provincialbelle | (no subject)

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fred

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Belle had been so grateful to Jane for all the help she had offered and all the lessons, but she felt that sometimes she began to pester her. After all that fuss and to-do with the portal, she'd found a ray of hope in the mess and was just waiting for the right time to pursue it. She'd felt sick for so long and then there'd been the body. Now, though, she was tired of huddling to herself and tired of putting things off.

She wanted to learn more about all the wondrous and mad and perfect things out there and if she didn't take a step out her front door, she was never going to find that. So, she ventured out to the lab when she knew that Fred worked there, knocking apprehensively on the door. "Miss Burkle? I'm Belle, Jane's student. Can I come in?"

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She feels almost guilty that she's not really up to much in the lab today, mostly trying to make sense of something Dr. Bishop wrote down yesterday, she thinks. Fred has sat through enough of his lectures that she doesn't think it's possible to pick his brain enough about multi-dimensional theory.

"Hi! Yeah, from before, right? With the portal," Fred replies, immediately recognizing Jane from when they'd all kept the portal open. You didn't really forget someone's face after sharing the experience of being splattered by inter-dimensional wolf guts.

"The portal," Belle agreed with a small laugh that was born mostly out of disbelief. After all, it wasn't really the sort of thing you just forgot about. It was fairly hard to forget about the whole traumatic thing. "Are you busy?" she asked. "I wanted to talk to you -- or, well, ask you about something -- but only if you're not busy."

"No, I'm not busy," Fred says, "Sorry, you kinda caught me snooping."

Nothing's really come of it, though. Half the stuff she finds, she doesn't really understand, even after paying as much attention as she does during Doctor Bishop's lectures. Though, Fred figures it'd probably be the same way if anyone tried to read her own notes; they're never complete thoughts, mostly bits and pieces that eventually jog pieces of her memory.

"Snooping?" Belle echoed curiously, wandering inside another few steps. She wasn't sure what the other woman meant, since it seemed that everything she was doing seemed awfully legitimate. "On what?"

"Promise not to tell?" Fred asks Belle, feeling pretty dumb for it. "I was trying to make sense of some of these notes left lyin' around. I think some of them are Doctor Bishop's. And... haven't exactly asked."

Somehow, based on how he'd acted when he'd found out about the portal that had been opened, Fred didn't think he'd be as excited as she was about trying to figure out how to get another one working.

"I don't see how that could hurt anybody," Belle rationed aloud. After all, her curiosity had always gotten the best of her and while it'd found her trouble, she could never, not ever, regret doing it. "Do you want some help?" she asked eagerly. "Maybe if we found something, you could explain it to me. It's why I've come. I'm very interested in your particular field of study."

"You say that like I'm some kinda expert," Fred replies, frowning. Because she wasn't at home, and she definitely isn't here, when all of the laws of physics have gone all wonky. Things shouldn't be able to appear out of thin air, people's physical properties shouldn't be changed just by arriving, and she won't even start in on the crazy weather patterns.

Even a meteorologist would drive themselves crazy trying to figure anything out on the island.

"Well," Belle began with an expectant look on her face -- mostly because that was exactly what she assumed. "Aren't you? I mean, you're so smart and you know so much. I can't imagine that those things wouldn't qualify you as an expert, especially compared to someone like me." For all her curiosity and her will to learn, she didn't have a mind for creating formulas like Jane and Fred seemed to.

Fred never even finished grad school back in Los Angeles— it was kinda hard to do that when you were suddenly relocated to a demon dimension for five years— so it was a little difficult for her to agree with Belle on that point.

"I guess I know some of the basic theories," Fred conceded, "It really just depends on what you're looking to learn more about."

"I want to learn about anything," Belle spoke with great passion, a desperate look in her eyes. "I spent so long with books and no friends to speak of that now that people are willing to actually talk to me, I don't want to lose the opportunity," she confessed. "I'd be happy to learn anything you wanted to teach me, however simple; however basic."

Fred's somehow reminded of her time in Pylea. Except she hadn't even had books there. Pretty much everything there was to read, she'd written it herself on a cave wall.

"Well, most of what I studied back home was theoretical physics and particle physics. I guess maybe we could start there if you wanted?"

Which isn't really basic, but maybe they can work up to it.

"I'd have to read up on the whole subject in my spare hours to even be close to what you do," Belle admitted aloud, mostly wanting it clear that she was going to need some measure of patience. "But yes. Yes, I would love that. I could offer something in turn? I'm fairly good with all things literature. Or, do you want to learn French? I could teach you about french or singing or wines...?"

"Wines? Really?" Fred asks, only because the suggestion takes her completely by surprise. She knows pretty much next to nothing about wines, come to think of it. Except for the effects of it, and the science of fermentation, but that's probably not what Belle's talking about.

Belle nodded eagerly, hoping that this would be the thing that would get her lessons in all sorts of mystical and strange and wonderful sciences. "I lived in a small town in France. We didn't really have much to offer, but we did have very good wine. I learned a thing or two from how to recognize a good one."

"Seems like a pretty fair trade to me," Fred replies, because heck, where's she ever going to get to learn about wines on the island? It's not as if there are any classes at the school for it. And besides, once she figures out a way home, maybe she'll be able to dazzle everyone with her knowledge of cabernets.

You know, between nearly-thwarted apocalypses.

Belle gave a thoughtful nod, pushing her hair behind her ears as she leaned in, espousing the secrecy that Fred seemed intent on. "So, where do we start in the search for his notes?"

For a second, Fred had thought that maybe Belle would forget the part where she'd been snooping at someone else's notes.

"I've actually found a lot of them already," Fred admits, and she walks over to one of the work stations where she's found a collection of papers, "At least I think so. Though I think this one might actually be about food."

She tipped her head to the side to inspect it, trying to make some sense out of it. In the end, all she can really make out is that it's probably coded to some kind of comprehension that she can't even begin to know. "Well, food is very important," she allowed.

"Not when you're tryin' to figure out what it'll take to make a portal that'll go exactly where you want it to," Fred replies, because it'll be one thing to get another one built at all, but making it go to the right place is another problem entirely.

That much is pretty clear from the last time someone tried a portal.

"Well, no," she conceded, because that did seem the world's most inopportune moment to do something like that. "Maybe we can try and suggest that food comes after life-threatening portals," she said. "Can't you make it a lab-rule or something?" she asked, earnestly.

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