Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: While I have taken the liberty of adding a few characters of my own creation, all of the original "Angel" and "BtVS" characters and their world belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and The WB. All are used without permission (I'll return them all unharmed) and no copyright infringement is intended (like most that post, I'm broke, so please don't sue).
Spoilers: All seasons of Angel & BtVS.
Distribution: If you already have permission to archive my work, feel free to add this part as well. All others may feel free to share my work by forwarding it to other readers, but please ask before archiving it on a web site. Thanks.
Feedback: Pretty please... [bats eyelashes coquettishly]
Summary: While Aishling is building this archive in 2048, we're stepping back in time once again to late August 1999... We've left Sunnydale and are heading for LA where Aoífe has a few loose ends to tie up...
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It was Monday when Aoífe finally made it back to her temporary home in LA. As quietly as possible, she stole across the threshold of a house which was nestled atop one of the higher hills in the suburb of Los Feliz, silently depositing her small, worn travel bag and a newly acquired portfolio on the highly polished wooden floor of the foyer.
A relatively modest home by Aoífe's standards with lots of stucco and dark wooden accents on the exterior, its architectural design was an odd mixture of Tudor and Spanish. Not an especially large home, but only Moira and Liam had accompanied her on this trip east from New York, so the three bedrooms and two baths were more than adequate. She had taken the bedroom and bath in the converted attic, while the young couple had chosen the bedroom on the second floor which opened out onto the small walled-in garden behind the house. The small third bedroom came in handy for those unexpected guests, such as Doyle.
There was beautiful wood flooring throughout the house and whitewashed plaster walls with more dark wood trimming. The kitchen wasn't spacious, but two people could still work in there without running into one another. The dining room seated six comfortably. But it had been the living room that really sold Aoífe on the house. It was spacious and airy, boasting a cathedral style ceiling, a large brick fireplace, and an exterior wall made up almost entirely of a floor-to-ceiling window.
Aoífe loved that window and slowly made her way toward it. During the day, it flooded the living room with sunlight while at night it offered a totally different kind of light show. With the house being situated as it was on a street appropriately named Ronda Vista Drive, the large window offered almost a full quarter of the panorama of LA which was available from that height. If one chose to walk all the way around the top portion of the road, they could enjoy the full three hundred and sixty-degree view. But for the moment, Aoífe was too tired to do any walking and settled for what she could see from her window.
It was nearing mid-morning and with it being late August, LA was already shrouded for the day in a thick veil of smog. Aoífe sighed heavily, hoping that when she woke that night the smog would have cleared out and she would be able to enjoy the twinkling lights of the city below. But for now, all she wanted to do was crawl up to her room and fall into bed. She hadn't slept since she had awakened screaming from the dream she had shared with Willow, Angelus and Xander. A weary smile tugged at the corners of lips as Aoífe thought about the fact that somewhere out there in that big city, Angelus would also be sleeping most of the day away.
No, not Angelus, Angel. She was going to have to work hard to break herself of the habit of calling him Angelus, at least for the time being. He went by Angel now and she would have to respect that decision, much as it pained her.
Aoífe still held a grudge against Angelus' father for having changed the boy's name in the first place. The man had been away - off buying silk or some such - when his first and only son had been born. When the baby's father had returned home and learned what name the child's mother had bestowed upon him, the man was not pleased. He thought that the name was too pretentious and he promptly gave the boy a 'good Irish name'. As fate would have it, Liam wouldn't use the name his mother originally gave him until after he had killed her. But she had known, hadn't she? Angelus' mother had known that her son would be lost to the darkness and that she would bear witness to his fall.
Well, Angelus had made it through the darkness and was now coming back into the light. If all went well, it would still be a battle but in the end he would get to live in that light for a very long time...
"Okay, enough with the melancholy, already!" Aoífe admonished herself, speaking aloud without fear of being labeled 'crazy' because she knew that she was alone in the house.
To be alone at the moment, that was a good thing. She was exhausted and growing sullen, in no mood to play "One-Hundred Questions" with any member of her household. And Aoífe was quite certain that there would be plenty of questions after the way she had hastily left LA on Saturday and not returned for two days. She shamefully had to admit that she hadn't even bothered to call and let her companions know where she was and that she was okay.
And now there was the matter of letting Moira know that Willow had been found, that it was Willow who was more closely related to Aoífe and it was Willow who would first be given the choice to be turned by Aoífe. If Willow declined, then the honor would go to Moira.
"Damn!" growled the ancient witch. "Why is nothing in my life simple?"
Aoífe trudged back toward the foyer, following a route that would eventually lead to her bed. The door to her room was on the second floor, the stairs leading to the third floor were located behind it. She had to smile when she saw the note taped to the door. Moira and Liam may not have been pleased with her disappearing act, but they loved her enough to let her know their whereabouts so that she wouldn't have to worry as they did.
