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Life Crises by Clarity

Life Crises 1:
Quarter-life Crisis




Author: Clarity

Disclaimer: Joss. Is. GOD. I just try to interpret his works.

Summary: Three points of view at the end of Angel Season 4. Part one-Connor

Rating: PG-13, but only for language

Spoilers: 'Peace Out', obviously; also, much of the past two seasons of Angel

Author's Notes: I hate Joss Whedon sometimes. He's taken two great shows and bogged them down with awful plot twists and done horrible things to the characters until I can barely watch. And then he pulls something like he did to poor Buffy, last Tuesday, or the scene with Connor raging at Cordelia's side last night, and I'm reminded of why I ever subscribed to 'Joss is God' anyway. I was trying to do my homework after Angel. At 9:20, I threw down my pen in frustration, opened up MSWorks, and typed this all out in one sitting. Enjoy.





“It’s over.”

‘It’s over,’ he said. How can he say that to me? How can he possibly look me in the face and tell me that it’s over?

He doesn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. He’s never been like me, never had to look around and realize that the world is pointless. No, that’s not it. He knows. He knows there’s nothing, but he won’t admit it, none of them will! They just keep grabbing at excuses to fight, to give them something to live for.

But why? If all there is is violence, is fighting, if life is blood and blood is death, if the only reason we’re born is just to die, then why even bother living? There’s nothing here for me, not really. Cordelia...but she’s in a coma. Still, as though she’s dead. She was the only one who ever made any of it worth it, and she might as well be dead for all she’s here for me.

Selfish. She’s lying there in a coma, and I’m thinking about her not being there for me. But...damnit, why can’t I want her to be? She’s the only one that ever was...her and Holtz, and he’s dead, and that all turned out so well, didn’t it? He cared about me, or said he did, and...I don’t know what to think about any of that any more. I don’t think about him much any more, or I try not to. He wasn’t my father, Angel is, Angel says he is, even though he’s a demon, he was never there, even though he doesn’t understand me. Even though he doesn’t know a damn thing about me.

I thought I understood, for a while, when Cordelia told me she was going to have a baby. I thought I might get it, a little--what Angel was supposed to feel, even if he didn’t, if he doesn’t, or what Holtz felt while I was growing up, before we came here and everything got...complicated. Parents love their children. It’s a rule, isn’t it? There was going to be a baby, and I was going to protect it, going to try to save it from this crazy, damned world that’s full of blood and fighting where the only reason anyone ever does anything is for themselves, where you have to create a reason to even exist, where you have to go looking for a fight, for a problem to fix, just so you can have the credit of fixing it. I hate it, I hate it! But there was going to be a baby, and I was going to make it better for the baby, make her life good, make her happy, make Cordelia happy, I was going to fix it so there was something more than the night forever without the sun. Only Angel, he’s the one that brought the sun back. But the point is, I wanted to protect them. I wanted to make it right.

And then she was born, and I didn’t need to. She was going to protect me. She made it right, she made everything right. Everyone else...there was a purpose, finally, something more than fighting, and if she looked like a four-day-old corpse, so what? So what? She was my daughter, mine and Cordelia’s daughter, and I loved her just for that. She was going to make the world better, good, make it matter. She was going to make it something more than just life is blood is death.

It’s not fair! It shouldn’t be like this! Why can’t the world be like she was going to make it, like she said it would be, why can’t there be a purpose like that, why can’t it all be to just love people? Why can’t we all just belong? Why don’t I belong?

I don’t ever belong!

It’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair. Why don’t I get to belong? Why did I have to be special? Why did I have to be the ‘miracle child’ of two vampires raised in a demon dimension? Why don’t I understand this world? Everyone here, they all seem to get it, they all seem to understand why. Is it because I didn’t grow up here? Is there something, some secret message parents are supposed to tell their children when they’re growing up that I just never got told? I grew up fighting, I know it, I can, I’m good at it, so why isn’t it enough for me like it is for them? It’s pointless, it’s a lie, a worthless lie, but just blindly following and doing what someone else says, just blindly trusting, that’s worse, isn’t it? They’re both wrong, they’re both pointless, it doesn’t matter! None of it matters, why doesn’t he see that? How can he look at me, how can he look at me like that?

“I’m just happy to have you.” Just to have me? He doesn’t, he never did, I don’t belong to him, I didn’t belong to her. Maybe he is my father, maybe he wants to be, like he said he does, but he doesn’t understand me and he’s not my father any more than I was Jasmine’s. She was all ready grown up when I met her, she didn’t need me to protect her, she wasn’t mine and everything she said was a lie, another lie, another lie about the point of it all that just doesn’t exist!

And if I can do that, if I can have a daughter that I met when she was all grown up, and I could...could kill her, like the demon she was, they’re all demons, aren’t they, people, I look around and everywhere there’s fire and darkness. It’s just like when the sun went out, the shouting and the rioting in the streets, and everywhere the scent of blood. But if I could do that to her and bring this back, then how can he say he wants to take care of me? How can he be anything for me? He didn’t raise me, he never had me, never loved me, never understood me, so how can I be anything to him at all? How can he be glad to have me when I was never his, not really, when I was mine before I ever even met him?

