Touching

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Summary: Just a little Spike/Fred friendship ficlet.

AUTHOR: Elsa Frohman
EMAIL: elsa@frohman.net
RATING: PG
PAIRING: Spike, Fred
SPOILERS: Through Hellbound
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There was a little spill of liquid on the counter next to Fred's coffee cup. It was a little dome of water that caught the light and reflected it back like a lens. Spike stared at it, thinking about what it would feel like to dip his finger in it. The surface of the counter was very slightly pebbled, and a slice of sunlight from the necrotempered window spilled across it. There was a crumb from the sandwich Fred had for lunch next to the droplet of water.

Fred was scribbling equations in her notebook, her brow wrinkled as she wrestled the numbers into submission. Her pencil made a soft rubbing sound as it danced across the lined paper. Her lips were tight and her shoulders tense. The ray of sunshine climbed over her arm where it rested on the counter and drew a bright stripe up to her shoulder before disappearing behind her.

"Nice sunny day outside," Spike said wistfully as he glanced out the window. "One of the nice things about my current condition is going outside in the day, you know. Sunshine can't hurt me, 'cause I'm not really here. No body, no flames...

"I could go out for a walk you know..."

"What?" Fred looked up. It was clear she hadn't been listening. "Oh, no. Wait a minute. I think I've almost got this."

"OK, if you want me to stick around, I'm happy to oblige. Not like I have anyplace else to go, or anything that needs doing. Happy to just hang around and watch you make all those little scribbles in your notebook. Bloody fascinatin', it is. Could stand here and watch you do it all day."

"Hmm?"

"Just sayin', nice to have somebody who wants me around..."

"Spike, could you stop talking for a minute? I need to concentrate on this."

"Oh, right. I do run on, don't I? It's just talking's about all I can do. I can see, I can hear and I can talk. That sums it up. Be nice if I could do something else -- anything else. I'd push that sodding mail cart around if it didn't take every bit of brain power I got just to move it two inches."

Fred had stopped her scribbling and was looking at Spike intently. When he realized she was staring at him, and looking just a bit irritated, he paused. She tapped her lips with a fingertip.

"Right..." he said. "I'll just be quiet now..."

He started to wander off.

"No, stay here," Fred said, barely glancing up from her work. "I've almost got it."

He opened his mouth to ask what she'd almost got, but thought better of it.

"Yes!" Fred exclaimed. "I was right!" She set down her notebook and beamed at Spike.

Spike cocked his head and gave her a questioning look.

"Oh, you can talk again now. I've got all the calculations done. It'll just take a moment to put together the test apparatus. I've got all the parts right here."

"Oh, right then. Bloody brilliant. What is it?"

"A transdimensional alpha wave amplifier," Fred said proudly. "It's an extension of the principal I was working on with Professor Seidel -- before he dumped me into Pylea. Not exactly the same thing, of course -- wouldn't want to accidentally send anyone into a hell dimension -- but it builds its grid off the same algebraic coordinate framework."

"Good on you!" Spike said with a grin.

"Thanks. You know, you're pretty smart. I didn't really think you'd understand that. Wes and Gunn never get what I'm trying to do."

"Didn't understand a word you said, love."

"Oh, OK. Sorry."

"Doesn't matter. You talk, I'll listen. Nice to have someone actually say things to you -- instead of just looking past you and asking 'Are you still here?' "

"I think Angel's getting used to having you around," Fred said as she gathered up several small, black boxes and a tangle of wires to connect them to one another. "He's stopped nagging me about how much money I spent on my last attempt to make you corporeal."

"Angel stopped worrying about money? That's a bad sign... Could mean an apocalypse is coming."

Fred started plugging wires into various terminals on her collection of electronic devices.

"There's always an apocalypse coming," Fred said vaguely, her attention now focused on the contraption she was building.

"I tried hanging out in the typing pool for a while," Spike said wistfully. "Lots of pretty girls down there. But lookin' at pretty girls ain't the same when you can't touch... That sounded wrong. Not like I'd be walking around groping them... but when you know you can't even hold hands -- sort of loses its appeal."

"It's hard for you, isn't it?" Fred said as she plugged the last device in her chain into an electrical outlet on the counter. A soft hum rose off her invention.

"I'd say I was getting used to it, but..."

Fred picked up two electrical leads attached to round pads and pressed them onto her forehead. She started to twiddle several dials on her cobbled-together device. The hum rose and fell as she worked.

After several minutes of watching, Spike began to get bored. He turned away and looked out the window again.

"Walking outside is nice, but it'd be even nicer if I could feel the sun on me. Just feel it warming up my skin, without makin' it burst into flames. Of course, if I got my body back, then I couldn't go outside in the day, I suppose. Once a vampire, always a vampire."

"Yeah, I think that's how it works," Fred said absently, now moving two dials in concert. The hum suddenly jumped to a higher pitch.

"You sure you should be trying that out on yourself, love?" Spike said, glancing over his shoulder at Fred. "Shouldn't you be trying that on a rat or a hedgehog first, or something?"

Fred shook her head. "Got to have human brainwaves to make it work," she said.

"Oh, right. Silly me."

He looked away again.

"OK, I think I've got it," Fred said brightly.

"Really? That's just smashing..."

Spike jumped back as Fred reached out and brushed her fingers across his cheek.

"What?!" he exclaimed.

"Yes! It worked!" Fred said triumphantly.

"What?" Spike asked, looking at Fred in wonder.

"I can touch you!"

She reached out again and laid her hand on top of his.

"How?" Spike asked, staring down at their hands resting on the countertop.

"You can touch things when you concentrate hard enough," Fred said. "You're in a quasi-dimensional bubble. You're in the world, but slightly out of phase. But if you concentrate, you're bringing yourself into phase and you can pick things up and so forth.

"If you can do that, I should be able to reach into your bubble and touch you. But on this side, it takes a lot more power to breach the event horizon and realign the phase gap. So if I just boosted my brain activity level, I'd probably burn out all the synapses in my head and then I'd be a vegetable."

Spike frowned. "Not sure what that means, love. But it sounds like a bad idea."

"Right. But with this, I can take my normal level of brainwave activity and focus it into a pinpoint, and break through without frying myself." She let a little giggle of self-satisfaction escape.

Spike grinned. "That's my girl!" He picked up his hand, intending to pat her on the shoulder, but as his hand rose, it went through Fred's with a small crackle of electricity.

"Oh! I've spoiled it!" he said in distress.

"You have to stay still. When you move, it changes the spot I have to focus on, and the phase gap reopens."

"Right, what you said."

Spike let his hand rest on the counter again. Fred closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate. Then she reached out again and touched his hand.

"Not moving, love. Not moving a muscle." His voice was shaking.

Fred smiled. She reached up and touched his face.

"This isn't the whole answer, though," she said, brushing her fingertips through his hair.

"No?" Spike said, trying to speak without moving his face. "Answer to what?"

"To making you corporeal. But it's a start. I have one of the pieces of the puzzle now. And this line of investigation won't require the massive amounts of nuclear evil that the last one did."

"That's brilliant!" Spike said, grinning in spite of himself.

"Don't get your hopes up," Fred replied. "There are still several impossibilities that have to be overcome."

"Even if it doesn't work," Spike said quietly. "I'm chuffed that you're still trying."

He gave her a sad smile.

"And this, even if it's just a bit of the answer, it's marvelous, love. Just marvelous. Really...

"I'm touched."

The End

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Elsa Frohman - elsa@frohman.net