“Who’s first?” Buffy asked with forced enthusiasm. Once Snyder allowed her and Gunn to leave, she’d taken a quick shower in the station’s locker room and borrowed some too big clothes from one of Xander’s co-workers, and now she and Gunn were figuring out how to proceed.
“Buffy, are you—“
“Gunn. I can’t. I can not talk to you about anything but the case right now, okay?” Her broken heart burned inside her chest every time she even thought about her future. And Spike’s future. “Thank you, though. For defending me before. But let’s just get to work. Let’s start with Fred? I have some things to say to that girl.”
He nodded, his own heart feeling a slight twinge. “Security footage shows her entering the building. The camera outside Giles’s room was broken, though, so we don’t actually have her going into his suite.”
Buffy stopped short as they headed down the hall. “Wait, Gunn…” Something struck her, and she slowly turned towards him. “How did Fred even know where Giles was?”
“Hey, wasn’t me. I didn’t tell her,” he insisted, guilt flashing in his dark eyes. “I…I mentioned his name. But not where he was.”
She continued to frown. “And my necklace. How did you even know that was my necklace? You never saw me wear it.”
“Um. Drusilla. What she told me…she didn’t directly say you were…whatever with Spike. She said something weird, like Spike finding his sunshine, and the sunshine was playing games with me, her knight captured the light and gave her shiny bits so she’d sparkle, and all of us were playing games too, and some people didn’t know they were pawns…I don’t even know, it was ridiculous. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I was in our room, and I saw that necklace, and…I just figured out about you and Spike.”
“You just saw the necklace.”
“Buffy, this isn’t the time---“
“Oh, it is the time, Charles.” Her usage of his given name was a clear indication that she meant business. She glanced around the slightly deserted hallway, but still lowered her voice. “You just saw the necklace. Lying around. In the open.”
He sighed and relented. “No…it was in your duffle bag.”
“You went through my stuff?”
“Well, I guess. In a way.”
“In the way that you totally did. So, you figured out I was sunshine, and went through my stuff.”
“Come on, with hair like that? Who else could it be?” He joked hopefully.
“Oh, shut up, baldy. You really weren’t trusting me, were you?” He opened his mouth to protest, and she continued grudgingly, “Not that…not that I totally deserved your trust.”
“Well, yeah.”
Buffy sighed. “So…mutual forgiveness?”
“Works for me,” Gunn grinned.
“Good. So, Drusilla’s the one who helped me get out of Angelus’s house, did I say that? I don’t remember, everything was all…whatever up in Buffy-brain. But she caused a distraction so I could leave.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t. But there’s nothing directly tying her to any specific crimes, anyway. She’s probably in a room around here somewhere but she probably won’t be charged.”
“Ah. Well, I need to thank her. And she claims she didn’t tell Angelus that Spike was betraying him, so we definitely need to figure out how that happened.”
Gunn nodded. “Some serious loose ends. Can you take point with Fred? I don’t know if I…” He tightened his jaw.
“Sure, of course. She’ll get what’s coming to her, Gunn.” She added softly, “I guess we all will.”
Gunn smiled at her sadly. The two entered the room where Fred was waiting, both trying their best to suppress their rage as they looked at the thin brunette sitting handcuffed, head bowed.
When she did finally raise her head to look at them, Buffy tried and failed to ignore her pang of sympathy as she took in the full scope of the woman’s injuries. Most of the damage that had been inflicted on her had been internal, aside from the few bruises on her face, and already felt almost back to normal, physically anyway. But Fred appeared to have suffered from far more beating than she had, and that beating had clearly come from a place of rage, not just for entertainment. She had one black eye, a split lip, a scrape on her chin in the pattern of a shoe sole, and her throat was decorated with the beginnings of deep bruises in the shape of hands. Buffy wanted to avert her eyes, but couldn’t help but stare at the girl’s broken face and pained eyes.
Fred wasn’t even looking back at her. Her gaze was focused on Gunn, silently pleading with him to look at her. But he sat down and stared down at the table, refusing to meet her gaze.
