DONG…
There was something wrong, but Angel was tired, so very
tired, so he ignored it. He’d rescued his closest friend, saved a prisoner,
and it looked like his friends were once more accepting him as part of their
group. He belonged, finally, he belonged. He had before, but that was long ago
(it felt like another life, though scant years had actually passed) but this was
different.
In more ways than the vampire with a soul realized, it was
different, for his friends accepted him, but with restrictions, his friends
allowed him to be a part of their group once more, but that was because they
were being magnanimous, because it was the right thing to do. Because, they
knew, he needed them more than they needed him.
So Angel pushed aside those thoughts, he was so very good at that, he tramped down on his weariness, on the inexorable fact that there was most definitely something wrong, made his way to the front and opened the doors which led to the lobby of his building.
Really, it was way too big for just him, but he liked the space. And if, on
entirely too many occasions, he thought that one day a petite blonde with
gorgeous green eyes would stay with him, would – miraculously – consent to
be the mother of his children, then the space wouldn’t be nearly enough. Not
for the dozen or so children he wanted with her, all with her smile, her golden
hair, her infectious laugh.
Something was still wrong, but Angel tried, so desperately, and with years – centuries – of practice, to ignore it. “Okay. Can I say it? I wanna say it.”
Wesley, tired, weary, somewhat in shock over what just happened, asked, “Say what?”
Pushing open the double doors and walking into the lobby, Angel smiled. He could
all but feel the sheer giddiness in the air from the people behind him
(wrongness, it was choking him it was so wrong, everything was wrong.)
“There’s no place like...”
And there was Willow. The redhead said nothing, as Angel said her name, a plea that what he knew, deep down that even death (oh, God, please, not death) couldn’t touch to be true. She simply sat there and Angel thought that they really needed to get better security in the hotel. But that was stupid, because what good would security do when his entire life no longer had meaning?
Cordelia was next to him in a moment, confused. Not really understanding what
her friend was talking about, nor why Willow was in the lobby of their hotel in
LA. “What’s…?”
And then, Willow slowly stood, her eyes never leaving
Angel, and still, still she said
nothing. She didn’t have to; it was so clear on the vampire’s face that he
knew what she’d driven to LA, yesterday, to tell him.
“It’s Buffy.”
The scream that tore from the vampire’s lips seconds
after those fateful words left his mouth, echoed throughout the building,
rattling doors and windows, causing the newest saved soul to squeak in fear and
run to the nearest corner. Gunn watched his friend and wondered what happened to
cause the normally stoic vampire to so completely lose it like that. Wesley
moved next to Cordelia, putting his hand on her arm, silently asking if she
knew…still the screaming went on.
Willow moved to where Angel collapsed to his knees, head
thrown back, eyes red with anger, heart wrenching sadness, and, above all, the
knowledge that all his hopes, dreams, desires, fantasies, his life were six feet
in the ground, two hours away, with the only being he’d ever loved.
Buffy Summers died, and with her death, her sacrifice to
her sister, the world, and even her vampire lover, had taken the heart of said
lover with her.
DO
Heaven was everything it was cracked up to be and so very
much more.
There she had everything she ever wanted, hope, peace, ah,
that precious peace. Quiet. Rest. Things to see and read, people to meet, other
slayers to talk with, Kendra was there, though Buffy only saw her that once. Her
beloved grandparents, both dead before she discovered her destiny, were waiting
her arrival. Buffy was more than grateful, over the years, that they hadn’t
witnessed her decline, her so-called delinquent behavior, her mother’s
disappointment in her, her declining grades. When she met them again, they were
so thrilled to see her, so very proud of all she’d accomplished over the
years.
Her mother was there as well, pleased to see her and proud
in a way Joyce hadn’t ever been when alive. It seemed that only death truly
opened Joyce Summers’ eyes to the daily sacrifices her daughter made, the
heartbreak, the loneliness, and the utter isolation. It was she who showed the
slayer how to watch the continued happenings on earth.
How to watch over Dawn and Angel.
