Title: Scattered Thoughts: The Wells of Silence
Author: JR
Email: JRR42@yahoo.com
Rating: PG/PG-13
Episode spoilers: Angel: ‘Heroes’
Status: Complete
Series/Sequel: Scattered Thoughts series Follows ‘Promise You Forever’
Previous parts: www.angelfire.com/de/theparlor/buffy.html.
Disclaimer: Angel, Willow, et al, are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the WB. All characters are used without permission. This story is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights, nor is any profit being made from it.
Thanks:
Be advised: ‘Heroes’ is the last Angel episode that I was able to see (living overseas sucks sometimes). There may be some differences in characters & their behavior in subsequent episodes, so please file any errors under ‘creative license’.

“Hello, darkness, my old friend.
I’ve come to talk with you again...”
-- The Sounds of Silence, Simon & Garfunkel

Tonight, I’m going through some of the worst sorrow I’ve ever known.

And I’ve seen more than my share.

Leaning back in my chair, I find myself staring sightlessly into the inky blackness of my empty office. Not for the first time, I find comfort in the darkness. Like a living thing, creeps up unexpectedly, perfectly willing to cloak or hide any multitude of sins. It permeates souls and extinguishes hope. It habours fear and anguish and is the harbinger of pain untold.

And it’s something that I know intimately. For over two hundred years, I’ve lived in the realm of darkness. I am one of its creatures, a mere servant damned to be enslaved by it for the rest of my existence.

God, that was harsh, even for me.

I think I’m taking brooding to an all new level. But tonight, I figure I’m entitled to wax poetic on my own misery.

The cause of my despair is...was just one man -- or half-man, to be more accurate. He was half-demon, too, but you’d never know it to look at him...unless he just sneezed or was really pissed off. Then he looked like a pin-cushion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Alan Francis Doyle.

He was always one for the track, the ladies or a stiff shot of single malt. Self-proclaimed as not much of a fighter, but he always came through in a pinch. Underneath that ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude and cheeky grin rested a heart that was made of the purest gold.

He was a good man, one that I was honoured to know -- even when he occasionally brought his troubles to my door. After all, who says that every lost soul in need of help has to be a stranger, right? Every now and then, it can be a friend.

Doyle was my friend, and I was proud to consider him so.

And now he’s dead.

Reaching out to my desk, I seek and finally find the bottle of my best single malt that I put there earlier. The bottle is almost empty, and I’m only now starting to feel the effects. Just another let-down of vampire physiology.

But I’m hell-bent and determined to get drunk tonight -- not just to numb my own pain, but to give a good man the kind of tribute I know he would have wanted. With that in mind, I pour myself another shot. Hefting the glass into the air, I shake it in angry defiance of the darkness that has taken another person I cared about from me.

“Here’s to you, Doyle,” I say softly and down the shot in one gulp. With the scotch burning my throat, I sit back and let the memories come with their hard, vivid intensity.

It had all happened so quickly -- the roomful of half-demons in hiding, running from another group of demons called the ‘Scourge’. The latter were purists, hell-bent on ‘cleansing’ the half-breeds and humans off the face of the earth. Elitist, prejudicial bastards.

Seeing the hunted half-demons huddled in the basement of an abandon building brought back all kinds of images of the Jews hiding from the oppression of the Nazi’s in World War II. Even the uniforms the Scourge chose to wear looked like something out of the Third Reich. Not that I had seen one firsthand. I stayed in America for the duration of the ‘War to End All Wars’. By that point in time, I’d already been cursed with my soul, and I’d seen enough gore and violence to last me the rest of my unlife.

Yeah, right.

In all truth, I was a coward.

Not like Doyle.

Doyle, who cast aside his own fears to save the lives of others. Doyle, who stunned me with a single punch, judging that my existence was more important in the grand scheme of the Powers That Be than his own. Doyle, who once told me that he would ‘chose pleasures of the flesh over honour and duty any day of the week’.

But he hadn’t. When it mattered the most, Doyle had found the inner-strength he so vehemently denied having. He chose to sacrifice his own life; saving me, Cordelia, and thousands of others in the process.

Cordelia.

She had been my first priority after it happened. The half-demons that we...I mean *Doyle* ...saved had ripped the purifying device that had killed my friend into little more than scrap metal. With plenty of thanks and a few tearful goodbyes, the ship where the fight happened cast off and sailed into the night, leaving Cordy and I to watch mournfully from the docks.

