over soon. Someone'll save me. Someone'll help me.

Her captor picked up speed, and Fred clenched her eyes shut against the rough ground, sobbing.

Allbeoversoonpleaseit'llallbeoversoonallbeoversoonpleaseGodanytimenowanymomentnow... 

…any second now... 

The End

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