By Gabrielle Lawson
Angel knocked on the door with the toe of his shoe since his arms were otherwise occupied. Fortunately, someone answered quickly as the books were beginning to slip. He lost his grip when he saw who had answered, and one of the books fell.
"Buffy," was all he could manage to say.
She seemed equally taken aback as she stood silently in the door just staring up at him.
"I thought these might help," Angel finally said, nodding toward the books he was still about to drop.
"Oh, right." She took a few books off the top and stepped out of the way.
Angel followed, and Buffy tried to shut the door behind him. Angel was about to stop her when a sandaled foot poked itself into the doorway. "Angel couldn't have driven himself in the daylight," Cordelia stated, pushing the door open. "So I'd appreciate not having the door slammed in my face."
Angel suspected Cordelia's abrasiveness would soften once they got down to the business at hand. Cordy may not have liked Buffy much, but she usually got her priorities right when it counted. "Harry's right behind me," she added.
"Harry?" Buffy asked.
"I also brought a friend," Angel explained, just as the door opened again.
Buffy's cheeks turned pink and a few of the others--Giles and Xander were in front--came out to see who had come in.
"Is he here?" Harry asked, setting her books on the coffee table and brushing a few stray curls from her eyes.
"Harry?" Buffy managed to stammer.
"Yes," Harry replied and offered her hand. "You must be Buffy. I've heard a lot about you."
Buffy smiled and took the hand offered, but she shot Angel an angry look. "Harry's an ethno-demonologist," Angel explained. "And she's Doyle's ex-wife."
Buffy's features softened and she answered Harry's question. "He's not here."
"Is this some kind of joke?!" Cordy accused. She hesitated, obviously wanting to say more.
It took a lot to make Cordelia speechless, and Angel felt rather the same way. "I hope not.” he frowned, "If it is, it’s not funny."
"He is here!" Buffy was quick to reply. "Just not right now. He went for a walk. But he should have been back awhile ago. I was just about to see if I can find him."
"I'll go with you," Angel volunteered.
"Won't do any good," Xander commented. "Buffy's the only one that can see him."
"Except in reflections," Giles amended. "Why don't we finish the introductions and get down to business?"
"Reflections?" Cordelia asked, her voice so quiet, Angel wouldn't have thought anyone had heard. But, since everyone else had frozen in silence, he assumed they had. Cordelia raised a hand to her mouth just as her knees buckled.
Angel moved quickly to catch her. She grabbed his shoulder as he did and held him close. "Do you know what this means?" she sobbed in a whisper. "I saw him. Over and over. The window, my mirror. He was there!"
Angel didn't say anything. He had suspected Doyle had stayed nearby since Buffy had said he'd heard them talking about Giles, but that was still an abstraction. This was more concrete. And Angel felt guilty for it. He felt like he'd let Doyle down.
Buffy ushered the others, and Harry, to seats at the table where she quietly introduced Harry to everyone else. Cordelia and Doyle must have been close, considering her reaction and the way he'd talked of her.
Harry seemed subdued as well, which wasn't all that surprising. Buffy hated to admit, even to herself, the flash of jealousy she'd felt when Harry had come in. She was beautiful, and older which probably would have suited Angel. It hurt to think that Angel could move on, even though she had herself. Now, knowing that he and Harry weren't involved, she felt guilty for moving on, knowing that he hadn't--or couldn't, considering the curse.
Still, they weren't here to reminisce or cause each other pain. Angel and Cordelia joined the others at the table, and, after explaining Spike (during which time Giles and Xander both threatened gagging him), Buffy filled them in on how she had found Doyle at the edge of campus. Then she left them to Giles and set out to find the man of honor.
Doyle had followed them, out of breath and thirsty again, toward the outskirts of town. He couldn't keep their pace, however, and arrived after most had moved on. Only two remained. They had found a long-abandoned rail station and vampires, if one could judge by the one that remained struggling against the two demons. They were laughing, tormenting him as he staggered and flailed ineffectually at them. They took turns cutting him, causing him to scream and drop to his knees.
"You reek of humanity half-breed," one taunted as he backhanded the doomed vampire.
"Calling this vermin a half-breed is an insult to half-breeds," commented the other. "Finish him or we'll be late."
"Fine," returned the other. "This way, parasite," he called to the vampire, who, contrary to good sense, did just that. He lunged full out at the demon. But the latter easily sidestepped the attack, grabbing the vampire's head with both hands as he did so. And in one swift movement, he brought his elbows in close and twisted. The momentum of the lunge caused the vampire to spin, but the demon was faster and his movement more forceful. The vampire yowled as the demon ripped his head from his shoulders. He had just enough time to hold it up for his partner to see before it burst into a bright display of fine dust along with the rest of the vampire's body.
Doyle didn't exactly feel pity for the vampire, but he didn't like the fact that the Scourge was in town. If all they killed were soulless vampires, it wouldn’t be as bad. But what if there were half-demons in the area?
They were leaving now, apparently satisfied that all the vampires were dead. Doyle remembered that one of them had mentioned being late. He decided to follow them, knowing they couldn't see or hurt him.
There were more than a hundred of them gathered when he reached their hideout, more than Doyle remembered from Los Angeles. Three demons stood on a stage while the rest stood at parade rest in even ranks on the ground. The leader, shorter than the other two and stocky, was shouting slogans at the others who howled their ascent from time to time. At first, it was the standard racial diatribe which might have enraged Doyle if he hadn't exhausted himself in coming this far. But then the speech became apocalyptic and Doyle perked up.
"For centuries we have worked toward a goal!" the leader shouted. "We have killed the mongrel and striven to purify our race. We have worked to bring about a time when the world would be free of humanity in all its forms. That time is at hand!
"We are led by the Higher Power!" he continued. "He has led us from afar since his banishment nearly a thousand years hence. In two days, he will lead us in person, and he will cleanse the Earth of its impurity!"
The crowd broke ranks to cheer that one.
"A doorway will open but there will be resistance," the speaker went on, silencing the crowd. "There are those who would stop us, those who would obstruct our Leader’s emergence."
The crowd murmured its displeasure with angry voices and raised fists.
"Sunnydale may boast a hellmouth, but it also houses a Slayer!"
The crowd howled in incoherent anger, so loud that Doyle could barely hear the next part.
"We cannot allow this interference!"
Now the crowd was with him, breaking ranks again, shouting and thrusting their fists into the air.
"The Higher Power will emerge!"
"Yes!" the crowd screamed in a frenzy.
“The Cleansing will come!"
Doyle backed away as the crowd erupted again. He had to warn Buffy.