“So you got all fixed up?” Buffy asked as the silence stretched on too long, then wincing at the ridiculous question. She clearly wasn’t fixed.
“I guess. You?”
“Back in working order.”
The silence filled the room again. “I swear to God I didn’t mean to, Gunn,” Fred finally whispered.
“Didn’t mean to what?” He asked.
“Mean to…oh, Lord, should I have a lawyer?”
“If you want one,” Buffy shrugged. “We can leave you here for a few hours while you get a hold of one. No skin off my nose. Or back. What’s the phrase, Gunn?”
“Both work.”
“Good to know.”
Fred bit her lip and then winced when she found it swollen and tender. “I don’t…I don’t think I want a lawyer.”
“Okay. But once you start talking, if you change your mind I’m going to be pretty pouty,” Buffy said, her tone harsher than her lighthearted words would suggest. “Don’t waste my time.”
“I won’t. I swear.”
“Good.” Buffy set a recorder on the table between herself and Fred, then turned it on. “July 14th, 2008, interrogation conducted by Agents Buffy Summers and Charles Gunn. Have you been made aware of your rights?”
Fred nodded, then realized that wouldn’t be on the tape, and said softly, “Yes.”
“Just state your name, and say you forego your right to an attorney.”
“Winifred Burkle? And, um. I don’t want a lawyer. I forego my right.”
“Okay, let’s start off easy with---“
“I didn’t mean to kill him!”
“Or we could just jump in with both feet.”
“I swear to God, I didn’t! I went to him for his help.”
“His help being on the receiving end of your bullet?”
“No! No, he wouldn’t believe me!” She started to cry loudly, and Buffy felt Gunn tense up next to her. “I left the warehouse and didn’t know where to go and Xander wouldn’t pick up his phone and Angelus had told me, that morning, that they knew about you two, and I had heard him say the address and everything was going wrong, so wrong, and---“
“You didn’t…you didn’t tell Angelus about us?” Gunn’s voice was hopeful, but disbelieving, as he looked for the first time at Fred’s face and visibly cringed.
“No! Gunn, I didn’t. I would never. I promise.”
“How did he find out then?”
“He had your phone bugged, or something! I mean, I don’t know how, but they had a recording of your calls, and tracked them all, it was like some sort of magic. I guess Forrest managed to get it from you without you noticing and put some bug or chip or something in it. I don’t know.”
“You know we can prove that, Fred. We recovered my phone at the warehouse.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Okay, so you went to Giles why?” Buffy said.
“I didn’t know where else to go! I couldn’t find Xander. So I thought I’d tell him you two had been found out, and they knew what Spike was doing. And he Angelus trusted me, or I thought he did, and I wanted to help. But Giles wouldn’t believe me. He thought I was trying to trick him, or something.”
“So you got mad?”
“No! No, I thought I was running out of time, I didn’t know what had happened at the warehouse, and I needed to get back to Angelus, with some sort of story. So I thought…God, I had taken my gun from the car. And I pulled it out.”
“What kind of gun?”
“Um. I don’t know. I don’t really know anything about weapons, Spike had bought it for me. To protect myself.”
“Alright, keep going. You pulled out the gun?”
“I was just trying to get him to listen to me, and then he tried to take it from me. And I pulled it away, I needed it, I needed….and…it just went off…and he looked so sad....” Her voice trailed off, and words hung in the air, weighted and heavy.
“It just went off.” Buffy repeated disbelievingly, Fred’s story creating a vivid image in her mind. Giles, her Giles, that look of polite disbelief on his face, a look she knew well, reaching to take a lethal weapon from a no doubt hysterical woman. He’d probably been so shocked when he’d been shot; Giles had never been one to handle surprise very well. Buffy hadn’t let herself even contemplate his death, but now, hearing how it happened, a lump began to rise in her throat.
“How many times did you shoot him?”
“Once. Just once. God, I didn’t know one bullet could cause so much blood,” Fred whimpered.
Buffy tightened her grip on her own knee as she forced herself to continue the interrogation. “Where did the bullet enter the body?”
“Um. His chest. Right…right by his heart.”
“So you pulled out the gun just for show, he grabbed it, and you accidentally shot him in the heart. That’s about how it went?”