She’d seen, while she was in heaven, the things he was meant to do. One in particular. Avert the apocalypse, the end of days, and become human. This miracle wasn’t meant to happen in her lifetime and Buffy was okay with that because she was already in heaven awaiting him. She had forever to wait and would willingly do so because he was promised her.
Not by the so-called Powers that Be, not by any higher deity Buffy long ago lost
faith in, but by them, themselves. As a vampire, the only way Angel would meet
her in their eternal home was to die a vampire’s final death. But then only
his soul would enter the aether, leaving the demon to the pits of hell. Heaven
taught Buffy something else about her vampire lover.
Angel wasn’t Liam. Liam was a drunken whelp of a man who
cared for nothing but himself and his next drunken conquest. Angelus was the
embodiment of all that drunken man wanted in his life, the darker passions, the
acting out of hatred and fear, wanting nothing but to revel in the power over
life and death. Angel was everything.
He was the true man, the darkness and the light. The scared
boy who acted out in any way possible, the whoring drunken man who couldn’t
ever find that missing piece of himself that left such a huge hole in his heart
and soul because Buffy hadn’t yet been born, that was Liam. Angelus, the
sadistic monster, the creature who still felt that emptiness of Liam’s but who
filled it with other activities to assuage his anger. Murdering those who did
not fill the need, playing, torturing, destroying those who were weaker than he
because he was now the stronger, the dominant.
Angel was the true balance of his soul’s hope and love
and his demon’s hatred and cruelness, the embodiment of hopeful light and
despairing, addicting darkness.
When Angel died a human, all that would meet her in heaven:
Liam’s scared hope for her, Angelus obsessive need for her, Angel’s
possessive love, his passion, his need to protect her and to care for her as
well as his need to let her dominate him for the simple reason that anything
Buffy did was a huge turn on.
So she’d wait for him to become human once more, and
she’d wait for her lover, her heart, her soul, all of him, to reunite with
her.
It was a dream he’d had and one he wanted, more than
anything, to share with her even if some part of him knew the chances of Buffy
still living were slim. It was a dream she had wanted him to accomplish for the
simple reason it mean that Angel was that much closer to joining her. And Buffy
was willing to wait; after all, what were years when they had a literal forever?
DONG…
A letter from Paul to the Romans…
…We were indeed buried with him through baptism into
death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might live in newness of life.
We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer
has power over him.
Death no longer has
power over…her.
DONG…
She needed to see him.
It was more imperative than her next breath, more necessary
than the precious substance filling her lungs, once dead lungs, which, truth be
told, she’d rather have dead than this current hell. Buffy hated it here,
hated that she was back on earth when she was once in heaven, awaiting her only
love. She sensed his presence in the distance, moving so quickly Buffy was
slightly amazed he hadn’t crashed that oversized car of his already.
Moving with all possible speed back towards her, towards
their cabin on the beach where they’d spent several wonderful days. It was
after the horrible incident with the First Evil that he brought her here, a
secluded part of the beach where they could be together, and, hopefully, heal
from the pains of the past.
A smile curved her lips, the first true one in…forever.
He was returning to her because he wanted her, loved her, needed her…because
he would give up everything simply to be with her.
Buffy frowned, the beautiful smiled fading into
nothingness. She couldn’t let him. Couldn’t let him because she knew what
his future held and knew that in order for him to accomplish that future, he
needed to do it. If he stayed with her, as she wanted him to, he’d give up on
that hope and maybe hate her for it one day and that, more than anything,
was something she couldn’t bear.
Contradictory as it sounded, Buffy knew that fighting with
her would only allow Angel to be half the man she knew him to be. He’d always
worry over her, never completely focusing on the job at hand because the second
she was hurt, the first injury she sustained, he’d lose concentration, be
sloppy as he tried to get to her, and things would most likely go…badly. Angel
staying in LA meant that she’d suffer every day, as he would, meant that it
was one more hour, day, month, year they were apart.
But it also meant that he’d fulfill his destiny.
Besides, she wasn’t meant to be here, anyway. She was
dead, twice, and come on, wasn’t that a bit much even for her? There were
battles still to fight, but there were others for that fight. She’d done her
part, completed her destiny, started her love on his. Why did she still suffer?
