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High Hopes

by spikeNdru

Rating: PG

Pairing: Fred/Gunn

Genre: Bittersweet, hopefully not too angsty.

3871 words
 

Written for Samantha/inlovewithnight, who requested a bookstore, chocolate and an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, but stated she wasn't too terribly attached to any of them. I couldn't manage the bookstore, but a book plays a large part, and I did manage to bring in a mention of an old boyfriend and chocolate. She also requested no heavy angst and no Connor.

Many thanks to paynbow for the beta.

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Fred was a natural optimist. It's what had gotten her through all those horrible years in Pylea, after all. She had refused to give up hope—to give in to the soul-destroying belief that this was all there was. Fred wouldn't give in. It just wasn't in her nature. So, she fought. She fought for her freedom and her sanity, and she never gave up hope that one day she'd get out of Pylea and go home.

She did what she had to do to survive. She hid, and she ate whatever she could find, pretending it was tacos and steak and donuts. She calculated—if a portal had brought her here, a portal could get her out. She was a physicist; there was no reason on earth why she couldn't figure out how to open a portal on this end and get home! On earth . . . no reason on earth.

Except she had a sneaking suspicion she wasn't exactly on earth. Still, she wouldn't give up. Giving up meant giving in to despair—and that just wasn't in her nature. But sometimes it was hard—well, a lot of the time it was hard—not to just give in and accept the inevitable. So, she told herself nothing was inevitable. She just looked her situation right in the eye—well metaphorically anyway, 'cause a situation didn't have an actual eye . . . and if it did, that would just be too creepy—and she said, “Buddy, you're evitable!”

And she sang. In a world without music, she exercised the most radical rebellion possible—she sang. Even though no one heard her—no one else knew—she sang. High hopes . . . I've got high hopes! High, apple pie in the sky hopes! Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant. So, okay, she couldn't remember all the words—but the concept of an ant striving against insurmountable odds and . . . surmounting . . . them, was certainly applicable. High hopes became her mantra. And it eventually paid off. Handsome man saved her from the monsters. But it was due to her own strength of character that there was anything left to save.

Fred reminded herself of all this as she cowered in her room in the Hyperion. She was safe now—she didn't have to hide any longer. So she fought her fear and gradually surmounted it. Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant. And she came out of her room. Oh sure, sometimes it seemed like one step forward, then two steps back—but she kept right on taking those baby steps forward. She was constitutionally incapable of doing anything else. She hadn't let five years in Pylea break her. Now that she was finally back in LA, there was no way she was going to give up.

She came out of her room, and she acclimated to her new situation. She began to develop friendships. She found a purpose. And then the most wonderful, terrifying, happy, scary, undreamed of thing in the world happened. She fell in love. And, wonder of wonders—Charles loved her back!

Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant.

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Diary of Winifred Burkle

Hi, there! My name's Winifred Burkle, but I expect you know that, 'cause it says right here on the front in sparkly gold letters Diary of Winifred Burkle. I'm gonna talk to you—well, write in you, actually, but you know what I mean—as if you were a real person and not just an inanimate object, because . . . well . . . If I pretend like I'm talking to someone else, it won't seem as if I were talking to myself, 'cause talking to yourself is just kinda . . . crazy. And, believe you me, I know all about crazy! I talked to myself for years before I managed to get back home.

Anyway, Charles—that's my boyfriend, Charles Gunn. Hee! I actually said 'boyfriend'. Y'know, I never really thought I'd ever have a boyfriend again. Boyfriends are part of a normal life, and I never really thought I'd have one of those, either. Whew! My thoughts are just jumping all over the place today, aren't they? I promise I'll do better in the future, once I get the hang of this, but for now, I'm just so excited . . .

Where was I? Oh, yeah. My boyfriend Charles gave you to me, along with a big bunch of snapdragons. It was so romantic! I mean, any guy can just go buy roses, and a lot of them do, 'cause that doesn't take any thought at all. Well, I suppose they have to pick the color, don't they? But seems like most guys don't even do that—seems like a lot of guys don't even know roses come in any color but red. A lot of the girls in my dorm got roses, and they were always red. 'Course, I didn't date much in college. A lot of the guys seemed scared of me, or resentful or something, 'cause I was a whole lot smarter than them. I used to wish that somewhere there'd be a guy who liked that I had brains—who saw it as a good thing. I thought it might be Robert. We dated some, but then he transferred to M.I.T., and we sorta lost touch.