"It's been months then," Harry commented. "He was there with us and we didn't even know."
"There's really no way you could have known," Giles reminded her. "You couldn't have seen or heard him except in reflections, and even then he does appear rather. . . ."
"Ghostly, " Xander finished for him.
"That's probably what we would have thought of him," Angel concluded. It didn't help though. He still felt guilty. And angry. If Doyle was truly alive, the Oracles had lied to him.
"We should concentrate on the present," Giles suggested. "He's here, and for whatever reason, he appears to still be alive. I think if we can find the reason, we'll be in a much better position to help him."
"Could it have something to do with the Brachen side of his family?" Harry posed.
Angel wasn't surprised by the reaction that got. Giles, Xander, Spike, and Willow all spoke in unison. "What?" Anya, though, didn’t seem impressed.
"Doyle is half-demon," he told them, prepared to explain if necessary.
"That doesn't make him a bad person!" Cordelia blurted.
"He's not exactly proud of it," Harry added. "Will you still help him?"
Giles looked to Angel, and Angel knew what he wanted. Despite what had happened between him and Angelus, Giles was willing to trust Angel's judgment. Angel just nodded.
Giles accepted that. "We're going to try," he told Harry. "Tell us about his demon side."
"He was raised human," she said. "We didn't have any idea. One day he sneezed and spikes came out of his face. He was terrified; we both were, but he took it harder. I wanted him to learn more about his father's side of the family, maybe even meet his father, but Francis didn't want that side of himself. At first, he just hoped it would go away. When it didn't, he got angry. I left after that."
"He can change form," Angel added, picking up the tale. "He's stronger in demon form, though he doesn't like to use it. I don't know the extent of his abilities, because I rarely saw him that way."
"He'd be good in a long jump," Cordelia said, looking down at the table. Angel knew what she was saying. Doyle had managed a magnificent leap to the beacon.
"He appears to us in human form, so I think we can rule out the option that his human side was destroyed leaving only demon." Giles took off his glasses and set them on the table. "When he allegedly died," he asked quietly, "what did you see?"
Cordelia didn't speak, so Angel answered. "The light burned him. His back was to us so we couldn't see everything." It wasn't easy talking about this, even now that he knew Doyle hadn't died. It still seemed as if he had, and it had to have been an agonizing death. Still, Angel forced himself to recount it, just as he had when he'd told Harry. "But just at the end, when he'd pulled the cables, the light flared. He screamed and then he was gone."
"Gone how?" Giles probed further.
“Burned up,” Angel managed, “or so I’d thought. He just disappeared.”
“Perhaps he didn’t,” Giles suggested. “What if he was transported to another place, another dimension?”
“Then how is he here?” Cordelia asked.
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Giles replied. “It’s just a theory anyway. I’m open to other ideas. What have you brought with you?”
Buffy kept her eyes open but she ran through town, wearing again Giles’ sweats. If anyone noticed, they’d think she was doing it for exercise. There was a pouch in the front of Giles’ sweatshirt for tucking one’s hands in from the cold. She didn’t have her hands in it, though. She had Mr. Pointy.
She went in the same direction she had gone with Doyle earlier in the day. Past the bakery. She caught site of a someone running and stopped. He seemed to be breathing hard and his stride was unsteady. The face wasn’t right. She stepped behind the corner of a building and took another look. His face was dark in color and . . . spiky. Except for the way he was dressed, he looked a lot like the Brachen demon in the picture Giles had showed her. She took out the stake and waited for him to run by.
At the last moment, she stepped out and caught him by surprise. “You’re not what I came out here for,” she quipped, stake at the ready. Not giving him a chance to fight back, she staked him, hard, knocking him to the ground. “But you’ll do.” Too much momentum though. She fell down, too, her hand still on the stake, the tip of which scraped against the sidewalk.
“Buffy,” the demon said, still breathing hard and she thought the voice, though hoarse, sounded familiar. “It’s me.” She propped herself up on one arm and looked at him. He was dressed familiar, too. Then he shook his head and the spikes and dark coloring went away. His red eyes changed to blue and she was looking at Doyle. “Will you please . . . remove that?”
Buffy backed away, but left the stake. “I don’t know that I should.” The stake though, fell over, disappearing beneath, or within, his body.
He sighed and then slid over until the stake had, to her eyes, pulled itself through his shoulder and lay beside him. She retrieved it quickly and waited for an explanation. “I’m stronger . . . that way,” he said slowly, taking deep breaths between the words. He hadn’t bothered to even lift himself up.
“You’re a demon,” Buffy said, not giving in to sympathy anymore.
“Half-demon,” he corrected. “Like the one’s . . . the Scourge . . . was after.”
“You lied to me.” She was angry, but conflicted. This was still Angel’s friend, someone he trusted.
“No,” he held. “It hadn’t . . . come up. I wouldn’t have lied . . . or kept it from you.”
“Angel knew?”
He nodded. “He was always . . . after me . . . to change in a fight . . . but I prefer to be . . . human. Cordy, too. She only slapped me . . . when she found out. God, I wish it would rain again.”
Buffy decided on neutrality. She’d make up her mind when Angel saw Doyle again, when she could gauge his reaction. “We were worried.”
“You should be,” he replied, rolling over. He tried to get up on his elbows but fell back down. “I was coming back to . . . warn you.” He rolled back over.
“Warn me why?”
“The Scourge,” he said. “They’re here. And they’re after you.”
“They’re here? In Sunnydale?” That was bad, if what Doyle had said of them was true. She could deal with demons, even multiple demons, but an army of demons was a bit much. “Why me?” He tried again to get up, and this time she helped him.
“They said something about a cleansing,” he told her, “and I got a feeling they weren’t talking about givin’ each other bubble baths. They said their leader would come through a doorway.” He took a breath. “And that you would try to stop them.”
Buffy thought about the Brachen demon story of the darkness and his followers. It was sounding more like the truth. “That is my job.” She looked around her, trying to see into the shadows. Were they out there?
“I think,” he said, still gasping for air, “they’re done for the night. They got some vampires . . . before their big meeting.”
“Let’s get back.” She took him by the arm, but he could barely stand, even with her help. She remembered him talking about the rain and how he’d wanted to stay out in it earlier. “We’ll find you some water,” she said.
He nodded. “I don’t know how, but it helps. Not like food, but it helps.”
There was a fountain a block away. Buffy had to practically drag him to it, as he could hardly hold his own weight. She thought of lifting him over the side, but remembered she wouldn’t have to. “You won’t drown, will you?” she asked as she pulled him through the concrete rim of the fountain’s pool.
“Don’t know,” he replied. “I was about to find out when I heard them.”
