Memoirs
© 2000 Jen Sweeny
Click.
"Memoirs tape one."
Click.
"God that sounds so hokey. Oh well I can cut that part out. Ah-hem."
Click.
"Hello. I guess I should introduce myself. Most of you knew me as Angel but now I tend to go by Liam. The first time I heard it on her lips I knew that was what I wanted to be called forever. She is... sorry, getting ahead of myself. This recording was her idea and she insisted that I do it right. Chronological order. OK so where to begin?
Buffy.
Well, to get it right it all started with Willow. Suddenly out of the blue she calls me and says she's found a spell. One that would guarantee my soul would be anchored for the rest of my undead life. And did I want her to do it. Uhm, I'm thinking *YEAH*.
But I was worried about it. I mean, what would it do to me? What would it do to Willow if she tried it? What would I do if it didn't work? What would I do if it did?
So I went to the Oracles. Did I mention that two new Oracles had taken over for the old ones? Sorry. Anyway that isn't really all that important. What is important is what they told me. That my soul was already permanent. It had been since my return from Hell. I mentioned the whole -took the drugs - got really mean and nasty - forced my friends to throw me down an elevator shaft - ordeal. Their response was that it had been an illusion. Not real. So I went back to the hotel and told Cordelia and Wesley what they'd told me. Then I waited for sunset. Then I did exactly what everyone expected me to do.
I went to her.
Buffy.
I walked into Giles' Magic Shop and told the group at large. She stood up and walked away from everyone and came to me. She came to me. I took her hand and we just stood there. Suddenly I realized that I had no idea where to take her. That's when Riley strode over with that total soldier stride and handed me a set of keys. "My place's empty," he said it so calm. Then he looked down at her and smiled so sadly. Then he walked away.
So we went to his place. Now everyone knows that each person's home has a certain smell. Well his smelled like him... and her. We sat and talked for over four hours. About Riley. About Cordelia. About the fights we'd been fighting. About nothing deeper then the weather. Then we stopped. She got up and walked around for a minute then turned to face me. "I can't do this," she whispered. "I... I've made a horrible mistake." And I knew right then that she was right. Too much time had passed and to top it off - she loved him. Really truly loved him. I told her that I knew. That I understood. And I offered to help her find him. She said no, that she knew where he'd go. Then she stretched up and kissed me. Then she said something I will never, ever forget.
"If you look deep into your heart, you'll know where you belong tonight. And with who."
I can still hear her voice in my ear saying it. And feel the rush that went through me when I realized that she was right. I did know.
It took me less then half the time to drive back to LA. I went straight to her apartment. She was sitting up in her living room wrapped in a shirt I'd left there at some point. And she was crying.
"Why are you crying?" I asked her, wiping away the tears.
"Why are you back?" she whispered hoarsely.
"Because I love you," I told her.
"That's why I'm crying," she laughed. "I love you and you left me."
"Never happen again."
And I picked her up and took her to bed.
Poor Dennis. We seriously warped him that first month. But I mean, it had been a *REALLY* long time for me. And OK this is getting beyond the scope of what you all need to know. Moving on.
Six weeks later we got the call from Giles reporting that Buffy had once again bucked the Council's rules. She and Riley were pregnant. Seems she *really* did some convincing that night after I left. But she was worried. Few slayers ever got pregnant. Fewer still survived long enough to give birth. So we packed up and moved. Gunn moved in with Dennis. We really thought it would be temporary. Turned out we never moved back.
Five months after we moved down to Sunnydale, Xander and Anya got married. Seems yet another condom bought at the Sunnydale Main Street Pharmacy failed. So we all endured Anya's pregnancy. In one house. Someone I won't say who (Rupert) decided it would be safest if we all lived close together. So me in my infinite vision borrowed money from David Nabbit and bought a mansion on the outskirts of town. We each had our own wing and plenty of yard in back. And a private cemetery that I'd hoped never to use.
Buffy gave birth in June to a little girl she and Riley named Rebecca Dawn. Anya delivered a boy in August named Michael James.
Rebecca took her first steps from my arms to her mother's the day of her first birthday, stopping only to bop Spike on the head as she passed. She spent the next hour toddling from one of us to the other shrieking like mad. I'll never forget the look on Buffy's face that day. Total and complete happiness. Bliss.