That's what I love about Charles—well, one of the things, anyway. He loves my being smart. He sees it as an asset. And he gives me snapdragons instead of red roses! Plus, he's a major hottie (as Cordy says) and that doesn't hurt at all. He's tall and strong and good and brave and absotively posilutely gorgeous! And he gave me a pink leather diary with sparkly gold letters! He wanted me to have something pretty 'cause I hadn't had anything nice or pretty all the time I was in Pylea. We all repainted the walls, but Charles said if I ever felt the need to write, he wanted me to have this book to do it in. So I am. Doing it. And I'll try not to babble too much! But that's just me—I'm a babbler from way back.

I've never had a diary before. When I was in school, I was mostly interested in studying. I wanted to learn everything there was to learn and then some. And then I somehow ended up in Pylea and even if I'd had a diary there, I prob'ly wouldn't have used it, because my life in Pylea? Not something you really want to write down so you can remember all the little details. Personally, I'm lookin' forward to the day I start forgetting all the little details! But Charles is another matter. I don't want to ever forget one single thing about Charles.

When I first got back to this world, I sort of had a crush on Angel. Well, why not? He's handsome and he's kind and he cares about people and tries to do what's right. What girl wouldn't be swept off her feet? But, you can't fight Kyrumption—that's when two champions find each other, and each makes the other stronger—and Angel was still in love with his champion, Buffy. But she was sort of dead, so maybe he'll get together with Cordy? She gets these real horrible visions, and they look really painful and take a lot out of her. We never knew how much, until the effects started manifesting physically—but that wasn't really the visions, that was a nasty little surprise from those evil lawyers. But anyway, she's a hero and she used to be a princess and you can just see how much Angel cares about her. Except she can't—see it, I mean. But maybe Kyrumption will kick in and they'll see how right they are for each other. That'd be good, 'cause I don't really love Angel. I can see now that it was just a crush, 'cause of who he is and how he saved me and all.

But then he wasn't very nice to me and, okay, that wasn't really him—it was that awful old man who took over his body and had sex with Lilah on Wesley's desk, but I'm over him anyway. Which is good, 'cause Buffy's not dead anymore. I don't know much about her, except that they had this big, epic love affair—Wesley and Cordelia acted it out for me and it might have been epic and all, but it was really funny the way they explained it. And it seems like they can't be together any more, even though she's not dead now, so I'm really hoping he'll notice how special Cordelia is.

Oh my! I was supposed to be telling you about Charles, but I just keep going off on tangents, don't I? I guess I'm not real linear. It's just that so much has happened, and it's all swirling around in my head, and sometimes it just busts out. I'm not real used to all the excitement 'cause Pylea wasn't the most stimulating place, if you know what I mean. So, now there's all these people who care about me and all this unusual stuff going on, and maybe it's important that I write all this down so I can remember it, too. But next time, I promise to tell you all about Charles.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Hi, y'all! I'm back! Stuff keeps happening around here—some of it good, some of it pretty bad and scary, and some of it wonderful. I'd have to say, Charles goes in the 'wonderful' category—with a little bit of the scary thrown in.

Charles said he liked me for a long time before I even noticed him. Well, he's wrong there—I definitely noticed him; I just never thought he'd be interested in me, romantically at least. I knew he was special when Angel had to break that guy—Billy—out of hell to keep the evil lawyers from killing Cordy with the faux manifested visions. This Billy had a special talent—he could bring out misogynistic rage in men through secretions in his blood and sweat. Both Wesley and Charles got infected by touching Billy's blood. Wesley went all hatchety-murdery and really wanted to kill me. I was never so scared in my life!

I mean, in Pylea I was expecting everybody to try and kill me, and a lot of the demons and evil people we come across in our line of work pretty much want to kill you as a matter of course, but this was Wesley! I mean, I thought he was my friend, so it was kinda disconcerting to see nothing but contempt and hate in his eyes, and to know he really would kill me if he got the chance.

Charles got infected, too, but he smashed up a chair and gave me the chair leg and told me to knock him out so he wouldn't hurt me. He was really fighting the induced rage, and told me to be sure I hit him hard enough to knock him out. He was really trying to protect me! I felt bad for having to hurt him, but he was thinking about my safety so it was okay. I think that's when I started to sort of fall for Charles, but then a whole lot happened . . .