That was the Doyle she’d known since she met him on campus. That wasn’t the personality of a demon. Or of an evil half-demon. They generally wanted to live. She held the back of his collar so that his head wouldn’t go under as the fountain poured water down on top of him, soaking her sleeve (but not his collar). His breathing eased though and after a few minutes, he sat up on his own. “Better?” she asked.
He nodded and she hauled him to his feet. He was able to stand and walk along with her now, though not at too fast a pace.
"So, if these followers are the Scourge," Angel asked, after being filled in on the Brachen legend, "and they've been going around killing half-demons for nearly a millennium, why aren't there others like Doyle around?"
"Precisely," Giles agreed. "Except that it does appear that he is wasting away."
"But that's taking months," Willow broke in. "There would still be strange faces in people's mirrors and windows from the more recent victims."
"So we're still left with whatever makes Doyle different from the others," Giles concluded. He left the book he was scanning through and stood to pace around the table. "Let's start with the obvious and see if we can come up with anything. He's half-demon."
"Most of their victims are," Cordelia stated, eliminating it.
"Half-Brachen," Giles tried. "Could he possibly have been the first?"
Angel shook his head. "There was a clan in Oregon. The survivors came to Doyle for help. He turned them away. They were killed. That's when he got his first vision."
"Alright, the visions."
Cordelia fielded that one. "I'm thinking he didn't have them when he died--or didn't. Anyway, he'd given them to me."
"How'd he do that?" Willow asked.
"He kissed me just before he jumped."
"The Beacon then." Giles stopped his pacing just across from Angel. "It was a new weapon, I take it."
Angel nodded. "The way they talked about it. But Doyle wasn't the first. They used it on the ship's first mate as a demonstration. He was different though. The Beacon wasn't fully charged, and the first mate didn't just disappear. There was dust, like when you stake a vampire. But he was human."
"It's still a possibility then," Giles took his seat again.
"Though it would seem unlikely they'd design a weapon that would leave their victims alive-even in non-corporeal state--for so many months," Harry challenged. "There must still be something different about Francis."
"His name, for one thing," Xander said.
Cordelia rolled her eyes at him. "It's his middle name, Xander," she said, emphasizing his own unique name, “How would you like to go around being called by your middle name? La--”
“Okay, okay!” Xander raised his hands in surrender, “I get the point.”
Angel barely noticed the exchange. He was thinking. About what the Oracles had said. They had either not known--which shouldn't have been likely--or they lied. They had said Doyle was dead. To turn back time would have negated his noble death and left his atonement unfulfilled. But he wasn't dead. At least that was the conclusion everyone had reached.
Or maybe the Oracles had known all along. Maybe they knew more than they let on and just didn't want their warrior interfering. That seemed more like them. But it wasn't much like Angel.
Doyle worked for them. He had something to atone for. That's what was different. Maybe Doyle's atonement went beyond his selflessness in the cargo hold. And maybe a Promised One was meant to do more than save one clan of Lister demons from a Scourge that still existed to kill others.
"There's something bigger going on here," he said to himself.
"Like what?" Cordelia asked, and Angel realized he'd said it out loud.
Angel wasn't sure, and he didn't know how to explain without causing more confusion. He didn't have time anyway because the door opened and Buffy returned, closing the door behind her. Angel, Cordelia, and Harry all started to get up, but Giles motioned for them to stay. Willow got up to reposition the mirror. Angel usually avoided them but he looked now, and as Buffy entered the room, he could see that she was holding someone's arm.
Doyle entered first, only catching half the door as Buffy opened it. Everyone, it seemed, was sitting around the table. Willow was up, moving the mirror, and it was the first thing he noticed. The angle didn't show him his own reflection, but Cordelia's. Doyle couldn't move. She covered her mouth, but her eyes said so many things. She was astonished, concerned, happy, and sad all at once. Beside her was an empty chair. He looked and Angel was there.
"They're here to help," Buffy whispered, still holding his arm.
Angel stood up and looked first to Buffy and then right at Doyle. His eyebrows were drawn down and his face showed very near the same emotion he'd had that night in the cargo hold. "Doyle?" was all he managed to say.
Buffy smiled and nodded, but Doyle didn't know what to say. He'd hoped to speak to Angel again, to take Cordelia to the dinner he never got to finish asking her to, but not like this. He hoped he'd be alive again, fully, somehow, but that was looking, and feeling, less and less likely even with Buffy's help. If he was going to die. . . . He'd already said good-bye, and they'd already done their grieving. This would only start it over again.
Cordelia came and stood beside Angel, taking his arm for support. But Doyle was surprised by the voice. "It's good to see you, Francis."
Doyle stepped to the side, so that he could see past everyone else. Harry smiled at him from the far end of the table. "Hi," he breathed, unable to think of anything more eloquent.
"He says 'hi'," Buffy relayed. She kept a hand on his arm, and he guessed it was partly to support him and partly to let them know where he was.
No one spoke for a few minutes and Doyle still didn't know what to say. Finally, Buffy broke the silence. "Did you find anything?"
"I need to sit down," Doyle told her. She let go so he could sit on the floor.
Giles answered, "Nothing concrete." Then he addressed Doyle directly. "We were trying to determine how you are different from all the others the Scourge has killed. Why you’re still here and no one else appears to be."
"So you do think I'm here?" Doyle asked him.
Buffy repeated even his tone when she asked him the same thing.
"I think I wasn't clear before," Giles pushed his chair back so he could more easily face them though his gaze was too high for Doyle, "and I'm sorry if it upset you. You are definitely here. As Buffy mentioned earlier, you interact with us, especially her. You're here, just in a non-corporeal sense. Which leaves me to wonder what may have happened, or what may be happening, to you in a corporeal sense."
Buffy didn't give him time to respond to that. "They're here," she blurted, as if she'd forgotten and was just now remembering.
"Who's here?" Angel asked.
"The Scourge," she replied, stepping closer to the table. "Doyle said he saw them."
Spike poked his head up from the couch. "Here? In Sunnydale?"
"Are you still here?" Giles asked. "It's almost dawn."
"If the Scourge is here," Spike challenged, "I want in on it. I can't exactly run off and hide from them."
"What makes you think we're going to fight them?" Giles shot back.
"We could let them have you," Xander suggested. "Then maybe they'd leave Sunnydale in peace."
“Xander!” Willow scolded.
"Nice thought," Doyle commented, "but you don't know the Scourge."
"Not likely," Buffy paraphrased.
Angel held up a hand to get everyone's attention. "Where did you see them?"
"At the harbor," Doyle replied, letting Buffy repeat his answers to everyone else.