Not surprisingly, Cordelia was a complete and utter wreck. She and Doyle had been flirting with each other for months. But all his clumsy advances and all her cutting refusals were nothing more than window dressing. Despite all the barbs, the sidelong glances, and the banter that reminded me of an old episode of Moonlighting, something very real had been in the process of forming.

Put simply, they were falling in love.

I’d amused myself for months watching the two them dance around each other. Oh sure, there were plenty of days where their little squabbles infuriated me. After all, this is -- for all intents and purposes -- a detective agency, not a kindergarten. I’d get to the point where I would want to shout: ‘Would you just admit it and get it over with?’

Maybe I should have. Maybe then they would have at least had the chance -- not just a single, hurried kiss and an eternity of regrets, of what might have been. Maybe, just maybe, Doyle would have had enough reason to be the selfish bastard he always claimed he was and let me be the one to make the ultimate sacrifice.

But he hadn’t.

After it was over, I took Cordelia back to the office. I could tell she really didn’t want to be alone right then, and to my surprise, I found I didn’t want to be by myself, either. Somehow, I needed to be around her. She was the one, the *only* person who had any inkling of what I was going through, and it was the same in reverse for her.

So great was Cordy’s need to be near me that she even sat on my bed as I took the shower she insisted I needed. For once, I didn’t reproach her. The stink of salt-air and death covered me like a shroud, and the copious amounts of Bril-cream I’d used to slick back my hair left me feeling slimy and dirty.

I thought nothing of stripping down to my boxers in front of her. After all, Cordelia had seen me in them before -- like the time she invited herself to stay with me when she was driven out of her old apartment by the squalid conditions. Doyle had been so pissed off, coming in and making assumptions after spying us dressed in little more than bathrobes.

But that is an amusing memory. And if there was one thing I didn’t want to be at that moment, it was amused.

I left the door open when I went to take my shower. For modesty’s sake, I waited until I had pulled the opaque curtain closed before I removed my last layer of clothing. Throwing my boxers over the curtain rod, I turned on the faucets and let the flow of hot water wash my body clean.

Too bad it couldn’t do the same thing to my soul.

Cordelia chatted the whole time, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the running water. I think she was telling a long anecdote about one of Doyle’s misadventures, but I’ll never be sure. I wasn’t really paying attention at the time.

I was too busy trying to stifle the pain-filled, sobs that wracked my body. Up to that point, I'd held them back, knowing that I needed to be strong for Cordelia's sake. Oh, I know that she likes to think of herself as immune to emotional trauma. The nicknames 'Queen C.' and 'Bitch of the Year' can attest to that. But I also know she wasn't half as invulnerable as she liked everyone to believe. She needs a rock to cling to, and given the situation, that stability had to come from me.

But even rocks weep from time to time. When the pressure becomes too great, the water trapped within is forced out until it begins to trickle down the face of the stone. Don’t believe me? Look at a blasted-out mountain sometime. You’ll see what I mean.

Cordelia must have either heard me or realized what was happening behind the plastic barrier that separated us. Before I knew it, a strong-yet-feminine arm reached into the shower stall. With my blurred-over vision, I caught sight of Cordy’s hand as she fumbled to find the faucet for the cold water. Once she had it, she quickly turned it off without so much as peeking around the thin vinyl curtain. When she switched over to the other tap, I realized that the water, which should have been hot enough to scald my skin, was actually ice cold.

Just how long had I been in there? I wondered.

Cordelia said nothing, just pulled her hand back out of the stall. It returned a moment later holding one of my clean, folded terry towels. Grateful for her silence, I said nothing as I took the bath-sized cloth from her and started to slowly dry myself.

“I’ll be upstairs in the office,” Cordelia told me softly, giving me a few minutes to get dressed and collect myself.

I was relieved by the reprieve she had so graciously provided me. I took some extra time before I left the sanctuary of the shower. While I was physically cleaner, there was an ache in my heart that left me feeling still haggard and soiled.

Wetting a washcloth with cold water, I held the damp fabric over my eyes to hide some of the redness and swelling my tears had caused. I kept it there, making my way from the bathroom to my bedroom on memory and instinct rather than vision. Moving around the bed, I blindly reached into the closet and felt around until I found a shirt and a pair of pants.

Throwing the washcloth on one of the nightstands, I was not overly surprised to see that I had randomly chosen a black pullover and black pants. Dispensing with underwear, I dropped my towel and donned the two garments I’d picked out.

As I slid the knit top over my head, memories of Doyle again began to surface like flotsam rising after a shipwreck. How many times had I dressed with Doyle calling to me from the kitchen or living room? Whether it was a conversation about his latest effort with Cordelia, or some of that ‘practical advice’ he’d offer before I left to help somebody he’d seen in one of his visions; Doyle was always there.

