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Chill

By Rach

Pairing: Fred/Faith
Summary: Fred’s not getting anywhere with her research.
Timeline/Spoilers: Mid-way through ‘Release’, before Angelus pulls the fake amulet trick on Fred.
Disclaimer: It’s all Joss’s. I have him to thank for creating characters like Faith and Fred, and Eliza and Amy for making them so much fun to play with! The only thing I claim to own is the plot.
AN: For Ambs. Because dude, she is the epitome of Fraith!

Fred stared at the book in front of her and sighed. She’d been staring so long the words were beginning to swim, and she still wasn’t making any headway. She didn’t dare take a break in case she missed her chance at making a breakthrough, and besides, she didn’t want to go out there without anything new to say.

Every now and again they’d come to see how she was doing. She shouldn’t really have been counting, she should have been concentrating. Faith once, Gunn twice. Wesley five times. Connor hadn’t been at all and Cordelia had been in the most. She knew they were all counting on her, and in a way that made her worse. Why should it be down to her? They were all just sitting on their asses out there, with their theories and their plotting. But little old Fred got stuck with the actual hard work.

“Hey, Texas!” Faith stuck her head around the office door. Fred realised that made twice. Tied with Gunn. “Got anything for me?”

Fred scowled. “Still working on it.”

“So I see…” Faith wandered into the office and picked up a book, closing the door behind her. “Anything we can do to help?”

“Yeah.” She took the book back from Faith. “Stop messing with my system.”

She watched as Faith carefully stepped around the books and papers that were laid out on the floor in a way that made sense to only Fred. She noticed that Fred had closed all the blinds, making herself even more isolated from the rest of them. Sitting down on a free chair, Faith grinned as Fred stared at her.

“Figured you might like some company.'”

Fred couldn’t help but smile back at that. It’s true, she was going crazy in the silence. Perhaps with someone to chat to, the words would stop spinning and just maybe something would click.

“Where’d you get all this stuff from, Fred? I thought the problem was that we didn’t have enough info?”

“We don’t. Most of this is notes, parts of translations, things to help me translate things that might be useful if only I could translate them.”

“So, we still got nothing.”

“Well, no, I mean … there are a couple of leads I need to … and some phonecalls I should …” she caught Faith’s eye and sighed. “We got nothing.”

“You need to chill, Texas. You’re never going to get it if you’re all tightly wound and stressed.”

Fred looked at Faith over the top of her glasses. “Yeah, because telling me that makes it all so much better.”

“We’re all right here for you.”

“Yeah, well maybe if you were all a little more with the doing and not so much with the oh-so-thrilling pep talks, we’d get wherever ‘there’ is that eensy bit faster.” Fred sighed again. “It’s just so much to do on my own.”

“I know, Texas, I know.”

Faith pushed herself up out of the chair and rounded Fred’s desk, coming to a stop behind her chair. “Like I said,” she whispered. "Chill.” Placing her hands on Fred’s shoulders, she rubbed them gently.

Fred jumped a little as she felt the younger girl’s hands on her shoulders. “Faith, I really don’t have time for …” she trailed off as Faith kneaded the skin around Fred’s shoulders and neck. Fred felt all of the knots she’d worked up beginning to just pop away. “…this.”

Dropping her pen onto the table, Fred leant back into the chair and closed her eyes. Faith knew just the right amount of pressure to use, when to rub and when to knead – it felt as if she were inside Fred’s head, knowing what she needed. “Oh …” A small moan escaped Fred’s lips as she became more involved in what Faith was doing, and less worried about translations and runes and all the rest of it.

Faith watched as a smile slowly spread across Fred’s face while she worked on her. Pulling her hands from Fred’s shoulders, she brought an arm round the front of the elder girl’s body and took her hand, pulling her out of the chair and turning her so that they were facing each other.

Glancing from Fred’s eyes to her lips and back again, Faith pressed her lips against Fred’s and hoped against hope that she would respond. She did. Faith had never pictured Fred as a wild child, but within minutes Fred’s hands were under Faith’s shirt, and Faith was tangling her hands up in Fred’s hair. By the time they were both down to their underwear, they’d pulled away from the kiss and were staring at each other hungrily, waiting to see who was going to make the next move, and what it would be.

Fred grabbed Faith’s hands and pulled her backwards towards the desk. Looking at her carefully organised notes for a split second, she wiped the desk clear of everything on it, and lay back across it. Grinning at the shock on Faith’s face and pulling her on top, Fred laughed.

“You look like someone who’d want to be on top.”

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