"He followed them to the abandoned rail station where they killed some vampires. There were maybe a hundred of them."
"Maybe more," Doyle added.
"They said something about a Cleansing," Buffy told them what he had said earlier. "They think I'll interfere."
"They talked of a Cleansing before," Angel said. "They didn't have another beacon, did they?"
"Not that I saw," Doyle replied. "The ones I saw mainly used their hands, swords and knives and the like."
"Against vampires?" Spike asked, incredulous, after Buffy had repeated Doyle's answer.
"They ripped the one's head off," Doyle said.
Buffy just said, "They were out-numbered, and you don't necessarily need a stake to kill a vampire."
"Ask Angel if they spoke of a leader last time, a 'higher power'."
Buffy nodded and asked.
"They said they killed the half-breed because the Higher Power demanded it."
"They said something about a doorway," Doyle went on.
Buffy repeated what he told her. "Their leader is going to emerge the day after tomorrow and cleanse the Earth of all humanity, in all its forms."
"Is that the same guy in the Brachen legend?" Willow asked.
"It's possible," Giles replied. "Especially as Doyle is half-Brachen, the same race as those that banished it."
"What Brachen legend?" Doyle asked.
"You knew he was half-demon?" Buffy asked.
Giles and the others nodded.
"He just came out and told you?" Cordelia asked, and Doyle heard the annoyance in her voice.
"After I'd staked him," Buffy answered quietly.
"You what?!"
Buffy looked up at Angel. "I didn't recognize him. It’s okay, though, it went right through him like everything else."
"Where'd he go?" Harry asked, indicating the mirror.
Everyone stopped and looked, except Buffy. "He's tired," she said. "He's sitting on the floor."
"He can have my chair," Angel offered.
"No, I can't," Doyle said, "but thank him for me anyway."
"He'd fall through it," Buffy explained. "Non-corporeal. But he said thanks."
Angel didn't take his chair back though. He crossed his legs and sat on the floor. Cordelia joined him.
Giles moved some of the books to the floor and started closing up the table. "We can all sit on the floor." He motioned toward the area in front of the couch.
Xander was already getting up. "Let's move the couch back," he told Spike.
"Move it yourself," Spike shot back. "Just because he can't sit in a chair doesn't mean I can’t."
Giles rubbed his nose between his forefinger and thumb. "Angel, there's a mug in the refrigerator if you're--"
Spike didn't let him finish. "Alright. I'll help move the bloody couch. Is that all you people know: blackmail?"
Willow was gathering books. "It's not like we can appeal to your sense of decency."
"Brachen legend," Doyle repeated as he let Buffy help him up.
The couch was moved back and everyone started finding places on the floor. Buffy sat on the couch though. "Oh, Little Miss Slayer gets to sit on furniture," Spike muttered.
"You can have a chair," Giles sighed. "Xander, get the rope."
"Now hold on," Spike protested.
"And a gag."
"I'll bet he's fun at parties," Doyle said of the vampire.
"Park it, Promised One," Buffy replied. She tapped the front of her knees. "You look like a guy who could use a good lean."
Doyle wasn't sure what to say. He was surprised by her thoughtfulness, not that he'd thought her incapable of it. But she'd constantly offered him little things he'd had to do without for so long. Important little things, like a voice to speak for him or a hand to touch him.
She took his hand now and pulled him down in front of her. "Go ahead," she said, and pulled back gently on his shoulders until they rested on her knees. Cordelia sat beside him, and she smiled when she realized he was there. Willow moved the mirror until it was directly across from him and offered Angel the spot to Doyle's right. Harry sat near the mirror.
"The Brachen legend," Buffy said when everyone had settled in their spots, "was about a demon they'd banished to a dimension called the Nether for behaving like the thing in your dreams. It's been gone since ten-something, but it left behind followers that sound a lot like our bigoted friends, the Scourge."
"And it would seem, then," Giles concluded, pointing to Buffy's knees, "to have something to do with you."
"Why me?" Doyle asked.
"Because you are the Promised One," Buffy replied.
Giles explained. "Isn't it ironic that you're half-Brachen, the same race that banished their leader nearly a thousand years ago and you fulfilled the Lister prophecy by saving them from the followers?"
Doyle was getting light-headed. He certainly never asked to be either Brachen or the Promised One. "But I'm not the one they're expecting to try and stop them," Doyle argued.
"No," Buffy replied. "I am. Maybe we can turn that to our advantage." She put a hand on his shoulder.
"So now we've got two mysteries to solve," Giles remarked. "How to help Doyle and how to stop this Cleansing."
Cordelia yawned and looked at the window where the soft light of the morning was just starting to brighten the curtains that hung there. She found herself yawning, though she tried to fight it. She looked in the mirror and was still surprised to see Doyle sitting beside her. She hardly recognized him, and not because he was slightly translucent in the reflection. He was so thin. His eyes were rimmed dark and his cheeks sunken in. His hands were bony and shook when he lifted them off his knees. Doyle hadn't mentioned it since their arrival, but Giles had said he was starving.
She was leaning back against the couch as he was leaning against Buffy. He yawned occasionally, too, which, when she caught his reflection, caused her to yawn again.
Her eyelids felt heavy and she had to read each sentence of the book twice. The one she had was about the Brachen, and while it was somewhat interesting to read about Doyle's demon race, research was never something that she'd found particularly stimulating. And she had been up for more than twenty-four hours already. Nightmares or no, she needed a nap. She let her head fall back against the couch and closed her eyes.
This was one of the better dreams. No cargo hold. No beacon. No darkness or howling black clouds. Just Giles’ living room with the couch pushed back and Buffy's friends scattered around the floor. Harry was there, too. And Doyle, straight ahead in a mirror.
"I think I've found something!" Willow said with a grin. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her.
"Not that," she said and Cordelia realized it wasn't about a way to help Doyle. "Remember when the Gentlemen were here and we couldn't talk?"
Cordelia didn’t, but Giles and Xander nodded.
"One of the girls from my Wicca group had found spells about speaking. We didn't get a chance to try them, but what if they could help Doyle? Buffy wouldn't have to repeat everything he says."
"Wicca?" Doyle asked.
"Willow's a budding witch," Buffy's voice explained from somewhere behind her.
Cordelia nodded. "It would be nice to speak for myself again," Doyle said. "Can't exactly have a private conversation with you around. No offense, but I’m not really keen on havin’ an echo, ya know?"
"None taken," Buffy replied brightly. "He's up for it," she told Willow, who got up and left the group.
Cordelia looked to her left and saw herself sleeping with her head back against the couch. "Then I can tell you I'm sorry," Doyle said.