Darla came back and she was pregnant, and pretty much everybody and their brother was after the baby! The evil lawyers, and a vampire hunter called Holtz, and a vampire cult and who'all knows who else? Darla staked herself to have the baby and now Angel has a son! How strange is that? But, it seems to be bringing Angel and Cordy closer together, so that's good. They got this bassinet and a big crib for the baby, 'stead of just popping him in a drawer to sleep—although, that might just be the way my family does things, but it didn't hurt any of us, none.

Well, Angel and Cordy weren't the only ones getting closer! I had been developing feelings for Charles, but I didn't think he'd be interested in me, 'cause he's so strong and brave and dynamic and I'm . . . not. Well, it turns out he was interested in me, but he didn't think I'd reciprocate because he . . . he thought I was too smart for him. Charles sees himself as just the 'muscle' but he's not! He's so much more!

The Nahdrah hired me to solve a puzzle for their prince's birthday, but it seems like what they really wanted to give him was my head. This is hard for me to think about, 'cause all the time I was in Pylea I had nothing but myself—no friends, no food, no freedom, no nothing but me—and the Nahdrah wanted to take away the only thing I had left. I . . . I don't really want to think about it any more. I only brought it up 'cause Cordy saved me and then Charles and I went out for breakfast and I had a real good time, and Charles did too, and so that was sort of our first date!

Charles was all excited when we went to breakfast, and he kept dropping hints that he had a big surprise for us, but turns out he was the one who got surprised the most! He'd asked Angel to get tickets to the Mahta Hari concert and Angel got tickets to the Blinnikov Ballet instead! Angel was all thrilled, 'cause he saw them perform Giselle in 1890, so he just couldn't resist.

We all got dressed to the nines and it was wonderful! Charles looked good enough to eat in his tux, even though he thought I was making fun of him when I first saw him all dressed up. I felt real pretty in my new dress and Cordy was a knockout! She slept through most of the ballet, but Charles became a real aficionado, even though he originally thought it'd just be “tutus and guys with their big-ass packages jumpin' up and down”. I always loved the ballet. My family used to go see The Nutcracker every Christmas. Just ignore the juxtaposition of “Nutcracker” and “big-ass packages”, cause that would just be . . . so not what I was tryin' to say!

Anyway, we were all having a good time—except Cordy, who I guess isn't really a ballet fan. But then she and Angel went to check out the backstage area and they were gone a long time and when we went to find them, there were all these creepy Comedy/Tragedy minions and Charles got hurt! He got stabbed with a sword and, well, Angel did too, but Angel has that vampire healing mojo and Charles doesn't and I was just so scared! I was afraid I was gonna lose him just when I found him, so I kept walloping the Tragedy minion that stabbed him. I was terrified that Charles was gonna die and he was joking around about the light dimming and I was pert near ready to kill him myself for that, but then he kissed me and it was just so . . . so . . . perfect. Even though I was scared for him and furious with him and all—it just felt so right. But then Cordy left with Groo, and I thought for sure she and Angel were meant to be together. I guess you just can't predict these things.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Well, things sorta went kerplooey after that. Wes was upset that Charles and I were using company cell phones for personal calls, and then he stole the baby and Holtz took the poor little guy to a really bad Hell dimension—and I know what that's like, although Quor-Toth is supposed to be a lot worse than Pylea, even.

Angel tried to kill Wesley, and he was already half-dead from having his throat slit. The upshot of all this is, Wesley left the team. I just couldn't believe that Wesley would actually betray us all like this, although Charles and Angel seemed to be havin' no trouble believing it—it just wasn't in character for Wesley. So, Charles and I went poking around and discovered that Wesley thought he was protecting the baby due to a prophecy he translated as 'The Father will Kill the Son'. Turns out, that wasn't the real prophecy, but Wesley had no way of knowing that! I figured that once everybody knew about Wesley's motives, things could go back to normal, but I guess I was just bein' naïve.

Charles said that Angel would never forgive Wesley, even if he thought he was doin' what was best for the baby, and Charles was right. So now we've lost the baby and Wesley and nothing's the same. Charles took me out for chocolate chip waffles with chocolate ice cream on top, and even that didn't make me feel better. My mama used to say that nothin' is so bad it can't be made better by chocolate, but she was wrong! And then things got a whole lot worse . . .

