Fred woke up, and smiled as she glanced over at Wesley. "I finally get you up to my bedroom, and all you want to do is read."
"You dozed off. Was I making too much noise?" Wesley asked.
"Not enough. I need noise to keep me here. Is it today? I mean..." She looked confused.
"You only slept for an hour," he told her.
"That's an hour I don't got now."
"Angel and Spike are on their way to finding your cure, and I shouldn't like to be the thing standing in their way," Wesley almost smiled.
"And book man?" she asked.
"Book man came through. I think I gave 'em what they need."
Fred sat up looking anxious. "Feigenbaum!"
"What?"
"I - I have to find him. He's the master of... I have to have Feigenbaum here," Fred said, panicked.
"Who is Feigenbaum?" Wesley asked.
Fred stopped trying to get out of bed and her face crumbled as she started to cry. "I don't remember."
"Shh, shh," Wesley soothed, reaching to hold her.
"Oh, isn't it terrible? At a time like this, I'm worried about how crappy I look!"
"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he reassured her.
"Do you always like splotchy girls?" Fred teased weakly.
"It's my curse."
"Read to me?"
"The Dreadhost's Compendium of Immortal Leeches?"
"Can that be any book in the world?" Fred asked.
"Name one."
~*~*~*~
"She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown- up people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time..." Wesley read.
Fred smiled faintly, eyes closing.