And Cordelia felt sorry and knew what he was apologizing for. The visions. The pain he hadn't meant to cause her. She brought up a hand to cover another yawn and Cordelia was shocked at how thin the fingers were. And the jacket. Brown leather sleeves covered what she thought was her arm. She wanted to hold the hand up and examine it more closely but she couldn't. Instead, it moved downward, wrapping itself around a knee she knew wasn't hers. She was aware now, too, of the hunger, the constant vacuum feeling in her stomach, but it wasn't her stomach. Her gaze caught the mirror again and she realized she was looking at herself, or rather at Doyle.
"You know," Angel said quietly, as Cordelia turned to look at him, "seeing you in the mirror when I can't see myself is. . . ."
"Ironic?" Doyle suggested, and Cordelia felt it was her mouth moving, her vocal cords producing Doyle's voice.
"Creepy?" Buffy translated, and Cordelia shook her head, or Doyle did.
Angel smiled and nodded. "I can think of worse though."
Cordelia opened her eyes and popped her head up, looking immediately for Doyle. But all she saw were Buffy's legs and Angel beyond that.
Angel looked at her with concern. "Nightmare?" he asked.
Cordelia ignored him and looked in the mirror. He was there, just off center, and his head was turned in her direction. He said something but Cordelia couldn't hear it.
"You have nightmares?" Buffy asked, and Cordelia knew she was just repeating Doyle's question.
Cordelia looked at Doyle, at the place she knew he was sitting. "It's you!" she said, letting the realization take hold. The room became silent again just as it had for Willow. "I heard you. You said you could tell me you're sorry. It's always been you."
"Cordelia?" Angel asked.
"I wasn't seeing me in my sleep," she explained. She pointed to Doyle. "He was. I was dreaming just now. But I was seeing all of this, all of you. Only I was seeing it from where he's sitting. I saw me still asleep over here. Willow said she might have a spell that could help him speak, but I heard him anyway. And he didn’t say ‘creepy’. He said ‘ironic.’ It wasn't me seeing me."
"It was Doyle," Angel said, finally understanding.
"You were seeing through his eyes?" Giles asked. "How is that possible?"
"He kissed me!" Cordelia exclaimed, as if it explained everything. And to her, it did. That kiss had been like no other kiss, and at first, she'd given in to notions of romantic tragedy. But she'd learned quickly enough that it had passed the gift of his visions to her. Now, apparently, it had done more than that. "He kissed me just before" (she couldn't bring herself to say he died when he was sitting right there) "and something special happened. I could feel it."
"There was a . . .," Angel said, struggling a bit with the description, ". . . blue mist that passed between them."
"And that's how she became the seer," Giles realized.
Cordelia faced Doyle again. "So what's the dark place?" she asked.
Buffy put a hand down on what Cordelia assumed was Doyle's shoulder. It moved and Cordelia assumed he'd become restless. She'd touched a nerve. "The black cloud with red eyes? What is that? I see you there." She lowered her voice. "I hear you scream."
Doyle's pulse was racing, making him lightheaded. Cordelia and the room around her seemed to swim in front of his eyes. He tried to back away, but Buffy's hand was there, holding his shoulder.
In his mind's eye he saw the dark place she spoke of, the black mist and the glowing eyes. He felt the shackles on his wrists and ankles as he struggled, weakly, against them. He felt the pain. "N-No," he stammered, not wanting to see it, not wanting to remember. "It's not real!" he cried, though he couldn't make his voice work.
"Cordelia," he heard Buffy saying, "give me a minute." Cordelia backed away and Buffy moved into her place, putting both hands on his shoulders. "Can we have a minute, please?"
The others scrambled out of the living room. Xander even took Spike's chair with him. Now there was only Buffy, but the room still wouldn't hold still. He heard whispers and screams, a blend of both places, the real and the nightmare, and it nearly blocked out Buffy's words. "Doyle?" she said, and her voice echoed as if bouncing off canyon walls.
"It's not real," he repeated voicelessly. "I don't want it."
Cordelia described the nightmare for them, as much as she could bring herself to put into words. It stirred up images in her mind and she felt sick again.
"I don't think it's coincidence," Giles whispered as they stood in a huddle in the kitchen. It was a small kitchen and they had no choice but to huddle. "What if the dream is real? What if the mist is the darkness of the legend? Doyle's still here because he's linked to Cordelia. She anchors him to our world."
"But he drags her with him to the other when he sleeps," Xander hypothesized.
Giles nodded. "We need to know more about it."
"He can't tell us," Willow said, peeking into the living room. "I think he's traumatized."
"You would be, too," Cordelia told her, not really meaning to sound so harsh. But she'd seen the place, seen Doyle there, his flesh burned away, the mist devouring him slowly. She hated it as a dream. It was worse to think it could be real.
"Cordelia, do you think you could tell us more?" Giles asked carefully. "When you see it, do you see through his eyes or are you apart from him?"
She didn't like the way this was leading. "Apart," she replied reluctantly.
"Can you move about freely?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "Why?"
"What if we hypnotized you?"
Buffy held on to him and kept talking until his breathing slowed and his eyes focused on her. He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again. His voice, when he spoke, was calm, but his eyes held terror. "They're both real," he said. "I can see it, just as I see you. It's gone for now. Someone else is screaming."
Buffy touched his face. "We're going to help you."
Doyle had lost his focus again. He began to shake. "It's coming back," he breathed. "It's coming back!"
"Look at me!" she told him, taking his shoulders again.
But his whole body was trembling. His breaths came fast and uneven. He grabbed her arms. "Help me!" he begged.
Buffy didn't know how. Doyle tensed and his eyes filled with terror and pain. He screamed, and then fell right through her. "Doyle!" she yelled, but it was too late. He was asleep, translucent and untouchable.
Angel burst in from the kitchen. The others were right behind him. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. Buffy stood and backed away from Doyle. "He's gone," she said. "Asleep."
Cordelia pushed past Angel. "Well, wake him up!" She was frantic.
Buffy shook her head. "I can't. Not when he's like this. I can't touch him."
Now Giles stepped forward and touched Cordelia's shoulder.
"It's real, Giles," Buffy told him. "The nightmare is real."
Giles nodded but spoke to Cordelia. "We need to see what he sees. We need to see the demon."
Cordelia shook her head. "No," she said. "I can't go back there. It's killing him."
"We can't stop it from here," Giles tried to convince her.
"We could go get him," Angel suggested.
“Sure,” Xander quipped, “I’ll just whip out my trusty dimensional portal and set it on Francis.”
Buffy fixed him with a tired expression.
