Holes
By Vanilla Tiger
AN: For Dana Woods who requested Gunn and Fred outside Wolfram and Hart with
no Fred/Wes angst. Thanks to Emony for the beta.
Feedback to fitchers_bird@yahoo.co.uk
She leaned over the wire fencing that surrounded the giant crater that once was Sunnydale. For a second it almost looked like she was about to fall, but she was alright. Fred always was in the end.
"What do you think it was like?" she asked.
"Don't know," replied Gunn. "Probably just your ordinary suburban white-bread town. Only trapped in the Twilight Zone." He grinned at Fred, who laughed appreciatively.
"I'd have liked to have grown up around here," she said, looking more serious. "Just to have seen what they were all like back then. Wesley, Angel …Cordelia."
Gunn shook his head amusedly, determined to keep the mood light. "Girl, I knew them way before you arrived and I'm telling you, you didn't miss much. Be happy you were where you were at that time." Three… two… one… and Gunn had just realised how far he'd stuck his foot in his mouth. "Not that, I meant-"
Fred took his hand and smiled at him. "I know what you meant." They stood there for a while, gazing into the distance. It really had been too long since they'd done anything like this.
The plan had come about a few days after Cordy had failed to show up for drinks with the rest of them. It was strange to think of her as dead and gone for good, no miracle cure to be found, nothing to kill that could bring her back. Although faded from their everyday thoughts since the coma, she'd always been there. One day soon she was going to get up and everything would slide back to the way it had been before
Only she had got up, and things hadn't got any better.
Someone, probably Fred but there had been too much alcohol for Gunn to be sure, had pointed out just how rarely they did anything non-work together while they were waiting for the ghost of their dead friend. There had been exclamations and stern promises that they would do something to change all of that, but no one had really expected anything to be done.
Apart from Fred, it seemed, who had turned up in Gunn's office one evening with some Mexican takeout and an earnest smile. "I knew you'd probably be too busy to go out, but at least we could have dinner together," she suggested nervously.
Gunn hadn't had the heart to refuse. Pushing various papers to one side, he cleared a space for the food on the desk. He could always finish up his paperwork later, after all.
No work got done that night; well not for Wolfram and Hart. When was the last time he and Fred had spent any time like this together, just the two of them, just talking? Their break-up had been awkward and painful but they were over all that now. That much he could be sure of, especially when he found himself listening to his ex-girlfriend chattering on about 'Knoxy'. Even the way her voice changed when talking about Wesley didn't affect him anymore, apart from the impatient frustration of having two friends who obviously liked each other but still hadn’t done anything about it.
It was talking about Wesley that sparked off the whole plan. He and Angel had been brood-twins ever since Cordy's death. There was an unspoken sense that their pain at losing a friend was so much greater than everyone else. As much as it angered Gunn, he had to admit they had a point. They'd all known each other way back in their Sunnydale days, when they'd only been bit players in the great drama that was Buffy Summers' life.
He'd never been to Sunnydale, neither had Fred. This small town had so much impact on all their lives, and he had only the barest idea of what it had ever looked like. There was something wrong about that, he had told her.
"So why don't we go?" she suggested, her eyes lighting up. "I'd love to see the place."
"Uh, Fred? There is no place anymore. Remember the big apocalypse last summer?" It had seemed like a good idea though, a chance to wave goodbye to all the ghosts that haunted them from a life they'd never lived.
"I know that, silly. Still, wouldn't it be good to see where it all happened? Even if there is nothing left to see." She grinned at him, two stages away from bouncing up and down.
It was hard to say no, especially with her excitement so obvious. So he didn't, and here they were. It had been easier than he'd thought it would be to put everything aside for a day and leave. Getting away from everything, the work, the office, LA, just getting to spend some time with his girl, it felt right. There was peace there, and comfort. Simple friendship was something he hadn't had the time to realise he was missing.
Just standing there in the California sun, Gunn felt a surge of warmth towards the woman he had once loved, still loved although not in that desperate and passionate way of their past. It had been far too long since they'd spent time together. He'd forgotten just how good it had been before the twists and turns of relationships had screwed everything up.
They didn't have to be dating for her to still be his girl. Their friendships had taken a battering lately, but that was all going to change. Gunn would do anything to help his friends, after all, no matter what the cost.