“Because your friends are weak; they need you, for
without you they are nothing. They don’t know their own destinies; they assume
that their lives are entwined with yours when you have accomplished everything,
already. Don’t repeat their mistakes, Buffy”
Buffy smiled at Kendra’s words, whispered on the wind as
Angel parked the car and climbed from the driver’s seat. Don’t repeat their
mistakes. Buffy’s heart broke even as Angel’s strong embrace enveloped her,
crushing her to his chest as he whispered her name over and over again.
Don’t repeat their mistakes. Which meant, don’t keep
Angel with you because you want your forever now. His
destiny is not yet over.
DONG…
Kendra frowned at the scene below. Buffy’s friends had
royally screwed with fate. In not caring where Buffy truly was, they’d blindly
assumed it was in hell and forced her out of her resting place. They forced her
back to a world that didn’t know what to do with a champion warrior who’d
done her time, fought her battles, won her respite.
Slowly standing, closing the window to the world below where Buffy moped through a life she wasn’t meant to live and her vampire lover, torn over too many things, his soul in constant chaos because of the shifting fates, went on with their separate lives, Kendra cried. The slayer cried because she couldn’t see the future now, too muddied were the waters.
She cried because she didn’t think that Shanshu was going to come about for
the souled vampire, because she wasn’t sure Buffy could survive the coming
days, her soul mate seemingly lost to her and her own visions of the future that
may not exist anymore. Because there were things brewing on the horizon that
scared the slayer even though she could not see them. Because she could not
see them.
DONG…
“You are so not going to believe this!” Cordelia
whispered though she was alone with Dennis in her apartment and her roommate
wasn’t about to spill the beans…like she currently was. It wasn’t often
Cordelia talked to anyone in Sunnydale, but she and Willow had this strange
friendship going, based more on keeping Buffy and Angel apart than anything
else. It was also a good way to share information, however, and gave each woman
a link to one of the many what might have been’s that populated their lives.
“What? Is everything okay there?” Willow asked, idly
looking around the empty room. When Tara moved out, she took more than half the
things. Though it was Willow’s imagination, she was sure her voice echoed in
the emptiness.
“Darla showed up here a month or so ago,” Cordelia said
and sipped the cup of tea Dennis handed her. “And she was pregnant!”
“What?!” Willow gasped, belatedly checking to see she
was alone in the room, the door closed and Buffy absolutely nowhere to be found.
“How is that possible? And who’s the father?”
“No idea how it’s possible,” Cordelia confided, glad
to have someone who would appreciate it. “But Angel’s the father, can you
believe that? But the worst part is that this guy who chased Angel for, like two
hundred years, stole Connor.” Cordelia then launched into the story, complete
with tangents on Angel’s gaga-ness over Connor, and Darla’s demise.
“Angel and Darla with a child, a human one, I can’t
believe that,” Willow said for possibly the fifth time. Then, her voice
sympathetic, “How is Angel dealing with the loss of his son?”
Buffy heard the entire conversation through the door, not
as asleep as Willow thought. Her Angel had a baby with his once again dead sire?
Stumbling back into her room, Buffy let the tears flow, her heart breaking, her
soul screaming at the injustice of it all.
With shaking fingers she picked up the phone, dialing a
long memorized number she hadn’t actually ever called. Pushing the pain as far
as she could manage, ignoring the fact that she felt so left out of Angel’s
life and that he was just as removed from hers, Buffy wondered what to say. ‘Hey,
sorry to hear about the son you didn’t tell me about?’ She heard the
click of Angel answering but he said nothing. Buffy couldn’t blame him, and
suddenly knew what to say.
“Meet me at our cabin in an hour.”
DONG…
Connor looked at his father from the floor of the sporting
goods store and grinned. It was far from a sane grin, and boarded on feral in
the extreme and reminded Angel of nothing so much as himself at the height of
Angelus’ reign. But his eyes gave him away.
Angel had no idea how to respond to his son. He was
forcibly reminded of his first meeting with the lad, goddess help him his grown
son. Maybe if that initial greeting hadn’t been tempered with a crossbow arrow
he might have responded better, but Angel had no idea how to deal with it all.
