| Title: Turn Back Time Author: Kizmet Chapter 1 Angel blinked his eyes trying to clear his vision. There'd been a flash of magic as his ax bit into the demon seconds before it could grab Cordelia and then this_ He looked around to see, quiet rolling hills, a cobble stone road and peaceful pastures. No sign of the demon he'd been fighting, or Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn. No warehouse, no ever-present hum of traffic and general city noise, no electric street lights or power lines even. Hearing a low groan from the other side of the stone fence Angel hurried to his feet and looked over it to see that he'd been wrong earlier, at least Cordelia was still there, laying on the ground stirring weakly. Angel jumped over the fence and knelt beside her. "Cordy, are you all right?" he asked. "No, I'm laying in a mud puddle and these pants were brand new. What weirdness happened this time?" she asked. Angel gave her a helpless look. "Something happened when I killed that demon, now we're here. Here isn't LA." "That's just peachy," Cordelia exclaimed. "I've got an audition in the morning." "Let's figure out where we are," Angel suggested, offering Cordelia a hand up. "Then we'll go from there. After helping Cordelia over the fence Angel selected a direction on a whim and they started walking. As they followed the road Angel felt a confusing sense of familiarity about the place, it's sounds, it's smells, the lay of the land around him, he was certain he knew it, but couldn't begin to place where he knew it from. Eventually the road led them to a rustic looking inn. Cordelia followed Angel through the narrow entryway. "And what ken I do for ya?" the Innkeeper, an older woman with sharp dark eyes asked upon seeing the door open. Angel froze, blocking Cordelia's way, even after centuries the cadence of the woman's speech still spoke of home to him. Angel gave the woman a look of helpless confusion. "Could you tell me where we are?" he asked. "We were hiking. I got turned around and we've been wandering for hours, night fell. I was relieved to see your lights." "This is the Wayfarer's Inn, Galway proper is a quarter of a mile further down the road," The woman told him. "Move Angel!" Cordelia exclaimed. "I'm cold, I'm wet and there's a fire in there. Only you're blocking the heat! Which you don't even need!" "Galway?" Angel asked unsteadily, moving out of the door to let Cordelia pass. As she stepped into the light the Innkeeper stared at her in scandalized horror. "What in Heaven's name are ye wearing?" the woman asked. Angel stumbled into the Inn's common room and sank into a chair. "Look I know it's not designer, but at least I'm trying," Cordelia snapped. "It's indecent!" the woman cried. "I'll not have a_ a_ harlot like yerself in my establishment!" "I may not be wearing a sack like you," Cordelia shot back. "But this is not `indecent'!" "Get out!" "No! I'm lost. I fell in a puddle. It's the middle of the night and I'm not going back out there!" "Ye'l change into something proper first," the woman said reluctantly. "It wouldna be Christen to send ya out into the night." Angel never noticed as the woman led Cordelia off to change. He was too deeply stunned by the news he had somehow been dumped in the place where he'd spent his entire human life. While he sat there staring into the distance Angel overheard two men discussing the ships that had been in and out of port during the last few weeks. As he listened Angel remembered years of watching the ships that brought his father's wares and wasted time spent dreaming about the places they went to. And this listing of ships seemed too familiar, too easily remembered. "The Merrymeet is to leave with the tide in the morrow," one of the men commented, and Angel's mouth dropped open in surprise, he'd have been on that ship if it hadn't been for the decision to say farewell to Galway with one last night's revelry. "What day is it?" he asked the men urgently. "The sixth," one replied. Angel grabbed the man's arm with a strength that would leave bruises. "June sixth, of 1753?" he demanded. "Yes!" the man exclaimed, fear and anger warring in his eyes, but before either could win out Angel was gone, heading toward the town at a dead run. How he'd come to be here, now, didn't matter anymore or why, all that mattered was the possibility that everything could be different. That all the evil he'd done could be erased. He had a chance to live and die as a mortal, never knowing the depth of evil he was capable of. "Not that you'll make good use of that chance," Angel thought with a feeling of disgust for the person he'd been. Still what he'd been was infinitely preferable to what he was about to become. Angel rushed through the sleeping town without hesitation. Some things weren't hard to remember despite the passage of time and this night, the place where he'd died were both one of those things. Angel turned into the alley then just stood there staring down at the crumpled body that lay at his feet. The laughter that he couldn't suppress was a bitter, ugly thing. To come so close and still to be helpless to change what had happened. Sometimes, most of the time really, Angel was certain that the Universe hated him, not that he hadn't earned that hatred. "What would I have saved you for anyway?" Angel asked the corpse angrily. "I'd just have given you the chance to die of syphilis, remember? It's not you that mattered; you've never been anything but useless. Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn, they were doing fine without you. They only took you back because you begged them to. Buffy and Riley probably would have made a great couple if you hadn't been around to make him insecure. You don't matter at all, the ones that mattered were the people you killed. Who really cares that I didn't save your life as long as I stop you from rising?" Roughly Angel rolled the body, his body, over. There were ways to prevent a vampire from rising, pretty much the same things that would kill one. Still he didn't have anything to behead it with. Fire would work, but his family deserved the closure of burying the body and he wanted Kathy to know that he hadn't meant to break his promise to her; he didn't want her to wait for him to come back. Angel looked around for a stake but there was nothing that could be used in the alley, he didn't want to leave and risk the body being found and moved while it could still rise. Looking distinctly queasy Angel shut his eyes then drove his hand into the corpse's chest, pulling the heart from it. For a few minutes he just knelt there, staring at the thing in his hand. It wasn't even cold yet, that's how close he'd been. Angel waited, expecting that he would simply disappear now that there was no way that the thing lying on the ground could become him. The sound of voices approaching brought him back to the present. The idea of being arrested for essentially committing suicide struck Angel as humorous, but then he remembered abandoning Cordelia back at the inn and vanished into the shadows. Still half expecting to stop existing at any moment he wandered back to the Inn. Cordelia, now dressed in attire appropriate for the time, slumped in a chair by the fire, fast asleep. Angel sat beside her in the disserted room, noticing for the first time that he still held his heart in his hands. A log broke in the fireplace with a crack, waking Cordelia. She saw Angel and immediately demanded, "What was that all about? They said you practically broke that guy's arm then ran out of here like the place was on fire. I had to tell them you were mental... Actually that was kinda fun." "I thought I could stop it from happening," Angel said. "But I didn't get there in time." He sat the object he'd been holding on the table and Cordelia gasped in horrified recognition. "What did you do Angel?" she demanded. "When someone's turned you can stop them from rising by taking the heart out of the corpse," Angel explained. "What I'm thinking you did, you didn't do that right?" Cordelia asked, she knew there were only two ways that Angel could have know about someone being turned here and now, either he'd turned the person into a vampire or he'd been the vampire and she had a feeling that it wasn't the former. Angel met Cordelia's eyes and she knew she`d been right. "I thought I'd just disappear afterwards," Angel said. "Well you know Star Trek," Cordelia said. "Sometimes you go back in time and it turns out that you were destined to go back so nothing changes, sometimes everything changes but you still don't disappear because outside the time stream or something like that." "After what I did, I won't become a vampire," Angel said. Cordelia swallowed softly. "I guess that makes this the second case. Do you think it will be really different when we get back?" she asked. "That was sort of the idea," Angel said. "I wonder if Jenny gets to have those grandchildren she wanted." Cordelia gave him a confused look but didn't ask. Angel got up to wander around the room restlessly, when he opened the door to leave again Cordelia asked awkwardly, "Umm, should you leave that here?" Angel turned back to see her pointing at the heart. He slowly walked back to the table, picked it up and went outside and buried it. Afterward he just walked around wondering what you were supposed to do after you killed yourself. Thoughts flickered through his mind and spun away before he could grasp them. The dawn forced him inside but he couldn't stay still for more than a few minutes, couldn't concentrate on anything. He was aware that Cordelia had gone back to the spot where they'd appeared hoping to find some clue as to how they could return to 2001, but he couldn't seem to get past the impossibility of planning for the future after having killed himself. The second night he spent much like the first, just moving, not really thinking. But as dawn approached again he