“I know,” he sighed, holding up his hands in surrender, “not the best time for my special brand of humor.”
"We can’t attempt anything drastic until we know more about it," Giles held. He returned his attention to Cordelia. "It won't be like having a nightmare. You'll still be able to hear us."
Cordelia hesitated and looked to Angel. He didn't say anything at first but Buffy could sense the pain he felt. "All this time," he said finally, "it's been a curse. Now maybe it can help him."
Cordelia took a deep breath and nodded.
Giles passed the pen in front of her from side to side. "I don't see how this is going to work," Cordelia told him. She never did understand how someone went from having it totally together to slack-jawed gawker just from watching someone’s pocket watch. And Giles only had a stupid pen.
"Just give it time," Giles told her. He'd ushered everyone else out of the living room to limit her distractions.
She wanted to help Doyle, who was lying on the floor according to Buffy, so she tried to concentrate on the pen. It was a black pen. Actually, it was smoky, with a translucent covering. But the ink was black. The clip was silver in color, and it caught the light from the lamp as it passed back and forth in front of her.
Giles was silent for a while and Cordelia grew bored with the pen. Maybe that's what's supposed to happen, she thought. Boredom does tend to lead to sleep. Still, she couldn't look away from the pen as it moved this way and that. She started to see two pens, and they wouldn't hold steady in Giles’ hand. Her eyes were crossing and she really wanted to close them.
"If you're tired," Giles said softly, "you can close your eyes."
Cordelia sighed and closed her eyes, though she still felt she could see the pen move from side to side even behind her eyelids.
"You can go to sleep," Giles said, but he sounded far away. She was tempted to open her eyes and see if he had left her, but she couldn't do it. It was like her eyelids were held by iron weights. Besides, she could see Doyle coming, running up the gangway with the Lister boy.
She ran forward to meet him. "You’re alive!"
“And you’re not happy?” he asked.
"Where are you?" Giles' voice, like a whisper in the clouds.
"On the Quintessa," she answered, surprised that she could.
She slapped him.
"What was that for?" Doyle asked, bringing a hand to his face.
"Why didn't you tell me you were half-demon? I thought we agreed secrets were bad!"
"What's happening?" Giles again.
"He didn't tell me he's half-demon." She told him, still incredulous. "He was afraid I'd reject him. As if I hadn't already! I thought he knew me better than that."
"It’s true," Doyle replied. “I just-“
She faced him, hands crossed over her chest. "What do you think I am, superficial? So you’re half demon! That’s so far down the list. Way under short! And poor! Is there anything else I should know?"
He thought for a moment. "The half-demon thing is pretty much my big secret."
"Good. That’s out. It’s done," she said, putting her anger away. "Would you ask me out to dinner already?"
He smiled. "Yeah?"
She liked his smile and had to smile herself.
"Cordelia," he started, "would you like--"
"I think we should move forward," Giles said, and Doyle was gone. The ship was gone. There was nothing.
"The Quintessa?" Giles asked Angel behind him. He'd waved the others back in the room as soon as he was sure Cordelia was hypnotized.
"The ship," Angel replied, not elaborating. He hoped Giles would understand.
Giles turned back to Cordelia, who was lying on the couch. "What's happening?" he asked.
"He didn't tell me he's half-demon," she answered as clearly as if she'd been awake. "He was afraid I'd reject him. As if I hadn't already! I thought he knew me better than that."
"Before he died," Angel said, remembering how Cordelia had accused him of keeping Doyle's secret, too. But it was too close. Doyle would be gone in a few minutes. "Can you make her skip that?"
Giles nodded. "I think we should move forward," he suggested to Cordelia, and all emotion drained from her face.
"Tell her the Beacon has gone off and Doyle is gone," Angel told him. "She said her dreams got worse after that." That was all she'd said, but Angel was starting to get a sense of how much worse they were. He'd been to hell, tortured for longer than he could recount. He still had nightmares about it himself.
"Cordelia," Giles said, "I want you to move forward. The light has flashed and Doyle is gone now. Where are you?"
She screamed, a full, terrified scream. Her fingers dug into the cushions on the couch and her whole body tensed. Angel cringed to hear it. He wanted to wake her up, but he knew they needed to know what she saw. He hated doing this to her, and he hated that there was no choice for Doyle.
Giles snapped his fingers, and Angel thought he'd woken her up. The screaming stopped immediately and she went limp on the couch again. But she was still asleep. "You're in the dark place," Giles told her, "but you don't feel anything. No fear. No pain. You just watch. Tell me what you see."
"It's dark," she said, calmly, showing no emotion. "I see Doyle. He's. . . ."
She hesitated, Angel realized. Even under hypnosis, she'd hesitated to describe Doyle.
"Look around you. What else do you see?"
"Rock," she said. "Like a cave. The walls are rock, red and black, but the red is from the blood. There are bones and clothes on the floor. Blood everywhere I go. It's cold here."
"Do you see the mist?"
"Yes. It's over Doyle. It's killing him."
Angel closed his eyes, not wanting to hear that.
"It's angry," she added. "It's screaming at him."
"What is it saying?" Giles asked, picking up a pen and paper.
"Gar na mior fo ne lori . . . .“
Giles scribbled frantically on the pad and then gave up, letting the pen fall back on the pad. "I don't understand it," he said. "Perhaps Harry can translate?"
Angel looked around, but Harry wasn't there. He hadn't noticed her leaving. Buffy, who was standing at the foot of the couch, looked around, too, and Willow even left the room to look in the kitchen. Xander went upstairs. Willow returned shaking her head, and Xander leaned over the stairs. "She's gone," he said.
"So's your car," Willow whispered.
Cordelia kept repeating the demon's words. "My car?" Giles asked.
"Angel's," Willow told him.
"Where would she go?" Buffy asked.
Angel shook his head. He didn't know. But he did know that she still cared about Doyle. Maybe she left to find more sources for research, answers they hadn't found yet. He'd have to trust her. He really had no choice at the moment.
"That's enough," Giles told Cordelia, and the recitation stopped.
"It's leaving him," she said. "Doyle?"
"Can he see you?" Giles asked. He looked at Buffy and pointed to where Doyle was sleeping. But she shook her head. Apparently, he hadn't changed.
"I don't know," Cordelia replied. "He won't look at me."
"Where did the mist go?"
"It left," she said. "Someone else is screaming."
"That's what Doyle said," Buffy whispered.
"Can you follow it?"
"Yes."
"Tell me what you see."
