Winifred "Fred" Burkle and Charles Gunn

Winifred (Origins: Teutonic/Welsh; Teutonic: A peaceful friend. Welsh: Joyful peace.) Source

Charles (Origins: Teutonic; Manly, full grown.) Source

During "Supersymmetry" (AtS Season 4, Episode 5) Fred finds out the reason why she ended up living in the 'hell' dimension called Pylea for five years, her university theoretical physics professor's envy of her talent. Professor Oliver Seidell has sent several of his brightest students to Pylea over the years in order for them not to out-shine his brilliance. While living as a 'cow', a slave to the Pylean people, Fred was nearly driven insane by the maltreatment and solitude of her new life. When the Fang Gang found her there during their travels in late season 3, it was her salvation and only way back home.

The whole experience left deep psychological scars in Fred and having found out that the reason she ended up there was due to a trusted teacher that she looked up to was too much for her. Her friends tried to warn her what would happen to her if she avenged herself, but in her anger filled pained state she couldn't see that their experience was true and that in the end she would loose a piece of her humanity and what makes her 'Fred'.

Gunn's love for Fred is so deep that he wants to help her and instead of Fred having the professor's blood on her hands Gunn steps in and kills him before tossing him through the portal. Up until now their relationship has been having some rough spots due to Gunn's jealousy over Wesley's feeling towards Fred. The event that causes them to break apart is Gunn's killing of the professor and Fred's guilty feelings over the events she started in motion.

Although Gunn has killed before they were never humans, but vampires and demons. Gunn is a 'White Hat' with a pure heart, that now has blood on his hands and has fallen from grace just as Fred has due to her feelings having led to the death of the professor and Gunn's involvement in it.

Granted the professor was not an innocent since he did send helpless young adults to a Pylean, a dimension that's dangerous and hard on humans, but did he deserve the fate he was dealt without a real trial? Does his cold-blooded murder by Gunn seem justified? If it were justified then why can neither Fred or Gunn can look the other in the eye without feeling guilt and pain?

How can they become redeemed? I'm sure they both want to clean their hands and make up for their folly, but how do you redeem yourself after murder?

->Also read The Relationship between Fred and Gunn: Shakespeare's Othello for more in site on their relationship.

->Gunn's confrontation with Wesley.

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GUNN: Fred?
He finds her crouched in the corner, writing on the wall and muttering to herself.
FRED: P versus NP, where NP is nondeterministic polynominal time. This is NP. Lost time. Time spent.
Gunn walks over to her.
GUNN: I never liked the paint in here. Hey, let’s redo the place, really make it ours.
FRED: I was just… I couldn’t sleep.
GUNN: Fred, demons, portals… that happens. Doesn’t mean that you’re going back to Pylea.
FRED: Every time I close my eyes I see it. Like it’s happening all over again.
GUNN: I know, baby.
FRED: Five years of hiding in caves and scrounging for food, wearing that collar. You don’t know! You couldn’t.
GUNN: You’re never going back to that place. You’re safe now.
FRED: I was safe in the library until I opened that book and read those words and then wham! I was hurling through dimensions.
GUNN: Come back to bed, all right? It’ll all look different in the morning.

GUNN: Fred. Thank god. Look, there is something we got to tell you. The portal…
FRED: It was Professor Seidel.
GUNN: Yeah.
FRED: And he’s done it before.
ANGEL: That’s right. There are others.
FRED: No. To me. He’s the son of a bitch that sent me to Pylea.
GUNN: What?
ANGEL: We’re going to get this guy.
GUNN: Count on it. He’s going to pay.
FRED: No. He’s gonna die.
Gunn looks at her warily.
GUNN: What do you mean, die?
FRED: I don’t know yet but it’s going to be about pain.
Fred opens the weapons cabinet and sorts through the blades.
FRED: The halberd could work. Acting like I’m all addlebrained talking about other dimensions. Pylea, never heard of it. Right! How about a flail whipping? Would that take a nice long time?
ANGEL: Hours, if you do it right. (beat) Not that you should do it.
Angel steps up and cautiously takes the flail away from her.
ANGEL: At all. Ever.
FRED: He’s a killer. And he’s just sitting there smiling, telling me I’m so
gifted and how he wants to teach me. Oh, there is going to be a
lesson, all right.
GUNN: All right, Fred, lets calm down.
FRED: I idolized him and he sent me to hell. Me and god knows how many others who didn’t make it back, so sure! I’ll calm down… when he’s dead!
GUNN: Fred, a few years ago, I would have done in the guy myself. But this? It isn’t what we do.
Gunn tries to take the halberd away from her but she backs up.
FRED: We kill monsters every day.
GUNN: We help people. Fred, if you do this, the demons you’ll be living with won’t be the horned, fangy kind. They’ll be the kind you can’t get rid of.
FRED: You’re wrong.
ANGEL: He’s right. Whatever you do now is nothing compared to how it’ll be afterward.
GUNN: What you’re talking about goes against everything you believe in— everything we believe in. Fred, you idolized him but don’t let him be defining what you are now. (beat) Can I have the axe?
After a moment Fred lets hands it to him.
FRED: I’m sorry, Charles. I guess I kind of lost it.
GUNN: You want a drink? I could make you some cocoa.
FRED: No. Thanks. I’m just going to go lay down… for a few days.
Gunn watches Fred head upstairs, then turns to Angel.
GUNN: So what are we going to do to this guy?
ANGEL: No idea. But let’s do it fast.
GUNN: We got to get to him before Fred changes her mind. Because vengeance? It can get ugly.