And he doesn’t understand that, does he? That look in his eyes...like he wanted me to be his, like he wanted to protect me and make it okay. And I almost...God, I wanted to. I wanted to let him. He brought the sun back. And maybe his life, the way he gives himself meaning, maybe all the fighting is a lie, but it’s not worse than hers, where everyone just follows blindly and never questions, never thinks, never is. Because... because what do I have that’s mine? Weapons break, clothes tear, get ruined, this body, it gets injured, gets hurt, I’m going to get old, but these thoughts, they’re mine. They’re mine, even Jasmine couldn’t take them from me, but she took them from everybody else and that’s worse. So what Angel does, what he’s after, the way he’s always, he and they are always running after a reason to fight, maybe it’s all a lie, but it’s better than hers, and I couldn’t buy into hers any more.

All I want is truth, but I can’t find it! Angel thinks he has it, he thought he did, I could see it in his eyes when he was talking to me. He wanted to take care of me, and for just a minute I thought maybe. Maybe it is a lie, but it’s closer to the truth, it’s the only thing I’ve found so far, and maybe it would be nice to have someone try to protect me for a change. But it’s wrong. Maybe it’s a better lie, maybe they even all believe it, but it’s still a lie. I knew it as soon as he said it was over.

It’s never over. Even I know that. No matter how many demons you kill, they always keep coming. I lived in Quor’goth, I know that, I’ve lived that, it’s never over! How can that be a purpose? If you never win, if you’re never done, if you can’t ever achieve what you’re working for, how can it be worth working for in the first place? If it can’t be done why bother? It’s never over, it will never be over. We thought it was over when the sun came out, when Jasmine came to us, we thought the fighting was over, that there was a reason and a purpose and a place. I thought I was going to belong. I thought the fight was over, that both of them were, fighting the demons and the darkness, and fighting to find a reason and a place. I thought finally, maybe, we could have won. But we didn’t. And we never will. It’s never over, it’s never going to be over, and so why bother? We live these pointless little lives full of violence and blood and pain, and then we die, and we never get anywhere. Revenge doesn’t do any good, it never does, fighting doesn’t, but what else is there? I know they haven’t found it, they don’t know, but who else do I ask? Holtz’ purpose was revenge. I thought once, maybe, it was me, but it was revenge. And Angel’s is his redemption, I know that, his precious redemption. But none of it means anything. None of it, none of it, so why bother?

She asked me if I still loved her, and I did, I do, she’s mine, she was my Jasmine mine and Cordy’s, but she just gave the world another lie and it was even worse than the one it’s trying to live on now and what else could I do?

But now what? Fire in the streets and people shouting and rioting and screaming, and why? What for? Why bother?

Why do I have to be the only person asking these questions? If there was someone else...anyone else who asked, who wondered why, but they don’t. They’re all so secure in their little fight, because it’s enough for them, if they just keep fighting they don’t have time to ask if it’s worth it if they never actually win. They don’t ask, but I do, and I don’t fit. I’ve never fit, and I’m never going to fit. If it weren’t so lonely, maybe it would be better. If I’d thought for an instant that he really understood me, that he really knew, I would have gone to him. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t have me, and I don’t have him, or her, or Cordy, or anything. I’m just empty. And alone, and...I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I should...I don’t know, find somewhere quiet, I guess, get out of the streets, stop wandering around until all the rioting is over. Keep myself in one piece until it’s over. That’s what Angel would do, what he’d ask me to do. He’s in his hotel now, I’ll bet, keeping an eye on the windows until the streets have cleared. And that’ll mean it’s over, to him, things are back to normal, like that’s a good thing. He doesn’t get it, this, here, even when it’s not on the streets it’s here. This is exactly what he does, the fighting, the blood, the fire. No, it’s different when it’s in his sewers and when it’s demons instead of humans. He’s just going to hole up and wait, and it’s going to be over soon.

Maybe that’s what he thinks about me, too. He’s a vampire, he’s going to live forever. If he just waits it out, all of it, Cordelia, his friends, me, all the trouble I’ve put him through, it’s all just going to go away eventually. It’s all just going to be over. Maybe that’s what he thinks. But he’s wrong. He’s wrong, doesn’t he see that? Why can’t he see that even after I’m dead, after all of his friends are dead, even in a thousand years, he’s still going to be running around in that stupid coat fighting? I’m glad I’m not a vampire. I couldn’t live forever. Sometimes I don’t think I’m going to stay sane living through the day. Sometimes I wish it would just end, but I know better. Even if I die, that’s not going to be the end, not in this world. Holtz was religious; I know about the afterlife. And Hell is real, I grew up there. Even if I died, it wouldn’t do any good. Nothing does any good. I wish someone, anyone, could get that.

He doesn’t understand.

It’s never over.





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