Aoífe shook her head in mock disgust. Good old-fashioned Irish guilt. Gotta love it!
She peeled the note off the door and reread it as she trudged up the steep flight of stairs. The young couple was spending the day at the beach.
Once again a heavy sigh escaped her. Much as she had come to love her niece's spouse over the last few years, there were moments when Aoífe couldn't keep from wishing that Moira had fallen in love with a man who had a different name. All too often simply speaking Liam's name would cause the vampiress to lose herself in the memories of the times she had spent with Angelus - grrr, Angel - while he was still mortal, when he was Liam.
The witch had been there for his birth. He had still been Angelus when she had left him then. But he was Liam when she was with him again, when she had traveled back to Galway almost 27 years later and had spent a few short nights in his company just before he was turned. Angelus had been a baby she would have cherished and protected if she'd been able to. Liam was the man with whom she had swiftly fallen in love. Now he was Angel and she had no idea who he was or what the future held.
While their paths had crossed on a number of occasions, Aoífe had seen Angelus face to face only once after his becoming. That encounter had been nearly fatal - for him.
It had been just two days after Darla had sired him. Aoífe was still working in the tavern where Liam had met her, too distracted, too distraught to move on even after the demon Watcher had come to her. She had not heeded Whistler's warning. The little half-breed had just been assigned to watch over Angelus and watch he did. Whistler looked on from the shadows as the newly-risen vampire entered his family's home. The watcher did nothing as the vengeful demon killed off what remained of his family.
Liam's two older sisters had both died during an outbreak of some plague when he was but a small child. Their deaths changed his father, left him cold and distant. Their demise also meant that all of Liam's father's hopes for the future where placed on the boy's shoulders. It would be almost eleven years later that Kathy was born. By then Liam had already begun to crumble under the weight of his father's expectations and his sister's birth would do nothing to alleviate his burden. She was, obviously, a girl. She was well loved and doted on by her parents, spoiled by her older brother. But it was never intended that Kathy should assume any sort of a role in her father's business. And do to the fact that she had been born so late in their parents' life, their father never even entertained the thought that he would live long enough to bring her husband into the family business.
For years, young Liam tried to live up to his father's expectations, but nothing he did was ever quite good enough. There was always some fault to be found. Eventually the lad stopped trying so hard to please his father. That decision resulted in his being marked as a slúiste, a layabout. Liam soon grew bitter and turned then to a life filled with every vice his father frowned upon. Drinking, gambling, and whoring all through the night, then sleeping the day away whilst his father worked hard to earn the money that would continue to fund Liam's debauch lifestyle. That was until his father had finally had enough and they parted ways under the worst of circumstances. It was only days later that Darla caught sight of Liam in a Galway pub and the rest is, as they say, history.
"Why do I do this?" Aoífe mused as she pulled down the last of the window shades and drew the heavily lined curtains closed.
Banished from her bedroom was the sun with its warmth and its supposed cheery light. Welcomed was a blackness that comforted her. At first it was cool, it was inky, it was near nothingness and any time spent in that void was always succor for her weary soul. All too quickly her preternatural eyesight adjusted to the darkness, her peace-giving state of blindness short lived. Still, the darkness managed to soften some of the harsh reality that was her life. It at least blurred the sharp edges of all she could still see in the shaded room.
Aoífe made her way toward her bed, shedding her clothes along the way, letting the discarded garments fall where they might. When she reached her destination, she crawled naked between the fresh clean sheets.
"Why do I dwell on the past, waste time thinking about things that can't be undone? I've made choices in my life, some good, some not so good, some were perhaps not even choices at all, more like bending my will and bowing down to The Powers That Be."
Aoífe's mind was racing now, flooded with memories. Sleep wouldn't be claiming her anytime soon. She beat her pillows, plumping them up, then she buried her head beneath them as she also pulled the sheet and comforter up over her entire body. If she was lucky, maybe she'd suffocate. Ha! Fat chance of that! Hard to kill something that's technically been dead for over a thousand years.
She pushed the covers back down and put her head upon the top side of the pillows. So much for an easy way out. But hey, there were still other ways to go, tried and true ways. She could always stake herself. And beheading was good, though she didn't think she could do it to herself simply because she didn't think she could get the blade all the way through, her conclusion based on her presumed angle of attack and the fact that she feared she wouldn't be able to maintain the momentum required to see that the job was done. Aoífe too often thought about ways to end her own life, but it was far better to do that than to think about having to kill the one she loved above all others.
She had almost been forced to destroy Angelus once and all that did was prove that Liam had loved her, truly and freely loved her in a way he'd been unable to admit to, even to himself. But his demon knew and set out to slaughter her for it.