Wesley opens a couple of beers and hands one to Fred.
WESLEY: Vengeance. Sounds good.
FRED: Angel and Gunn want me to be all sweetness and light. Cute little Fred, she’ll turn the other cheek like a good girl. I mean, they saw what Professor Seidel is capable of! He opened that portal right in front of them.
WESLEY: They dealt with it handily enough.
FRED: You were there?
WESLEY: I read your article, saw you’d be speaking. It was an excellent piece. Although I’m not sure I understand how Pauli repulsion is so readily reversed. Layman’s opinion.
FRED: You’ve been keeping track of me?
WESLEY: Yes. Well, about this Professor Seidel, what did you have in mind?
FRED: Beyond pain, I’m not really sure. That’s why I came to you.
Wesley sets his bottle down and leans forward.
WESLEY: Fred, you do know that everything Angel and Gunn told you is true. Vengeance will have a price and once you’ve acted, you can’t go back. You’ll have to live with your actions forever.
FRED: He’s a serial killer.
WESLEY: All right, then. I’m sure we’ll find an appropriate solution.
He goes over to his books and Fred watches over his shoulder as he flips through the pages.
WESLEY: Ah, here is something interesting. Once practiced in ancient Egypt.
FRED: Is that his tongue?
Fred’s cell phone chirps and she flips it open. But instead of the caller’s number, she finds a series of runic symbols on the display screen. Almost instantly, a fierce wind springs up in the apartment and a portal opens right in front of her and Wesley. Wesley drops the book and grabs onto her, throwing them both over the back of the sofa.

Angel and Gunn stand in Fred’s empty room.
GUNN: And I’m asking her if she wants cocoa. Stupid!
ANGEL: She’s going to kill him.
GUNN: If he doesn’t kill her first. You know where she went.
ANGEL: Look, I’m faster on my own.
GUNN: Go. I’ll meet you there.

Wesley drives while Fred fits a bolt into a crossbow.
WESLEY: You remember everything we went over?
FRED: I do. And I’m going to give him exactly what he deserves. Thanks to you. (off his look) What?
WESLEY: I was just thinking… not that I don’t get his point but I’m surprised Gunn’s not here. No matter what the consequences.
FRED: Charles doesn’t have it in him. It’s part of what I love about him.
WESLEY: You can still back out if you think Gunn’s right.
FRED: It’s not about what’s right. Pull over there.
WESLEY: I’d ask to tag along.
FRED: But you know what the answer would be.
Wesley watches silently as she gets out of the car.

The professor stares at Fred apprehensively.
FRED: Stay right there.
SEIDEL: Winifred… Fred. Please. Let’s talk about this.
FRED: Talk? Sure, let’s talk. Because you gave me the chance to… oh, wait. No, you didn’t. Oh, well. No talking.
SEIDEL: Fred, I know you. You’re not capable of hurting anyone.
FRED: You don’t know me. Not anymore. Five years of pain and suffering in a hell dimension will make a girl capable of a lot of things.