Cordelia left Doyle and followed the screams to a far wall. "Bones and blood. The rock is black, the blood is red." But there was something else there, lying on the floor, obscured by the cloud that hung over him. "There's a man. It's Blayne Mall, from high school, except he has a vampire's face. He's smoking." The mist had stopped screaming. It was laughing now, its laughter a deafening screech that echoed off the walls and mixed with Blayne's screams. Its red eyes danced and white acrid smoke erupted from Blayne's jittering body. He began to melt, like a wax figure in a blazing furnace. Skin and muscle dissolved, pulling away from the bones on his face like warm jelly as he screamed and struggled to free himself.
"Can you describe it?" Giles asked. It was so hard to hear him over the cackling and wailing.
"His body is smoking. His skin is melting. He's screaming and trying to get away, but he can't get away. The cloud is breathing in the smoke. It's laughing. It's happy now." She stayed quiet for a bit, watching until nothing remained of Blayne but his skeleton and ill-matching clothes. "Blayne is gone." Cordelia reported. "Nothing but bones and ugly clothes."
A light flashed to her right and Cordelia held up a hand to block the light. "There's a bright light," she told Giles. Like the Beacon. It faded and she saw another man. "There's another one."
"Another vampire?" Giles asked.
Cordelia stepped closer to look at him, but he had a normal face. He was surprised. "Do you see me?" she asked.
He looked at her and smiled. His face changed and he bared his fangs. "Yes," she answered Giles. "And he sees me." But she wasn't afraid. His hands went through her when he reached for her. She was like Doyle back in the real world. What Giles had called non-corporeal.
"What are you?" the vampire asked.
"I'm not the one you should worry about," she told it, turning and pointing to where the black mist was moving towards them, red eyes gleaming with evil. "As long as it has you, it leaves Doyle alone."
The mist screamed and raced at him. The vampire ran. "He's trying to run away," she told Giles. "But it's faster." The cloud had passed through her unaware and enveloped him mid-stride. He fell to the ground, scratching at the bones on the floor as he tried to crawl away. But the mist held him and already he was smoking. She was disappointed. He'd be gone too quickly. She hoped another would come. Then the mist would not return to Doyle.
"He's gone," she reported when the mist lifted from the floor. His bones were left, still reaching out from inside the sleeve of his jacket and frozen in a grip of terror.
There was another light and a circle opened in the wall. She could see the real world in the circle, though she had to squint because of the light. She saw a uniformed demon holding a vampire by the head. He twisted and the head came off. She thought she saw Doyle behind them both. But the circle closed and the light faded, leaving the vampire standing in front of her. She smiled and told Giles he'd come.
Giles found her smile disconcerting. She's spoken out loud when she'd talked to the vampire, and while he didn't have any sympathy for the vampire, it was eerie to hear her so dispassionately tell him the mist would leave Doyle alone while it had him. He tried not to dwell on it though. He'd suppressed her feelings, though she still cared enough about Doyle to not want him harmed.
"It's fast," Buffy whispered, her eyes as wide as everyone else's. Except maybe Angel’s, whose face hadn’t really changed.
"Tell me about the light," Giles told Cordelia, hoping to find a way in, or out, of the dark place. "How did the vampire get there?"
"I saw the world through a hole in the wall," Cordelia said. "A demon pulled the vampire's head off. The vampire came here. The hole went away."
"Doyle saw that!" Buffy exclaimed quietly.
"I saw Doyle," Cordelia said. "He saw the vampire die."
"They've opened some sort of portal to the Nether," Giles said.
"But that was hours ago," Buffy argued.
"Different time zones?" Xander offered from the staircase.
"Something like that," Giles admitted. "But Doyle and Cordelia don't seem to be effected by it. Perhaps because they're not traveling physically from one place to the other."
A tear slid from Cordelia's eye. "It's finished," she reported, though her voice held no emotion. "It's going to go back to Doyle."
"Can we wake her up now?" Angel asked, without taking his eyes off of her.
"No," Cordelia said, surprising everyone. "Wait."
She stepped closer to him. The mist was still hovering over the vampire. She had some time. She knelt down and leaned over him. He looked like the vampire when it was melting. His skin was gone, the muscles of his face and hands bled. His eyes stared upward. Unseeing. Unlike the others, he was chained to floor. "Doyle?" she said, wanting him to hear her. She spoke with the voice of her dreams, the one Giles didn’t hear. "I'm here. Go to sleep now."
His eyes shifted. Just a little, but he didn't see her. She touched his shoulder, but her hand went through him. It tingled. "Close your eyes," she whispered. She turned back and saw the mist coming. She didn't have much time. But she'd thought about it even before Giles sent her here. If Doyle was asleep in the world, she dreamed the dark place. When he was awake, she dreamed what he saw. He had to be asleep here to be awake there.
She started to sing to him, one of the songs from her Enya CD. She'd bought it because it was Irish. She'd listened to it in her apartment, where no one else could hear—except Dennis, but he seemed to like it. One of the songs had spoken to her. It was a slow song, calming and she hoped it would comfort him to hear it. "So time is stolen," she sang to him, "I cannot hold you long enough."
He heard her, turned his pained eyes to her. Then he closed them. Just as the mist passed through her, cold and sharp, like millions of needles. As it reached into him, she kept singing. “I know of a dream I should be holding, days and nights falling by, days and nights falling by me.”
“Cordelia?” Giles was calling her.
She ignored him and kept singing. “Strange how my heart beats, to find I’m standing on your shore.”
The whole roomed filled with light until it all disappeared around her and she was standing on nothing. But he was standing there, too, fine and handsome, without so much as a cut or bruise. Just as she’d remembered him.
“Princess,” he said. His eyes held hope. “That you?”
She smiled. “Doyle?”
He stepped closer and she held out a hand. And he touched it! His lips turned up slightly and he wrapped his fingers around hers. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Somewhere in between I think.”
His smile faded, but not the hope in his eyes. “It’s not real,” he said.
Cordelia shook her head and stepped closer to him, close enough to wrap her arms around him. “No, it’s not. But let’s stay for a while.”
In answer, he pulled her closer and held her. “That was a beautiful song,” he said after a time. “Have you heard ‘Exile’?”
She knew it. It was on the same CD. She tightened her grip.
“Sing me the chorus,” he whispered in her ear.
“I’ll wait the signs to come,” she sang, and she wanted to cry, “I’ll find a way. I’ll wait the time to come. I’ll find a way home.”
“Cordelia, can you hear me?” Giles was closer now.
“I promise,” Doyle whispered. The light faded and she saw his hands, Doyle’s hands, resting on carpet. There were legs all around, so she moved--Doyle moved--away from them and stood up.
“Cordelia?” Giles asked again, more forcefully. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she said. She heard him twice and it made her grin. She could see him, too. He was a few feet away, sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning over her body. He looked worried.