Yes, Whistler had alerted her to the coming danger, she just chose to ignore him. At the time, Aoífe was an eight-hundred and ten-year-old vampire and an accomplished witch to boot. She had nothing to fear from a fledgling whelp regardless of his size and the apparent ease with which he had taken to his new life. She had to concede that his lust for blood was certainly unmatched by any freshly created vampire she'd yet encountered, and judging by the look of smug satisfaction that was constantly plastered on his sire's face, his other appetites must also have been great and well indulged.
"Bitch," Aoífe spat bitterly even after all the years that had passed.
Still, she was a Master and she could have taken him down.
But alas, when the moment of truth had arrived, when Aoífe had been confronted by her would-be killer she had been unable to strike out at him. Oh yes, she most assuredly despised the sadistic creature Liam had become. He was no longer the wayward drunkard she loved. He was Angelus, the vampire who would go on to become The Scourge of Europe. But she didn't kill him when the opportunity presented itself for two simple reasons.
One was the exact same reason why the Slayer had at first been unable to turn him into dust. He still wore the face of the man they loved and he exploited both the visage and all the memories that went along with that persona. But Angelus' penchant for cruelty eventually worked against him where Buffy was concerned. He went just a little too far in his attempt to break her before he killed her. Over time his acts of brutality strengthened the Slayer's resolve to annihilate him, his inhumanity ultimately proving to Buffy that no part of her Angel remained in the vampire who wanted to have the whole world sucked into Hell.
Aoífe had a second reason for not killing the heartless bastard which was more important than her broken heart. For years she had been studying ancient texts, documents that were tens of hundreds of years old than she was. Everything she had read up to that point in time, all that she had been able to glean from her centuries of research, indicated that she and Angelus were meant to play important roles in the future battles against the forces of darkness. It would be up to them to see to it that all the necessary warriors where in place for the up-coming wars. What Aoífe didn't know then was who the warriors were. She still didn't know exactly what roles she and Angelus would play. But one thing was certain, even as far back as 1753. The End of Days was rapidly approaching and 'the vampire with a soul' had a very crucial part to play.
Aoífe had enough knowledge to realize that getting Angelus' soul back on the same plain with his body was of the utmost importance. She knew that if she destroyed the vampire, the matter of his soul would be taken completely out of her hands. There would be no telling how long it would be before his soul, which had once been Uriel's soul, was reborn again. But so long as Angelus walked the face of the Earth, there was always the hope that his soul might be restored just as Gabriel's soul had been. If she had to scour the planet to find the means to do it, Aoífe had vowed she would. After all, the ancient texts all said that the "Angelic Demon" was to someday join with the "Demonic Angel" and they would bring a balance to the world they lived in, thus preventing the End of Days.
So it was foretold that Liam would become a vampire. Aoífe had come to believe that she was meant to turn him, that was why she had made her way to back to Galway. The Fates had other plans for him but there would be no "Angelic Demon" if his soul was not restored.
As it turned out, The Powers That Be had their fingers in that pie, too. That may actually have been a good thing because Aoífe was having no luck in finding a way to undo the damage Darla had done. But on the other hand it took them one hundred and forty some-odd years before they had Angelus' soul restored, then they did so in the cruelest way imaginable, and with an asinine clause added to the emendation that was destined to lead to no good.
"Oh for Christ's sake, Aoífe, shut the fuck up! Leave the damned past in the past and focus on the now."
Her spoken words reverberated about the shaded room while Aoífe tossed and turned in her bed. She really needed to get some sleep. There was still a lot to do and very little time to do it in. A spell still had to placed over Angel and she was going to need help casting it. She was going to have to find Doyle again. He was sure to be more than a little pissed at her by now, but oh well. He'd help her anyway because helping her would help Angel and that was Doyle's new purpose in life, to help Angel help the hopeless. Oh God and wasn't that some sort of travesty? It was the blind leading the blind as they set about trying to help those who were lost in the dark! Well, The Powers surely had a warped sense of humor!
More tossing and turning as Aoífe had to agree that perhaps the little Irishman was a good choice. He was half Brachen demon, and while that hidden strength might someday come in handy during a fight, it was actually Doyle's human weaknesses that would help Angel the most. Doyle drank too much, he gambled too often, and he was afraid to get in touch with his demonic side. The vampire didn't drink enough, refused to take risks (oh, unless they were the kind that might result in only his own untimely demise), and he was afraid to embrace humanity. Maybe there was a balance to be found in a friendship between those two seemingly mis-matched creatures.
"Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Sleep, sleep, sleep!"
But to sleep might mean to dream and Aoífe was growing afraid of her dreams. They were no longer just her dreams. Others were sharing them now. Or was she being drawn into their dreams? Either way, it wasn't a good thing. She held too many secrets in her mind and in her heart, truths which would do more harm than good if they were revealed at the wrong time.
Now as her eyelids were finally growing heavy, Aoífe was battling sleep and quickly losing the fight.
End
Entry 29-1