Author's Note: I've had the worst case of writer's block for almost a year now, and am happy to have finally written something, even if it's isn't the next part of my incomplete stories. I hope everyone enjoys it.
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They call me the wild rose
but my name was Eliza Day
Why they call me that I do not know
For my name was Eliza Day
From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one
She stared in my eyes and smiled
For her lips were the color of the roses
That grew down the river all bloody and wild
When he knocked on my door and entered the room
My trembling subsided in his sure embrace
He would be my first man and with a careful hand
He wiped up the tears that ran down my face
I should have known better. I was older, wiser, a grown woman. I should have been able to foresee where this would all lead. It didn't matter. No matter how many years separated me from the youth I had been, the romantic yearnings of that girl still entangled me in a treacherous grip. I ignored the lesson history tried to impart on me and followed the path of my romantic destiny. After all, he was the first man I ever loved. Unlike the foolish puppy love fantasies of my childhood, I spent my teenage years yearning for this grown man with all the awareness and desire of a woman. I watched as he became involved with my best friend, happy for her, at first, until the happiness turned into a gnawing jealousy for the love they shared. How could I not fall in love with him? He was everything a girl could want in a guy- a romantic figure straight out of the past that could rival Heathcliff in his capacity to brood and his unending worship of the woman he loved. When they were forced to go their separate ways I hated myself for the tiny voice inside of me that was glad. As I wiped away my friend's tears I rejoiced in the fantasy that his secret love for me was the real cause for them breaking up. How could I have known that I was closer to the truth than even I ever imagined?
He came to me the year after I graduated college. I was living in San
Francisco then, trying hard to be brave as I began a new life far away
from those I loved. I was on my own, truly on my own for the first time,
and lonelier than I could have ever thought possible. Tara and I had broken
up right after college, both of us realizing that we were holding on to
something that had died long ago. In those desperate, despairing days after
Oz had left me I had tried to forget about the two men who had left me
behind without a second thought, tried to replace them with something that
I thought I wanted. I had loved Tara but I had never been able to let her
completely in, and she had known it. There had always been those parts
of myself I reserved for him. Try as I might, I couldn't get over him and
the unrequited love I still felt for him. Eventually it became too much
for Tara to handle. Three and a half years of being kept outside of the
one you loved would wear even the strongest person down. Tara had really
been the only one holding me to Sunnydale. Buffy had long ago grown too
strong for the help of her old friends, and Xander had run off with Anya
two years before. So I'd packed my bags and moved to San Francisco following
a job offer with a prestigious computer software firm. That's how I found
myself in a strange city cut off from old ties and struggling to survive
in a city very different from the town I had grown up in. I was discovering
that there were greater challenges to a young single girl in a big city
beyond the threat of the undead.
They call me the wild rose
but my name was Eliza Day
Why they call me that I do not know
For my name was Eliza Day
On the second day I brought her a flower
She's more beautiful than any woman I've seen
I said "do you know where the wild roses grow
So sweet and scarlet and free?"
On the second day he came with a single red rose
He said "give me your loss and your sorrow"
I nodded my head as I lay on the bed
"If I show you the roses will you follow"
He came for me as if out of one of my dreams. Drawn as I had been drawn to him, unable to stay away any longer. It took him so long to convince me that he was serious, that he wasn't there out of pity. That he was choosing me, out of all the women in the world. That it had always been me, long before Buffy. He'd just never believed that I would feel the same way for him. I was too innocent, too good, too sweet to love a demon such as himself. He'd tried to stay away from me, to keep my purity untainted by the evil he fought hard to control within him. Finally it was just too much for his resolve to take, and he'd vowed to confess his love to me even if I turned him away. Hearing those words from him I'd cried out of sheer joy that I'd finally gotten what I'd wanted. Angel loved me as I loved him. The foolish fantasies of a mousy high school computer geek had turned into the reality of a savvy, young Wiccan software designer.
I'd moved to Los Angeles a couple of months later where I began taking
some graduate classes at UCLA and working part time at Angel's detective
agency. In those early days I can't quite remember what actual work I did.
I'm afraid Cordelia often found herself manning the office by herself while
Angel and I holed ourselves up in one of the hotel's many bedrooms, discovering
the pleasures of each other's bodies as best we could given the boundaries
we had to enforce upon our time together. I accepted the fact that there
was a certain point Angel and I could never pass in our physical relationship,
though there were times I had to walk away from a persistent Angel, tears
of frustration stinging both our eyes. The sacrifice was worth it. All
I cared about was being with Angel, and that was all he cared about as
well. Despite the lack of true physical intimacy, we were as close as a
couple could be, and I was loving every second of our time spent together.
They call me the wild rose
but my name was Eliza Day
Why they call me that I do not know
For my name was Eliza Day
On the third day he took me to the river
He showed me the roses and we kissed
And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
As he knelt above me with a rock in his fist
On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
She lay on the bank and went as light as a peak
I kissed her goodbye, said "all beauty must die"
And I knelt down and planted a rose 'tween her teeth.
God we were so naïve then. If we'd just taken a second to think about it, we would have realized how ridiculous it was to believe the gypsy curse was tied directly to sex. After all, it wasn't an intimacy clause, it was a happiness clause. But how could we have known that Angel would find that moment of true happiness merely holding me in his arms one night, watching me sleep. All the unconditional love I'd showered upon him had done wonders in relieving the burden his past sins placed on his conscience. I accepted him completely, demon and all, and it was a price we would both have to pay.
When I awoke, I had no idea that everything was different. I came to
consciousness with my love's lips against mine, his body pressing mine
into the downy softness of the mattress, our limbs tangled in a passionate
embrace. Before I even knew what was happening his face had shifted to
that of the demons. I can't even repeat the hurtful things his whispered
to me in those final moments. They were enough to make me realize that
my Angel was gone. The tears came unbidden, because I didn't want to give
Angelus the satisfaction. When his fangs pierced my neck, I knew that this
was it. Our love had been a stolen season, and for that we would both pay
dearly, me with my life, and Angel with the release of the demon whose
actions he would regret for all time. My last conscious thoughts were the
hope that Buffy and Giles would somehow stop Angelus before he hurt anybody
else, and that Angel would know that she didn't blame him. She didn't regret
their time together because she knew that one day they would be reunited.
In another world, another lifetime, they would be free to love each other
as was meant to be.
They call me the wild rose
but my name was Eliza Day
Why they call me that I do not know
For my name was Eliza Day
End