My ally. My friend. Or, a Robin to my Batman, as Cordelia liked to tease.

Oh, how they loved to tease me. Ganging up on me was one of the few things that would get them to stop bickering with each other. Whether it was my silent nature or my tendency to brood -- hell, even my preference of wearing black was fodder for their sharp tongues.

But, to tell the truth, I never minded. Well, not really, anyway. In some strange way, being the target of their sarcasm made me feel like I belonged -- like I was just another human being, not the vampire that I am.

Finished dressing, I forced myself to move toward the freight elevator. I was so busy thinking back on past events, I barely noticed the sounds of the old machinery that moved me along. The world could have exploded at that point and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

It was only when I exited the elevator a moment later that I received the shock of my unlife. Coming from somewhere within the office, I heard something that I never thought I would be able to listen to again.

I heard the sound of Doyle’s voice.

My feet were moving before I could completely process the noises I was hearing. The only thought in my head was a chant comprised of two little words that repeated themselves over and over. ‘He’s alive! He’s alive!’

I crossed the main room of the office in less than a second, desperate to see the friend that I thought we had lost. With a hopeful expression plastered all over my face, I flew into my smaller private office ready to ask Doyle a thousand questions.

Instead of the reunion I was anticipating, I found Cordelia sitting alone on the couch, startled as hell by my abrupt entrance. By the way she turned and faced me with a look of surprise, I guessed that she was hoping that I would have some earth-shattering news -- a revelation that the events we had both borne witness to earlier that night were nothing more than a nightmare that would dissipate in the light of the morning.

If only it were true.

We stared at each other for a long moment as the stark reality of the situation sank in for both of us. Unable to cope with the sorrow pouring from her eyes, I broke the connection between us by turning to face the unnatural brightness of the television set.

I recognized the image almost immediately. It was the ‘test’ commercial that Cordy and Doyle had filmed -- God, was it only that morning? Cordelia was in my office only minutes after they finished the thing, doing her damnedest to convince me that we needed to advertise more. In all honesty, I think I can safely say that, if anything, watching this painful excuse of a potential commercial did little to change my vehement opposition to the concept as a whole.

“...Our rats are low...” Doyle’s Irish lilt echoed through the stillness of the room.

“I...just wanted...,” Cordelia said softly before trailing off in hesitation.

“I understand,” I answered as gently as I could. And I did.

My eyes never left the image on the screen as I blindly reached out to grab the chair from behind my desk. Spinning the upper part around, I leaned my knee into the seat, my hands grasping the back for balance.

“...am I done?” Doyle’s image asked somebody out of the range of the camera.

The picture continued running for a few seconds after that before abruptly changing into the snowy blur of unrecorded videotape. To my surprise, the image suddenly began running backwards at a rapid pace. Looking over at the couch, I saw Cordelia with the remote to the machine in her hands. At the beginning point of the segment, she released the ‘rewind’ button, letting the tape play again from the beginning of the scene.

And when it was done, Cordy rewound it again...

...and again...

...and again.

I can’t begin to guess how many times we ended up watching that scene. The only thing I can clearly remember is that my grip on the chair I was holding got a little tighter with each subsequent viewing.

As my anger and sense of helplessness over Doyle’s death continued to grow, my demon immediately rushed to take advantage of my barely controlled emotions. I was a hare’s breath from vamping out entirely when a new sound in the room caught my predatory attention.

It was a sob. Not a sniffle, not a choked ‘woe is me’; but a downright, heartbreaking, spirit debilitating gut-wrenching cry of agony.

Cordelia.

My head snapped in her direction only to find her doubled-over as her despair finally broke through her considerable emotional defenses.

‘Oh Cordy,’ I whispered, somehow managing to choke down the demon’s glee over the teenager’s despondency.

In the blink of an eye I was sitting down beside her. Unused to offering comfort of any kind to anyone, I hesitated for a moment before giving in and drawing the weeping girl into my arms. There was an awkward pause as I tried to figure out what to do with my hands. Finally, I gave in and settled them gently on to Cordelia’s back. For her part, Cordy fairly dove into the embrace I offered.

“Shussh,” I comforted softly, rubbing her back and hair in a way I prayed was soothing.

“W..why, A..angel?” Cordelia hiccuped through her tears.

“I don’t know, Cordy,” I whispered sadly. “I just don’t know.”

Neither one of us said anything else for long time after that. Eventually, Cordy cried herself into an uneasy sleep.




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