She died two days later. Cut down in a fight, she bled to death in Spike's
arms. Her last words were of love for him, Riley, and Becca. She begged him
to forgive her not saying it earlier. He kissed her just as she died. He
later told us he wanted to inhale her last breath to keep her with him
forever. He carried her home to Riley. The two of them kept each other
going through the darkness that followed. Their only light was Becca. They
raised her together. I know this is... short... but I still can't...
Click.
Click
In that bloody night we also lost Tara. She tried to defend Buffy as she lay
dying. Willow was devastated beyond words after that. She lost her love and
her best friend in one night. For weeks she wouldn't talk or even eat except
for Giles. I guess it was inevitable that they would bond. A year to the
day from when we buried Buffy and Tara in our private cemetery, Willow and
Giles welcomed the latest edition to the family in a little girl they named -
of course, Tara Buffy Giles.
I saw it in her eyes that night. The night we waited for Tara to be born.
And every night thereafter. We were all in the hospital waiting room when I
first realized it. Riley and Spike had Becca. Anya and Xander had Mikey.
And then Rupert and Willow had Tara.
Cordelia wanted a baby. And I was keeping it from her. So we sat down one
night and I threw a proposal on the table. My morning they'd agreed to what
I suggested. A month later we held a private candlelit ceremony and the
three of us promised to love honor and cherish each other for all eternity.
Exactly nine months later from a week long wild and unbelievable honeymoon.
Again, none of your business what happened. But nine months later in the wee
hours before dawn on a very cold December night, Cordelia gave birth to a
son. Our son. William Daniel Price. Will, we called him. He looked
exactly like Cordelia. But had Wes's eyes and tendency to trip over things.
But he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And he called Wes and I
both Dad. And I thought I'd known bliss.
Time passed as it always does. The Giles and Price families both kept trying
for more babies but it wasn't meant to be. Anya had refused to let Xander
move back into the house after her experience with childbirth until he
guaranteed that Mike would be an only child. Or rather, "Cut that damn thing
off," as she put it. He explained that there were safer methods and was
allowed back in after a vasectomy.
But Willow and Cordelia both wanted more children, but only children they
were and only children ours would be. They grew in Sunnydale, always aware
that the shadows could very well hold a boogie man. They each graduated from
the re-built Sunnydale High and attended UC Sunnydale. Then Michael married
Tara. Not to be outdone, six months later, my son Will married Buffy's
daughter Rebecca. Riley said it seemed fitting. I had to agree. And within
days of each other we all became grandparents. Michael and Tara named
Alexander Rupert after his grandfathers. And Will and Becca named their
daughter Riley Cordelia. Riley muttered at the use of his name for a girl,
but I often caught him cradling her in his arms and whispering about the
proud legacy of the name. And again, only children. It seemed only fitting
that Alex and Riley would fall in love and marry just after high school.
Keeping it all in the family.
But time passes, as it tends to. I watched them age. Spike and I. Both of
us cursing the passage of time that took them further and further away from
us.
Buffy and Tara were the first to go. Taken in the night so long ago. But
just the first.
The rest followed within one year of Alex and Riley's wedding.
Riley and Spike were sitting in front of a fireplace playing poker. Spike
said that Riley sighed and laid his head back. Then he opened his eyes and
smiled. Spike said he knew that smile and turned half expecting to see her
standing there. He claims he caught her scent just before Riley breathed his
last. We kept the service private. Just family. Then Spike spent the night
digging up Buffy's grave to lay Riley in with her. He made me promise to
scatter his ashes over the spot when his time came.
I lost my heart and soul three weeks later. She woke us both late one night.
Yes we were all still in the same bedroom. She smiled at us and told us to
be strong for each other. Wes tried to leave us alone but she still had a
remarkable grip. She died just as the sun began to rise. The sounds of
Wesley's weeping in my ears couldn't cover the struggle for her last breath.
In that moment I remembered what Spike had said about capturing Buffy's
spirit. I swallowed her final breath and held it. I swore I'd never
breathed again. Never sigh. Never laugh. Never love. We buried her just after sunset, next to Riley and Buffy. Two weeks later we
dug up her grave to place Wesley in with her. I placed them together just as
they'd always slept. Wes flat on his back, Cordelia resting against him with
her head under his chin. He was warmer she always said. And she liked to
feel me against her back. I knew from that moment on I would never b- be
warm again. Click.
Click
" And I blindly believed we were done.
