"Our Hearts Was Broke at Doublemeat Palace..."

Summary: An Angelic veteran of the Redemptionista Wars tells the sad tale of defeat...

PG-13

The jubilant crowd at the bar kept ole Willie on his toes...Back to and fro, fetching drinks, dashing off a quick story to bring a smile, taking the occasional food order for his girls to bring back from the restaurant next door...Breaking up the rare, mostly good-natured, rough-housing...Natural after so great a victory for the forces of Light and Redemption...

But, in a dark corner...Kindly allowed his space by our always tolerant Willie the Snitch...A grizzled veteran of the Angel forces nursed his drink in silence...Listening to the young pups around the bar tell their tales, mostly grossly exaggerated, of the feats they'd performed, the great victories they'd personally won or participated in at the service of their triumphant Queen and her devoted Consort...

"Doublemeat Palace..." one young fellow began...

That was where the tide turned for good...

"You knew the war was won after that...When I saw the Angelic calvary flyin' away from us there...I said to my mates... "Boys, this here war's over..."...I tell you, that day we did some good work..."

A minor calvary skirmish...one fellow sniffed...Staff by the look of him...

Notable only for the fact that the Prince himself led the charge that routed the enemy...With the Queen turning to him when things seemed to be turning for the worse...

Bolstered morale, of course...But hardly decisive...he continued...

Pfft...the first young soldier sneered...

"A staffer..." he noted to his girl...

Never saw a battlefield throughout the war I'll wager...

Hmpf...The staffer sniffed again...

"It's well known that it was the Battle of Sunnydale...When our Prince defeated the attack of the Troika Lords and he and our Queen fought Angel and his Lord themselves and won...that decided the war..." he insisted...

Troika Lords...Bah...the young soldier retorted...Now a bit angry...Somewhat drunkenly so...

Nerds with big guns, Buffy bots, and Warren clones...C'mon...They never had a chance against us...

"You're more right than you know, youngster..." the old Angelic vet sighed...Rising...

Doublemeat Palace...he spit out the words...

That was the place...That was the battle...

"Our hearts was broke there...When we saw the Queen off in the alley with that there Prince Will..."

Havin' sex...

Several soldiers were on their feet in a hot moment...Nobody insults the Queen and her Consort like that...!

"Here now, you...Angel boy..." the staffer glared at the grizzled vet...

Keep a civil tongue in your damned head or it may be torn out yet...Amnesty or no amnesty...

The old man glared back...At an intensity that withered the staffer back into his seat...

He turned to the young soldier...

"You were there, eh...So you know...You saw it...In that alley..."

Yeah...the boy nodded...I saw...

She seemed so sad...he sighed...Almost the boy he was in age again for a moment...

But we could see she had placed her hope in him...That she had turned to him...

And ole Angel...Was out...

For good...

"Yeah..." the vet nodded sadly...

"And when we saw it...All the heart went out of us...We knew our Angel was through...In the Buffyverse anyway..."

Then the Prince led his charge and we broke...

For the first time ever...We broke...And ran...

He sat in the closest booth, putting his head down on the table...And sobbed...

The young soldier eyed him, and kindly looked away...The rest of the room following suit...No one, not even the staffer

or the civilian guests breaking the unspoken joint agreement to spare the feelings of one who had so recently been a proud fellow soldier...Even if an enemy...

Willie came over and led the ole fellow back to his corner...

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