FRED: Kind of funny thinking how threatened you were by me back when I was a grad student. That’s why you sent me and the others away, isn’t it? You couldn’t handle the competition.
SEIDEL: Fred…
FRED: And that’s why Laurie is still around. She’s not smart enough to overshadow you, is she? Not like me. I’m special. Special on a Pylean platter with a side of you-make-me-sick!
SEIDEL: Why don’t you just let me—
FRED: Go? Well, since you asked so nicely, sure. I’ve even practiced a good-bye speech. Klyv mat chyvma klyvma chyt.
A swirling portal opens in the floor between them and the professor grabs onto the lab table behind him as it draws him in. The door slams open and Gunn runs into the lab.
GUNN: Fred! No!
FRED: Go away, Charles! You asked me not to kill him and I’m not. Not exactly.
GUNN: Sure you are. No way he can survive that.
He takes the crossbow away from Fred.
GUNN: Fred, don’t let him do this to you.
FRED: How dare you? You don’t know. You don’t know what it was like!
SEIDEL: Please help me!
GUNN: I promise, we’ll stop him. We’ll find some other way.
SEIDEL: Fred! Winifred, please! Help me!
FRED: You see? He’ll never stop! He’ll do it again!
GUNN: If you kill him, I’m going to lose you.
SEIDEL: Help me!
Gunn reaches over and pulls Seidel away just as the lab table is sucked into the portal.
FRED: Charles, no!
Gunn looks at Fred for a long beat, then makes a decision. He seizes Seidel’s head between his hands and twists violently, snapping his neck and killing him, then lets the body drop into the portal, which instantly closes, leaving no trace of its existence. Fred and Gunn face each other across the room as Angel emerges from the office.
ANGEL: What happened to the professor?
GUNN: It’s taken care of.

Angel, Fred and Gunn enter.
ANGEL: Sucked into his own portal. Wish I could have seen his face.
Gunn heads for the stairs and Fred follows.
GUNN: Yeah. I’m going to…
FRED: Good night.
ANGEL: Good night.

"Supersymmetry" (AtS Season 4, Episode 5)

 

GUNN: Look at us. Where we are. I mean, yesterday we were happy. Happier than I ever thought possible. Now we’re trudging through sewage, hunting some 13-year-old kid to drag his ass back down her so he doesn’t find out it’s Shangri-la-la land up there.
FRED: He’s scared, Charles. Think how he feels.
GUNN: You heard Angel. Feelings don’t enter into it anymore.
FRED: Is that the world we’re fighting for? The right to be a heartless and uncaring shell? To be dead inside?
GUNN: We’re going to be dead period if Jasmine gets a hold of that kid. We’re fighting for our survival.
FRED: That’s not enough, Charles. Not for me. Maybe you can turn off your feelings like Angel can, leave the people we care about behind.
GUNN: Yeah, well, you had no trouble turning off your emotion chip when…
FRED: When what?
GUNN: Nothing.
FRED: What were you going to say?
GUNN: Forget it.
FRED: No! When did I ever—
GUNN: When you and I killed a man. (beat) I mean, when I did.
FRED: We did.
GUNN: Whatever. Point is, when the circumstances called for it, you did what you thought you had to. Didn’t matter what anybody else thought.
FRED: You’re right about all of it except for one thing. What we did, I felt it. Every bit of it. And, you know, sometimes when I allow myself to think about it, it eats me up inside.
GUNN: Yeah, me, too.
FRED: Well, I don’t know about you but I’d take that over being a shell any day.
GUNN: (nods) Come on. There’s a scared kid out there we gotta find.

"Sacrifice" (AtS Season 4, Episode 20)
Confrontation

GUNN: So I’m the muscle, huh?
Wesley turns to find Gunn sitting in the shadows behind the desk.
WESLEY: Sorry?
GUNN: Angel’s the man on the card. It’s his world. I’m not a leader no more. I don’t have that champion’s heart like Cordy and the brains, why that was you. So that leaves muscle.
WESLEY: What about Fred?
GUNN: Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? She’s pretty brainy, too. Maybe you two are kindred souls. Maybe that’s why she went to you for help getting revenge on that professor. Killing takes brains.
Wesley picks up the bottle.
WESLEY: I did what you weren’t prepared to do.
Gunn stands up and approaches Wesley.
GUNN: You have no idea what I— what I would do for her.
WESLEY: Is there some reason I should need to know?
GUNN: You think I don’t smell this a mile off? You think I don’t know why you keep coming back here?
WESLEY: Because you keep needing my help.
Wesley tries to leave but Gunn blocks him.
GUNN: I’m going to say this once. You move on Fred and I will put you down hard.
WESLEY: I’m glad to see you have such faith in your relationship.
GUNN: Keep pushing, English!
WESLEY: Do you think you could get out of my way?
Wesley tries to push past Gunn but Gunn grabs his arm.
GUNN: You know, once—
Gunn freezes as Wesley triggers his wrist blade and holds it to his throat.

WESLEY: Not all of us have muscle to fall back on.
Wesley retracts the blade and Gunn lets go of him.
GUNN: What happened to you, man?
WESLEY: I had my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me.

Spin the Bottle (S4,Ep6)
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