Essential by Criss Moody

Date: December 1st, 2001
Disclaimer: All Hail Lord Numfar and his minions
Distribution: Lar may have if she likes. Anyone else, ask.
Rating: PG
Summary: Evolution of status.
Pairing/Character: Fred
Spoilers: Through Offspring.
Feedback: Yes, please, lots.
Notes: Thanks to Kassie for the beta. This is the third in an unofficial series of Angel: the Series character studies that I'm writing. You don't need to read those to read this.

Fred used to be essential. In the basic or indispensable sense. Momma had wanted more little ones, but old Doc Murphy said that it would likely kill her. If Daddy hadn't insisted on his operation, maybe Momma would be dead and little Winifred woulda grown up with someone to take care of. A little brother or sister to make her not the only one. That woulda been nice. Though she got used to being indispensable. Fundamental to the lives of others. Her parents always knew where she was, what she was doing, who she was with, and why she wasn't at home. Mostly, she stayed at home. Part of being indispensable, she guessed. Momma needed an extra pair of hands, Daddy needed an extra pair of hands, and Fred was the only one who could weed the garden/clean the kitchen/milk the goats/wash the dog/alphabetize the books.

She ran for the library first thing after school every day. So many books lived there Fred thought it just had to be heaven. But Fred didn't like the books because they had words in them. She liked the books because they had mass. Weight and heft. Together, they constituted a whole. If you took one book away, the whole would be less, but still important. Still a whole. Mathematically, see, none of that made sense, but Fred was 7 and lots of things only make sense when you're 7. Like how honeybees knew when to make honey and why librarians were so smart.

Fred, she sure loved numbers. She remembered when she'd fallen in love with them. Math class, fifth grade, and Mrs. McHenry told the class that numbers had no end. No one in the whole wide world could ever calculate how many numbers existed. One, two, three, infinity. Long stretching run into forever. Made Fred feel better. For a long time, she slept with her Math book cradled in her arms, comforted by the knowledge that even when the wormies chewed on her, numbers would stream on and on and on. Couldn't hurt numbers. Couldn't change numbers. Add, subtract, divide, and multiply, and all those numbers were still there. Part of something bigger.

Small ponds make for big heads, Fred supposed. Leaving Texas was hard. She knew who she was there, and people knew her. Little Fred Burkle, who loved her parents and did such good work in the town library. That's how she got the job in the Los Angeles Public Library System. Head librarian knew a librarian knew a librarian who knew someone at the L.A. libraries. So Fred left being essential to be a cog. She needed to know that she could be part of the machine of life and not get all ground up. It felt important to know how to work as part of the whole, not the whole enchilada.

Not the most genius plan she ever had. Probably ranked right up there with investigating hidden corners of the library. She'd chosen that book, 'cause, well, it was pretty. And it stuck out a little bit from the others. Like it wanted to be chosen. And lookin' back, Fred can't honestly say that it wasn't fate. Or rather, without that double negative, it was fate. Can't get the sum without the equation, right? Being basic to Momma and Daddy, leaving home, working on not getting ground under, getting sucked into alternate dimensions, getting rescued, and now this.

Every morning, Fred woke up smiling. Cocooned in three blankets too many, toasty warm, and comfy. Fresh clean smell all around and she didn't sleep on a bed of dirt and branches. She could walk down stairs at 8, or 9, or past noon. As long as she came down before dinner, nobody would bother her. When she walked into a room, Cordy and everyone, they said hi, but not Fred, can you do this for me or slave get me my breakfast. Fred's hit just about every level of the spectrum and now she's hanging out in nice infrared, only noticed if they look the right way, with the right glasses on.

She's not so important, now. Like numbers, she knows that when she forgets to duck and she's dead and everyone's very very sad, she'll still be part of the equation. Because once Cordy and Wes and Angel and Gunn and Fred made up a whole and even when Fred is gone, what she was once part of will still exist. She's just part of the group.

~the end~