Fred had missed a lot of things in the five years she'd been in Pylea. Tacos. Tacos were definitely high on that list, but there were a million little things that she'd longed for. Shampoo. CDs. People to talk to, who considered that she might have a brain.

She hadn't been back long, but she'd had all those given back to her, and more. She'd also been reminded from the first moment that she'd set foot in the hotel that would become the center of her new world that the real world brought discomfort and pain and pesky annoyances and questions from authorities about where'd she'd been for five years.

She'd hovered on the fringes of the tragedy that had shaken Angel. She'd watched as Cordelia softened his existence, as she did for no one else, and analyzed, tried to remember normal/not normal.

She'd not said anything when Cordelia had assumed Angel didn't want to come downstairs to listen to Pike's story, and concocted a reason. When Fred had brought Amanda upstairs, Angel had not been listening to what was going on downstairs, but had been slouching against the wall, staring straight ahead. He'd looked up when Fred and Amanda had approached him.

"Hey. Um, Angel?" Amanda said hesitantly. "I'm... I'm sorry I kicked you."

Angel had relaxed. "No problem. Good kick, by the way."

"Thanks." Amanda's face was still streaked with the tears that she had shed downstairs, but she seemed to be refusing to think about it. Fred wanted to pat her head, partly for support, partly to feel the silky hair beneath her hand, but stopped herself. Not normal. She'd learn. She'd remember.

"I thought we could come upstairs and... sit?" Fred asked. She'd meant to say, "Keep you company," but Angel didn't want company. She was so hyper-sensitive to the people around her, after being alone to long, that Angel's grieving was glowing out of him. She tried to imagine wanting to be alone, and didn't understand. Then again, she'd been alone when she'd wanted to have company. Maybe if there were too many people around, you'd want to be alone. Had she always wanted what she didn't have? She couldn't remember.

"How'd you dodge the crossbow?" Amanda asked Angel, with the artless focus of a ten year old on a subject that fascinated her.

"I'm used to people shooting at me. And you're... Pike wasn't shooting to kill. He wanted to make a point."

Amanda nodded. "He's good. He doesn't miss. Well, hardly ever. He's teaching me. He says that someday, I'll have to do this."

Fred felt/saw Angel flinch back. She'd kept one ear back on the conversation downstairs, and realized that Angel had come to whatever conclusion had stunned everyone downstairs... whatever a Slayer was.

"How come..." Amanda paused and bit her lip. "How come you're a vampire, but you're a good guy?"

Angel sighed and sat down on a tattered armchair. Amanda perched on a small coffee table in front of him. "It's a long story," Angel said. "The short version is, I was meant to help people, and I do. I try."

"Me too," Amanda said eagerly. Wanting to not be alone, Fred wondered while still listening to what was going on below, wanting to share something in common? Or was that her, wanting to not be alone, wanting to share something in common with someone else? "Pike says that someday I'll be able to fight bad guys better than he does."

"Does he fight bad guys a lot?" Angel asked. Fred hid a smile behind a curtain of hair. Curious little girl managed where the rest of them hadn't, to actually get Angel to be interested enough in the world to ask a question.

"Not a lot," Amanda said, shrugging. "Usually, he's trying to keep me away from it, but sometimes he'll kick something's butt if it's in our area."

"Where's that?"

Amanda shrugged again, the hunching of her narrow shoulders more eloquent than words. "Wherever. I mean, we move around a lot. We were down in New Orleans last, and before that in Seattle and before that." Shrug. "We have to keep ahead of the cops as well as... what's chasing me."

Ping. Fred could have sworn that there was an audible chime in the room as Angel's total attention was engaged, focused on the girl in front of him.

"What's chasing you?" he asked, as gently as he had treated Fred in Pylea. When he wasn't being a monster, that is. Somewhere, she felt a pang of jealousy, as if she had ever thought that the gentleness was for her, rather than for her innocence in the situation. She sighed and let the jealousy go.

Amanda swallowed. The shrug had stuck inward and become a huddle. "Cordelia said it was vampires. That they wanted to make me a vampire." Fred saw her look up through a fringe of lashes at Angel. In a few years, this kid was going to break male hearts with that look. It looked like Amanda was damaging Angel's shell already. It wasn't flirtatious. It was honest, direct. She remembered girls in her high school who had employed that look to good effect, not-so-fragile southern belles.

Not to mention that if Cordelia had said it, it meant she had a vision, which meant, from what Fred had picked up, it was required that Angel do something. The Powers That Be, the rest of them called them. But not Kate. Not after she'd had a laughing fit at Wesley when Wesley had casually mentioned them, and then Kate and Cordelia had a screaming fight. Kate didn't exactly believe/not believe. She was in between. Kind of like Fred was. In between was the worst, but there was no way to get from one point to another without being in between for awhile.

"They won't. Not if I can stop them," Angel said quietly. "I'll do the best I can." He rose to his feet, and turned toward the staircase. And stopped. And tugged against whatever chain held him. And moved forward.

Fred understood. And all she could think to do was smile at him encouragingly, and follow him and Amanda down the stairs.