Rating: NC-17
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: I'll give you cyber *smoochies* if you give me feedback...
Author's Note: I'm really excited about this piece and simply can't wait to post it. Sooo... it has NOT been thoroughly proofed and I would truly appreciate it if those few people who archive my work would fix any of my stupid mistakes before they put it up on their sites. Thanks. {{{hugs}}}
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Archivist's Notes
09 February 2048
Vampires are retched creatures. Most deserve to meet a quick, dusty death at the end of a pointy wooden object, preferably a stake. At this moment I have the urge to poke even those vamps who are near and dear to me. Oh, yeah... Angel and Aoífe... I want to make them suffer.
Oh, don't get too alarmed now! When I imagine myself impaling them (over and over again I might add) it's not a stake in my hand but a well sharpened pencil. And I'm not aiming for their hearts. I don't want to destroy my loved ones, I just want to hurt them. A lot.
Soul or no soul, the whole damned lot of them are evil fiends bound and determined to suck the life out of people.
Take me life, for instance, or what's left of it. Yes, take it, please! I used to be a well-rounded person, had a nice balance going between work and play. Now every waking hour is spent sifting through piles of papers, some with typed text upon them, most pages handwritten in the most elegant old-fashioned scripts. Then there are the stacks of computer diskettes and CDs and audio tapes sitting next to folders filled with pictures. Days have turned into weeks have turned into months as I continue to pour over all that was stored in the trunk I brought back from Ireland.
See, there's my proof! Angel may not be bleeding me dry, but he's draining me all the same. He's the one who set me on this course and with each new secret I uncover I feel myself growing older.
I've just turned 22. Woo-Fuckin-Hoo! Heavy on the sarcasm there. The special day went by almost completely unnoticed. I used to have a social life. I had a small circle of friends outside my strange family. Boys and girls my own age with whom I would spend time. We used to go to clubs and to the movies. We'd visit the museums and coffee houses. A few times a year we'd even venture out to the theater, see a play or the ballet, listen to some orchestra perform the works of the old masters... Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach... Okay, so maybe Angel has had some good influences on my life... Anyway, the point is that they wanted to take me out to celebrate my birthday but I was too busy, too caught up in my work. Am I becoming obsessed? I don't think so. I don't know. All I do know is that I am desperately trying to decide once and for all in just what order each little tale that's been collected needs to be retold. You see, I've finally looked through *everything* Grandmother collected and with that done I have come to a very important conclusion. There are too damned many stories to be told here!!
I think I now know the real reason why Willow never attempted to organize any of this material. Her simple questions and gentle prodding yielded much more data than she ever expected to obtain! Of course hind sight is 20/20 and I can easily see what went wrong.
None of the people involved lived "normal" lives.
The humans were slayers and watchers and witches. At the very least they were mortals who had forever been changed by their encounters with the supernatural evil which lurks in this dimension. Each of them, chosen warriors and volunteers alike, had been exposed to a darkness that most creatures here on earth are never meant to see. They were infected by that black power, and they tried for so long to hide its effects, to keep secrets that had to be kept for the safety of all mankind.
Then there are the vampires and other assorted demons who had their tales to tell. They have all walked the face of this planet for centuries, at the very least. They are in fact living history. They tried valiantly to limit their story telling to topics which were relevant to my grandmother's life (and my history as well). Still, they gave Willow more than anyone else. Lord, just think, if they were to recount all that they have seen and done the books compiled would fill a good-sized library!
I've come to the conclusion that there is too much material here. Some of it does not even belong in the Rosenberg Archives. There are stories in the neat piles all around me that will be better told elsewhere. They are Angel's and Aoífe's stories. It's my belief that they were silent for too long and once they finally opened-up everything they'd carefully help locked in their hearts suddenly wanted to burst forth.
Much to my consternation, Angel has kept his distance since my return from Ireland. To be fair I should say that it's probably been a wise move on his part. I have so many questions I want to ask him, many more stories I want to hear him tell. But all that I desire to know has little to do with the project at hand. Aoífe has been here often. Just a few hours ago she sat beside me on the floor and looked through some material I had set aside. She agreed with my decision that what was contained in the small piles I set before her was part of a much larger tale to be told at another time. It's a tale that Aoífe will have to tell someday. So she took all those papers with her when she left. They were all lengthy hand-written letters from her and Angel, letters they had written to Willow over the years. In these missives they had shared some of their deepest, darkest secrets. They had shared them with my grandmother because she was the only person in their lives who would understand and appreciate all that they revealed. Willow was their ancestor, their watcher, their lover and their friend. She was the protector of their hearts and their souls. She was the keeper of their secrets.
I have just two or three more parts of back-story to put down here before I return to the events that took place in New York in November of the year 2000. I pray that I do these parts justice. I'm feeling a bit rushed right now. No, to be honest I'm so excited and it's making it hard for me to focus. My cousin Hope is coming to visit me! She called just a few minutes ago to inform me that she and her husband will be arriving sometime late tomorrow night. I haven't seen her since the day of my grandmother's funeral. I can't wait to show her all that I've done so far with the archives!
Hope has been trying to worm secrets out of our family members for years, with little or no success. Usually we learned things only because others wanted us to and often there was a real shock factor attached to such revelations. I still remember the looks on both Angel's and Hope's faces when one night a few years ago Aunt Buffy let slip that our dark, stoic vampire had been her first... lover that is.
"A Slayer!?" Hope screeched. "You slept with a Slayer?"
"I... well I..." Angel sputtered, looking more than little bit mortified by Buffy's indiscretion.
At times her need to share things of a personal nature sent him reeling. He was born and raised in a very different era, and while he didn't practice much of what his mother had preached to him before they both died, he had embraced those moral standards later in his unlife.
Aunt Cordelia took it upon herself to add to his misery. The use of tact, as you probably know, has never been something Aunt Cordy ascribed to. She leaned in close to Hope and me and whispered to us in a very conspiratorial tone. "What our chivalrous vamp, with all his perpetual salty-goodness, is too modest to say is that he's bedded more than one!"
It really wasn't much of a whisper because poor Angel nearly choked on the cheesecake he was attacking in an attempt to hide his discomfort. Then just as we were about to press Cordy for details, Aunt Faith suddenly started clearing empty dishes from the table and hastily retreated to the kitchen.
Anyway, Hope will be here soon and I have a lot to do before she arrives. There is something very special I want to share with her. Until now Hope has been my "cousin" in much the same way that Buffy, Cordelia and Faith are my "aunts" and Xander, my "uncle". But I have just discovered that Hope really is my cousin, not in the traditional way but it's as real as real gets in my weird world. Okay, I'm not 100% certain yet, but I think that I have figured out who my father was - is. The facts were all there in the trunk though his identity was not actually revealed. Aoífe refused to confirm my suspicions but she didn't even try to tell me that I was wrong. There are probably only two other people still living who know the truth. I have to think long and hard on a way to get it out of at least one of them. I'll need a great plan if I want to break them. Conventional torture techniques won't work, at least not the physical kind. They're liable to enjoy that too much!
I really shouldn't say anything more until I get the proof I need. But I'm still going to share what I found with Hope. She often sees things that others don't, knows the truth of a matter even when it's hidden.
Okay, so where were we? Oh yes, it's August 23rd. 1999, Monday night and Aoífe still needs to locate Doyle so that together they can cast a spell over Angel.. But first, she tells her niece, Moira, a tale from the past...
Aishling
End
Entry 29-3