This is just real hard for me to even think about, so I guess I'll write it down fast to get it over with. When Charles was younger, he sold his soul for a tricked-out truck to help in the vampire fighting so he could protect his little sister and the neighborhood kids who depended on him. He didn't think it would matter 'cause he didn't think he had much of a future anyway. I can understand that! I can see where he was coming from and why he did it. But then the Soul Sucker came to collect on his debt and gave Charles one day to put his affairs in order. I don't understand why Charles didn't just tell me that! We could have had a whole day to work out a plan—to look for a solution. We could have hit the books and researched Jenoff's weaknesses and actually spent the time doing something constructive to save Charles.

But instead, he didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth—to let me help. We're supposed to have a partnership—isn't that what a relationship is?—and he lied to me and hurt me. Okay, he was tryin' to spare me the pain of knowing, but he doesn't get to make these decisions for me! We spent most of the day that could have been Charles' last having so much 'fun' I just knew there was something wrong! And when I asked him to tell me the truth, he lied to me and said some really hurtful things.

Y'know, I think a whole lot of problems are caused by lack of communication! If Wesley had talked to us'all about the prophecy, maybe things would have been different. And Charles hurt me much worse by lying to me than if he'd just told me the truth and allowed me to help. Maybe it's a guy thing—although Cordy lied for a year about what the visions were doing to her. So, maybe it's just me—but 'me' says right here and now, if I ever found out I only had a short time to live, I wouldn't want anyone to lie . . . not to be comforting, or to spare my delicate feelings or any of that bull poop.

If I knew I were dying, I'd want everybody to try and work out a plan to stop it, and I'd fight for every single minute left with my friends and with Charles and there'd be NO LYING!!!

I'm real glad Charles didn't die, but I'm still angry about the lying so . . . I'll write more later.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Well, now—it's been awhile since I've written. Charles and I are doing good. We have a more . . . mature relationship now. I do miss that first giddy rush of wonderfulness . . . of possibility . . . but I reckon that can't last. All relationships have to settle in and compromises need to be made. But, we're good. And we've promised to never lie to each other—even if we think it's in the other's best interest. We've promised to talk about things that are bothering us. We're pretty much all that's left of Angel Investigations. Wesley's off on his own now, Lorne got a 'gig' in Vegas and Angel and Cordy both disappeared. But we'll find them.

I've got High Hopes. High, apple pie in the sky, hopes. And Charles and I are keeping up with the mission. And one day, we'll all be back together again—Angel and Cordy and Lorne and Charles and me . . . and even Wesley. Oops! There goes another rubber tree plant.

I've got some ideas about particle physics and P-dimensional subspace that I want to work on in my spare time, so I don't think I'll have a chance to be able to keep a diary any more. But I still have hopes that everything will work out in the end. We've earned a happy ending, haven't we?

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Wesley was skittering around his office, frantically researching, when he became aware that someone was in his doorway, observing him with what appeared to be concern.

“Hey.” Gunn entered the office, carefully navigating the books that littered the floor.

“I stabbed you. I should apologize for that. But, I'm honestly not sure how. I think it'll just be awkward.”

“Good call.”

“Okay.”

“I ain't lookin' for a sorry. Don't know if I'd accept it. Besides, I just got my heart cut out of my chest every day for two weeks straight. Compared to what—a little jab in the gut? Kinda over it.”

“So, what are you looking for?”

“I don't know. A compass, maybe? The thing that killed my friend just saved my life. No one knows why. This place just went Poseidon on my ass. I don't know which way is up.”

“Everything is . . . a bit odd. I suppose . . . we have to adjust. I imagine that's what all this is . . . adjustment. Oh, Gunn . . . I have something for you . . . just a moment . . . I know I had it here somewhere . . .”

“Something for me?”

“Yes . . . I was cleaning out . . . Fred's things . . . and I found . . . this. I . . . thought you might like to have it. I haven't read it . . .”

Gunn's face blanched as Wesley handed him a pink leather journal with The Diary of Winifred Burkle embossed on the front in sparkly gold letters.

“I thought it might remind you of happier times . . . and now, if you'll excuse me, I really must get back to work . . .”

Clutching the diary tightly, Gunn quietly shut the door. He still had a piece of Fred, after all. It gave him hope.

 

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Selected Time Bomb dialogue by Ben Edlund.

 

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