His greatest dream. His worst nightmare. All rolled into something he didn’t
know how to deal with but desperately wanted to, somehow.
Now his boy was broken, he was shattered and Angel had no
idea how to help him. Where had he gone wrong? More than a year ago when Hotlz
stole his child and raised him as his own to hate his real father? When Connor
returned, had he, Angel, done everything to help his son acclimate to this new
climate? Or when he was justifiably angry after his rescue from the watery
depths, a briny grave his own son sent him to?
Connor looked up at his father, his gaze torn and broken,
and Angel saw the plea in their depths. The plea that begged his father to help
him…please help me.
DONG…
“Who’s Connor?” Fred asked as Angel left the
building, a smirking Lilah watching them all.
Buffy knew. The moment she saw Angel again, she knew. The
instant their lips met she tasted the sadness and desperation, the hopelessness
in the kiss. Holding him tighter, Buffy poured all her love for her mate into
that kiss and told him, without the words that neither knew how to express, that
she loved him, that she understood, and that she’d help, if only she knew how.
Buffy knew that Angel had made some horrible decision
regarding his son and that it destroyed him. The son he was never meant to have,
the son she wanted him to have because of that very reason. They didn’t talk
about it that night Angel brought her the amulet and the means to win against an
unstoppable evil. But in the moment before Angel left, Buffy slid her hand in
his, twining her fingers around his cooler ones and squeezing tightly. She
smiled at him and kissed his lips once more before they went their separate
ways.
As Buffy fought said unstoppable evil and won, she worried.
What happened to Connor that caused Angel to close down, to shut himself off so
completely?
DONG…
Liam Thomas Howard, son of two proud parents, brother to a
younger sister he truly did love no matter how they fought, woke with a start.
As his heart rate slowed and his brain caught up with his reality, he wondered
at the dream, the ones that plagued him every night for the past week. It
started suddenly, late one night after some pre-class studying for the courses
he planned on taking come fall semester. Nightmares of things best regulated to
dark myths, movie theaters, and Stephen King.
Demons attacking him and he fighting back as if he knew
what he was doing. People surrounding him, friends, he thought, but not really.
He didn’t know, couldn’t remember and hoped the dream faded because he still
shook over the memories. Oh, God, Liam thought, suddenly afraid of the monsters
under his bed. What was his life coming to?
DONG…
Angel looked out the window to the east and wondered what
his life became, what changed, or rather when. When he left Buffy? When she
returned from the dead and pushed him away? Or was it before that, long before
that when he ruled Europe as Angelus?
He didn’t know, couldn’t care at the moment. He missed
his son, his baby boy. He missed his mate, his beautiful Buffy. What did his
life matter, his ridiculous ‘redemption’ matter without them? It didn’t,
because nothing he did mattered. Once upon a time, with Buffy dead and his life
in tatters, he’d vowed to see to his redemption, as a way to honor her memory
and her love. Now…now what did he care, what did it matter?
Buffy stared to the west, watching the sunset and thought that she needed to return to LA and to her heart. She missed Angel and realized, as she listened to people say how nice being away from California and the memories there was, that she was done. She wasn’t the only slayer anymore, and she didn’t want to be because damn it all anyway, she was finished with her destiny!
The stupid metaphor about cookies and baking, it was
pointless. Buffy knew what she wanted, she wanted Angel; always had always
would. So what was she doing here? Thousands of miles away from all she wanted
to be near. Away from the man she wanted, needed. Loved.
It was she who left him this time, left him to a destiny
she no longer believed in, left him to be manipulated and torn. She left him
because he had his own path to follow and, originally, before the whole
resurrection thing, she was not a part of that. Now…now who knew?
Had they achieved
anything, really? If so, it was very little and at what cost? If she asked
Angel, and was honest with herself, was the price truly worth it? Buffy
couldn’t answer that with a yes, not for herself, not anymore. The more she
thought of it, the more she remembered the past, the future, what was and what
was to be, the more Buffy was beginning to think she had dismissed the most
important part of the message so many years ago.
Together you are
strong…apart you are dead.
DONG…
And the clock struck midnight and everything changed.
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