realized he didn't want to be trapped inside for another day. He managed to acquire a heavy cloak before the sun rose and continued his random wandering as night progressed into morning. Angel stopped abruptly upon finding himself at in the shadow of a small wood at the edge of the town cemetery. Even before he recognized the people gathered there Angel knew he was watching his own funeral. Angel shuttered, this was the last place he wanted to be but his body didn't seem to understand that. It just stood there and watched. "Angel!" Cordelia exclaimed breathlessly, hurrying to his side. "When you weren't back at dawn I freaked, I've been looking everywhere for you. Would you quit disappearing on me?" When he didn't say anything Cordelia looked around them and noticed the group of people gathered inside the cemetery. "Hey that's your funeral isn't it?" she asked. "Doesn't being here totally creep you out?" "Considering what I did the other night_ no," Angel replied. "Okay, you're right, by comparison this is normal," Cordelia replied. "Not many people came did they?" "My friends probably decided to have an informal wake last night," Angel said sounding quietly disgusted. "It's what I would have done if it were one of them, any excuse to get drunk generally worked. Father probably had the burial in the morning to ensure they'd be too hung over to bother attending and thus spare the family one last embarrassment on my account." "Oh_ so you were like a complete loser in this time and so were all your friends," Cordelia commented, then immediately looked guilty. "Basically," Angel agreed. "A drunk, whoring, lay-about and a terrible disappointment." "So_ um, why are we here?" Cordelia asked. Angel ignored the question, turning back to the cemetery. They watched as the various mourners left, all but one stern looking older man who stared off into the distance as the grave was filled. Angel was shocked, he couldn't imagine why his father would stay so long, didn't he have other, more important, things to do rather than watch over the grave a child who'd brought him nothing but shame? And yet he stayed. Hours after the cemetery was otherwise deserted the man finally turned and walked away. As he left the cemetery Angel moved to intercept him. "Why do ye tarry so long, Sir?" he asked trying to recall his long forgotten brogue so as to sound less foreign at least. "Tis no business of yours," the man replied abruptly moving to step around Angel. Angel shifted the hood of his cloak back slightly to show his face more clearly and the man froze his eyes widening with disbelief. "Please Father?" Angel asked. The man, Angel's father, sank toward the ground in a near faint. Both Cordelia and Angel leapt to catch him. "Geeze Angel, just give him a heart attack why don't you," Cordelia said with a roll of her eyes. "An angel. I hardly thought that possible," the man muttered. "It's just a name," Angel said angrily. "A stupid, sick joke I once thought funny. Truth is I couldn't get much farther from that." "I don't think you're helping," Cordelia hissed. "But you are my Liam?" he asked reaching for Angel's hood intending to remove it entirely. "Don't," Angel said pulling away. "Even with the shade I can't take this much sunlight." "What are you?" his father demanded. Angel sighed. "What Liam became after a very long and very ugly road. It's truly better that he stays in that grave, better for the world and he'll have so many fewer regrets." "I don't understand," Angel's father said. "It's not important," Angel said. "I was Liam once, and I just wanted to know why you stood there so long." Angel's father stared at him with sad, tired eyes. "Because I wished that I could change how we parted that night, wished that I'd have found the words to keep you from leaving so none of this would have happened. Because you are my child and I hated the thought of leaving you alone there. Because I loved you." "You did?" Angel asked in a strained voice. The older man seemed to pull himself together, standing straight and looking directly into Angel's eyes. "You asked before you left if I could find anything in my heart for you besides fear," he said. "I should have answered. I loved you. Nothing could ever change that. No matter how angry I was with you." Angel opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He had no idea what he should say or even what he wanted to say. "Come on Angel," Cordelia said. "Snap out of it, he's the one who just met a dead person, not you." "Liam, will ye be coming home with me," Angel's father asked quietly. "I shouldn't have even talked to you," Angel said suddenly nervous. "I can't make sense of this," Angel's father said. "But yer back, I won't lose ye again Liam. Please, come home, yer mother and yer sister miss ye." Angel looked uncertain, undecided. "Ye did promise Kathy that ye would," his father added. "Do you think I should?" Angel asked Cordelia. "Sure, why not," Cordelia replied. |