But six months later in late September, Giles became ill. Willow never left
his side. He lived long enough to find out that Riley was pregnant. He
proclaimed that it would be a girl. He told me one night that Cordelia and
Buffy were coming back to me. I dismissed it as delirium. He held on for
another week, then as quietly as he lived, he died. Willow begged us to
leave her alone for awhile. I stood in the shadows and watched her lay her
head down and weep. It wasn't until the silence fell just after midnight
that I realized that she was gone. Sweet, caring Willow who never wanted to
put anyone out. Who knew we would unearth her husband's coffin to place her
with him. Died in his arms that night and was buried along with him. Click.
Click.
"And then there were eight.
The four children of my friends.
Their two children.
And Spike and I.
Then.
The children. The ones we always jokingly called - Scoobies, the next
generation.
Tara, Rebecca, Michael, and William. My precious, precious baby boy William.
They were all killed when an earthquake hit one night. A significant
portion of the mansion collapsed and buried them in their beds. Again I
buried part of my family in their final loving embrace.
Four.
But what Riley realized, from some inborn instinct all the descendants of
Buffy had, was that it had not been an earthquake, but a reopening of the
Hellmouth. The four of us went into the battle, even though Riley was seven
months along. Spike, Alex, Riley, and I fought and won. There was a massive
explosion again sealing the Hellmouth and again destroying Sunnydale High.
The explosion had been bad. Very bad. Riley landed on her back and went
into hard labor almost instantly. Alex fell beside her but never let on that
he was hurt bad. It was almost sunrise so we fled to the Oracle chambers, me
carrying Riley, Spike with Alex. Alex stopped breathing before we got there,
but woke up and was lucid in the chamber as Riley gave birth. She delivered
Grace Angela on the floor in front of the Oracles in what seemed to be a
miraculously pain free delivery. It was only after she finally pushed Grace
into the world that we realized that her back had been shattered by the fall.
She died moments after Grace let out her first cry, her last breath used to
name her daughter. Alex smiled once at his daughter then also succumbed to
the dark. Again we buried one coffin.
Three.
Sitting in the Oracle chamber, holding Grace still covered in afterbirth, I
wept. I was so sure that I had failed. I had lost everyone who'd ever meant
anything to me. But then the Oracles demanded that I look at her. I did.
All I saw was an orphan. Small, frail. The Oracles told us to leave and
come back when we were older. I snapped something about being almost three
hundred as I wrapped Grace up in my coat.
It wasn't until she was about four that I really truly looked at her. Looked
beyond what I hadn't done. All the things I'd never said.
It was just after sunset, her favorite time. She and Spike were chasing each
other in and around the gravestones of the family cemetery. She climbed up
onto the top of a bench and turned a certain way.
And I gasped.
And I still can't believe what I saw. She was Buffy. And she was Cordelia.
I mean she was her own person. And there were aspects of everyone in her.
She had a way of holding her head when she was thinking that always made me
think of Wesley. And her way of walking was every inch of Riley's soldier
stride despite being as petite and waif-like as Buffy had been. And Willow's
amazing intellect combined with Rupert's memory was fearsome. Cordelia's
eyes deep and bright. Buffy's golden hair. Xander's chin, that came up when
she was feeling the Anya stubbornness. Willow's smile, soft, and sweet that
made you forget her temper. Buffy's graceful athleticism passed down through
Rebecca and Riley. Cordelia's aim with a crossbow that somehow skipped Will
but flourished in Alex. I had seen these things time and time again.
But that time.
But that was the first time I glimpsed her soul. Burning deep within,
shining from her eyes. Her soul that seemed to be Buffy and Cordelia at once.
So I went back to the Oracles. And they told me that souls are reborn over
and over again. And that Cordelia and Buffy had been in and out of my life
time and time again. And that when I was born as Liam in Galway Ireland
that it was known that my soul would be lost for a long, long time. Both
Cordelia and Buffy were then given the choice of what to do. Cordelia chose
to be born as my sister. Wanting as much time with me as possible. Buffy
chose to be both my first kill and the gypsy that I killed before being
cursed. She wanted the greatest impact as possible.
Buffy would be born again and again over time. Sometimes in my life,
sometimes not. Cordelia was content to wait, knowing that the right time
would come again if she was patient. Then the time came. The ultimate call.
Buffy knew before she was born that she would be a slayer. That she would
again have the greatest impact in my life. When asked Cordelia was greedy
and said she wanted things. Material things. Since she had been so patient,
she was born into the life of privilege. Of course neither of them would
remember, they weren't allowed to. But the Powers were working to guide us
all together. Bringing together the others who had crossed our paths.
Willow had been the slayer in China killed by Spike. Riley had been her
watcher. Xander had been one of my friends in Galway.