“I know it sounds so, I don’t know, stupid. But I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt him.” The tears were falling faster now, and she could hardly force out her words. “I just wanted him to listen to me, and I was panicked. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t.” She was almost talking to herself now, and neither Buffy nor Gunn spoke up to interrupt her muttering, both too entrenched in their own grief. “I didn’t, and now everything is wrong, and I just wanted it all to be better. I should write it down, right? For you, if I write it all down, it’ll make more sense, if I just---“
Buffy couldn’t allow one more second of her anguish, chose anger as its replacement emotion, and cut off the hysterical Fred. “It was an accident, so you decided to frame me?”
“What? Frame you? No.”
“Then what was my necklace doing there?”
“Necklace, what necklace?”
“So you have no knowledge of a necklace being in the hotel room?”
Fred shook her head forcefully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Buffy. I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t have set you up, that’s not what I did.” Buffy and Gunn glanced at each other doubtfully, then Fred suddenly cried out, “Click! You wait for the click, where it all makes sense.”
“Um, a click?”
“Darla!” She started nodding.
“What about Darla?” prodded Gunn gently.
“Darla came to the door, right after I…right after I did it. She heard the shot and burst in and, I thought she had just been following me, she must have been, right, if she found me, although Angelus is the one who knew where I’d be, and she was there so fast. But she checked the body, leaned down and checked it. Maybe she was planning to…to shoot him herself? Maybe…I swear I didn’t mean to!” the crying girl repeated her mantra.
“Just because you keep repeating that doesn’t mean you’re innocent, Fred,” Gunn snapped.
“I know. I know that. I’m sorry, please, I’m so sorry.”
Buffy reached under the table and comfortingly patted Gunn’s clenched fist. “So what happened with Darla?”
“She asked what happened, and I told her I meant to do it. About Giles. And she laughed and laughed and she’s so evil and told me to go back to Spike’s, and wait, wait alone. So I did. Then Forrest came and brought me to Angelus, and they’d figured out that I’d been lying, figured it out and got so mad…”
“How did you even start working with Angelus?”
“It was my idea. Angelus was getting too curious, he could tell something was up, knew Spike was acting shifty. So I went to him and said I was pissed off at Spike for dumping me, and I wanted to get back at him, but I didn’t, not really. Spike was…he saved me. Saved me from the monsters of my…and I wanted to help him. Wanted to help him be good again.”
“You still considered your loyalty to be to Spike”
“Yes. Always.”
“And so what exactly were you doing?”
“I was passing info on to Angelus, and telling whatever he told me to Spike, to make sure there wasn’t any extra suspicion on him, and it was confusing and I was going crazy but I did it. I was just trying to help, I just wanted to help.” The tears hadn’t slowed, but she straightened her shoulders and tried to calm down, tried to rein in her rampant panic. “I still want to help. I’ll tell you anything you need to know. I want that bastard to go down. I want him punished.”
“Fred, do you know---“ Buffy started to say.
“Wait, let me say this. Spike was going to sacrifice himself. And he was going to keep me out of it, even though I haven’t been a perfect person either, he wanted to protect me. And you too. I’ve done things that were wrong, I know that, God, I know that. And I was just going to let him take the fall for both of us. But I won’t do that, now. I won’t be a coward, and I’ll confess and tell you everything.” Her voice broke, and she dropped her head into her hands.
Buffy turned to Gunn to say something, but he stopped her with a gesture. “Can you give us a minute?” He asked softly.
She nodded and left the room, quietly shutting the door behind her. From behind the two-way glass, she watched as Gunn moved to crouch next to Fred. He gingerly reached out to pat her back, and she instantly fell into his arms, and he clutched her tightly, and they sat together, anchoring each other in the storm swirling around them.
The image made Buffy’s heart ache, and she turned away.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A thousand million thank yous to Shadowsbabe for her invaluable help and hard work on this chapter, and throughout the fic in general! WIthout her it would not be nearly as complete. Many thanks as always to my readers and reviewers. We're in the home stretch now, you might just see the end of this fic by next week.