Midnight Musings

 Have you ever known someone who makes you want to be a better person?  I have and she's lying beside me now, her long red hair spilling out from under her like a pool of blood.  It's too dark to see in color, too dark for a human.  But I can see the red of her hair, and the pale blue of her veins.  Her delicate skin is almost the same color as this parchment.  I can see these things just as well as I can see the words upon this page as my pen transfers my thoughts to paper.  Words on paper, thoughts taking substance, and my endless wonder that SHE loves ME.  Why?  I wonder.  I've done nothing to deserve her, nothing to earn the love she's so freely and generously bestowed upon me. 

 She says that I brood too much, that I spend too much time weighing my soul down with my own fears.  Humph.  I have no reply for her; I never do.  That's youth speaking, her infinite optimism, and the newness and wonder of her own immortality.  One can NEVER brood too much, especially me. 

 I cannot see my own eyes, have not been able to for two hundred years.  No piece of glass and mercury is capable of reflecting the windows to my soul.  I only have the mirror of my brooding, and more recently, the distorted image she holds of me in her mind.  She gazes at me through rose colored glasses, my true nature softened and sharp edges ground away by her endless love, respect, and admiration.  Her vision is distorted by so very many things, which I do not deserve, of which I am unworthy.  And I wonder--how this can be? 

 This record is for my own benefit, not that of my official journals.  Writing soothes me when my thoughts are troubled or tumultuous.  It is my way of working things through and it is more productive than simply brooding, for here is a record which I carry with me into the future.  If, on some off chance, this musing has fallen into the hands of one of my esteemed colleagues, a fellow Watcher, then most likely your purpose in reading this is academic.  Ah, but I, Angelus, the only vampire ever to traverse the path of a Watcher, the only vampire ever to marry a Slayer, the only vampire ever to know the love of the Immortal Watcher, I am worthy of study, am I not? 

 Lucky bastard, aren't I?  You won't hear me complaining.  Ever. 

 Willow sleeps in peace.  She's still exhausted from her flight from Boston to Los Angeles two days ago.  She hasn't slept in three days and she pushed her physical, mental, and emotional reserves to the very limit to remain awake for as long as she did.  Given, we may have gone a tad overboard.  We overindulged in joy, reunited at last.  We were nervous, excited and almost fearful.  For the first time since boyhood, I felt giddy.  Me, a two hundred sixty-two year old vampire, giddy.  Imagine.  Miracles are still possible. 

 Our lovemaking was almost desperate, but the real consummation of our love occurs in a deeper joining.  The link is open again; she's a part of me once more.  Even now, she is with me, joined to me, completing me.  I am nearly delirious with joy.  Too long, it's been far too long.  We've been apart far too long.  We've been separated for so long that we've almost forgotten what it means to be together.  Home.  Willow is my home.  She is the other half of my soul and without her I am incomplete. 

 Absently, I brush the side of my hand along her face and she stirs slightly.  Her face nuzzles my hand.  She feels real, solid.  Mine.  I'm tired too; I should be asleep.  But demonic emotions haunt my mind and my memories, keeping me a prisoner to wakefulness.  I cannot sleep just yet.  I need to watch her, watch over her, guard her and protect her.  I cannot lose her again.  I cannot trust that she will be here when I wake up.  I'm scared to death that this is a dream and that I'm going to wake up when I finally go back to sleep. 

 Paranoid?  Yes.  Immortality, drugs, and becoming a vampire will do that to you.  My various obsessions and psychoses are well documented.  I fought against my true nature like a drowning man for a hundred years, until Willow and Sean's parlor tricks finally set me free.  The last twenty years have been amazing.  I've had a wife whom I loved, a wonderful son, normal (human) friends, and the semblance of a normal life.  Thanks to Willow. 

 Willow enabled me to reclaim my birthright.  You, the reader, should know more than anyone what being a Watcher means.  It is not just a job, an occupation.  It is who you are, who I am.  I was born to be a Watcher.  I trained from birth to assume my duty when the time came.  I mastered melee weapons and hand-to-hand combat, studied the occult, and learned that all vampires were inhuman demons.  Vampires are not human; they are demonic monsters without souls.  I learned to hate, and then I became what I despised most.  Willow says that it was hardly surprising that I behaved as one when I became one.  She calls it a horrible tragedy. 

 And she so easily forgives what I've done.  She forgives and loves me, just as Matthew did, and just as Buffy did.  I, however, do not. 

***** 

 "Angel." 

 Angel glanced up and set down his pen.  "Come here," Willow commanded sleepily, holding up a hand.  He attentively crawled over to her.  Willow seized his dark head and pulled it down to her chest, holding him prisoner between her hands.  He hardly offered any resistance. 

 "Get some sleep," she slurred.  "You're thinking too loud an' it's keeping me awake." 

 "Yes, ma'am," he murmured, happily snuggling against her.  They held one another, content to hold and be held.  Soon, Willow dropped back off to sleep.  Deprived of his pen, Angel followed in short order.