Yes I know how amazing this all sounds.
I mean Xander and I were friends?
After some time of taking it all in, the Oracles continued. They said that
Buffy and Cordelia had decided before being born into this life that this
would be their last trip through as separate souls. That in order to make me
completely happy, I shouldn't have to choose between them. So after Buffy
died, she waited. When Cordelia died, they merged into one soul. Giles
knew. Wish he'd been a little less vague. He knew that the soul would be
born again in Grace."
"Liam?"
Click.
"Yes, Grace?"
"It's late."
"I know. I'm almost done."
"You still talking to that bleedin' thing?"
"Go away, Spike."
"Bite me, Angel. Oh that's right you CAN'T."
"Still am damn good with a stake."
Click.
"Where was I? Oh right. Grace. So I came back home. I knew what it meant.
Grace was her own person. But her soul was Buffy and Cordelia. I tried not
to let it change the way I saw her but as she grew, I fell so far in love
with her. I couldn't function when she walked out of a room. Not that I
could function when she was in the room either. So I walked away. I was so
afraid of scaring her. Or hurting her. I mean she was still just a child.
So I went back to LA and fought every demon who dared cross my path. I
stayed away for years. It was the worst thing I'd ever done. Then Spike
called me. Said she wanted me to come home for her graduation. Sunnydale
High School. You would think after everything they would build the damn
school somewhere else. But no, they started rebuilding right over the
Hellmouth within a year of us blowing it up.
So she was all grown up. Seventeen.
I saw her again standing in the cemetery of the grounds. I was walking
toward her when she turned. I froze in place
God she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Golden hair reflecting
the full moonlight. Deep brown eyes that saw right through me. A long green
dress.
"Liam. You're home," was all she said. I remember nodding. "Want to go for
a walk?" All I could do was stand there and nod. She reached out and took
my hand and was walked through the cemetery that she'd planted with night
blooming flowers.
We stopped in front of the five graves. The first five. I felt suddenly bad
that we'd left Tara buried alone.
She smiled up at me and reached up. The minute her hand touched my face it
happened. At the time I didn't know what was happening. All I knew was that
it hurt. It hurt bad. I collapsed on the ground and was screaming when
Spike came out. They took me inside. It was the longest night of my life.
Longer then the night I lost Cordelia. Longer than the hundred years I spent
in hell.
When I woke up I was disoriented. And I felt so strange. And there was a
sound. A heartbeat. It took me an hour to realize it was my own. My own.
I started to scream that I was alive. Alive. "I know," she'd said. Just
simply - I know.
I picked her up and spun her around and around until I got dizzy. Then I ate
everything in the kitchen until I made myself sick. It was an amazing time."
"Oh Li-am."
Click
"Spike, I am not done!"
"Well tough. Your daughter is awake and demanding to be changed."
"So change her, you know how."
"I am walking your son. I could waken your wife."
"No I'm coming."
Click.
"An amazing time. Whoa baby what is your mother feeding you. "AMAZING TIME"
"Thanks Spike. Right. An amazing time. The Oracles knew that the time had
come. The also knew that if Grace asked I'd come back. So they gave her the
power. When I came, she just had to take me onto the graves of our family
and touch my face. In that instant I would become human."
"Should've mentioned the virility factor. With all the shagging you two did
we're lucky she didn't have triplets or quadruplets or fift... what ever five
are."
Click.
Angel leaned back in the rocking chair on the balcony. Kathryn Angela was
nestled firmly against his beating heart, her thumb in her mouth sleeping
peacefully. Spike crossed to the other chair and sat down. He shifted
Joseph William into the crook of his arm.
"Don't use that word around them, Grace'll have a fit," Angel warned.
"Oh will she?"
He stopped breathing as she stepped out onto the balcony. Clad in a long
satin nightgown that's pale blue fabric hug every curve.
"Wow," Spike blinked. "Damn shame you're wasting all that on Peaches there."
"Stifle it," Angel growled.
Grace walked over, lifted Katy from his arms, and sat down onto his lap. He
cradled them both to his chest.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you more," he replied.
"That's my cue. Come on buster, let's go get Uncle Spike some O pos."
Spike stepped out back to toss out the empty blood container. He leaned
against the house to stare up at the full moon.
Joey tilted his head to smile up at Spike. Spike winked at him.
Joey tightened his face and growled.
Spike vamped out and snarled.
Joey shrieked with laughter.
Angel chuckled. His son had a strange sense of humor. Almost like Xan...
nah.
the end