“Are you still in the dark place?” Angel was there, too, and Xander and Buffy. Everyone was so intent on her.
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“Behind you,” she said, and laughed.
No one else did though. They froze. And then they looked at each other. Then they looked behind them. Only Buffy’s expression changed. Her eyes grew wide and she nearly fell off the arm of the couch. “Doyle!” she exclaimed, pushing past the others. Cordelia felt her hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”
“Apparently not,” he whispered. Then he spoke up. “He can wake her up now.” Buffy turned to tell Giles, but Doyle stopped her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Make sure he doesn’t make her forget everything. None o’ that ‘When I clap my hands you’ll wake up and remember nothing’ stuff, alright?”
She furrowed her brow but otherwise nodded and he let her go. “You can wake her up now,” she told Giles. “But don’t make her forget anything.”
Giles turned back to her body. “When I count to three,” he said, “you’ll wake up.” He glanced back at Buffy. “And remember everything. One, two, three.”
Cordelia opened her eyes and saw Giles. She immediately turned her head, looking for Doyle, he was gone, invisible to her now. She found Angel though, and he helped her sit up. She grabbed him and hugged him. “I saw him!”
Despite the hour (and the fact that she'd been up all night), Willow was proving to be quite a lively person. It was her shift and she was prattling excitedly about something while setting various bottles and candles around him. Doyle wasn't listening though, not that he was in any immediate danger of falling asleep. Not now that he knew what it meant--and definitely not while Cordelia was sleeping.
He was remembering, holding on just enough to Willow's voice to keep the barely controllable fear at bay. He was remembering the dark place, as both he and Cordelia had called it. And he was seeing her there.
It wasn't just this last time, he realized. She'd been there before, standing beside him, her mouth hanging open in a scream he couldn't hear over his own and the roar of the mist, the demon, that had him.
Like this last time, the demon had left him occasionally, and he would hear others screaming, though he was unable to see what was happening.
He tried not to remember the pain. It was like the Beacon, searing heat burning through him. Except that it never ended. It subsided a bit when the demon left him, but it always reintensified when the demon returned.
"Well?" Willow pulled his attention back to the here and now. "You want to give it a try?"
Doyle was confused and his reflection frowned at her. "Give what a try?" he asked, shrugging so she'd understand what he was trying to say.
She grinned. "Nice accent! I didn't know you were Irish. Angel's Irish, too, but I think he's been here too long."
Doyle sat up straighter and paid more attention to the paraphernalia around him. "A couple hundred years'll do that to you," he mumbled. "You really are a witch, aren't you?"
“Wiccan,” she corrected with a modest, self-conscious shrug. “Witch kind of has some bad connotations. But I'm trying. Stuff doesn’t even go wrong that much anymore." She looked up quickly. "Not that something went wrong this time! I mean, you can talk."
Doyle could talk before. It was everyone else who couldn't hear him, but he understood what she was saying. Her spell had worked. "I could kiss you!" he told her, which caused her to blush again.
"Hey, I know!" she said, grinning. "I can take rain check and you can kiss me when we get your body back."
Doyle smiled. "Deal. And, trust me, once I get my body back, you'll all be in fer round a overflowin’ appreciation.”
"You should keep it down. People are trying to sleep over here."
Doyle sat up on his knees to get a better look over the couch. Angel was just getting up from the floor.
“I thought you like the night," Doyle replied, knowing that Angel had only been teasing. Willow's job was to talk to him.
Angel helped Willow put away her things. "Mind if I take over?" he asked, touching her on the shoulder. She smiled and shook her head. Angel helped her off the floor, and she started upstairs.
Angel checked the mirror and sat down. "I get it now," he teased. "You just wanted all the attention."
Doyle chuckled lightly, not wanting to wake anyone else. "You're getting better at the humor bit."
Angel gave him a sad smile. "It hasn't been easy," he admitted. "I was learning from you."
Doyle sighed and wished for Buffy's legs to lean back on. "This isn't exactly how I thought things would go."
Angel leaned back against the wall. "Life's funny that way," he replied.
"Is death funny that way?" Doyle asked.
Angel thought about that for a moment. "In my experience," he said, "yes."
Doyle nodded, sensing a certain amount of wisdom in that.
Angel dropped his head. "I'm glad things didn't work out like you planned," he said. He quickly looked up at the mirror. "Except for the whole Nether thing. What I mean is, I'm glad you're alive."
Doyle dropped his voice to a whisper, all too aware now that his voice was audible to the others. "But I'm dying."
Angel turned his head and actually managed to look Doyle right in the eyes. "I'm not leaving here without you."
Doyle offered him a small smile. "I'm not ready to cash out just yet, man. Not when things are finally startin’ ta look up fer a change."
But Angel didn't smile back. In fact, his normally broody countenance fell a bit. "Hold on. I know that look. There’s something yer not tellin' me," he challenged.
Angel looked away without answering, but Doyle could be patient when he needed to be. Angel would talk. It just took time.
"I went to the Oracles," he finally answered. "They seemed to think you were dead."
Now Doyle took the time for silence. It said a lot that Angel had gone to them for him. It also meant the Oracles were wrong or that they knew more than they were letting on. "What did they say exactly?"
"They said bringing you back would nullify your noble death and leave your atonement unfulfilled. They said you don't live so that others will."
Atonement. He had atoned. They'd said so. So why did he still feel guilty? And why was he still alive when they sounded so certain he wasn't?
"I think," Angel said, still facing the wall, "they still expect you to die. They didn't want me interfering."
"Well, that's right nice of ‘em, isn’t it?" Doyle remarked, understating his feelings. He felt betrayed, not by Angel, but by the Powers That Be. "Why keep stringing me along like this?" he asked. "I know I haven't done a whole lot to be proud of with my life, but I don’t deserve this. Do I?"
"No, you don't," Angel was quick to say. "That's why I'm interfering."
"I promised Cordelia," Doyle told him, already feeling her slip away. "I promised her I'd find a way back. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that quite yet, and now you're telling me the Powers That Be have the cards stacked against me?"
"I just think that there's something bigger going on than just your situation," Angel explained. "The Scourge is still out there, still killing people. We only won a skirmish. The war’s still on. But if you're the Promised One. . . ."
“Hold on there, man.” Doyle didn't like where this was leading. "Are we even all that sure that’s what I am? I mean I did sort of. . . ." He pantomimed an explosion with his hands.
Angel looked at him. "That demon killed three vampires in less than five minutes. But it can't kill you."
Doyle shook his head. "It can," he argued. "It's just taking longer." He didn't want to be the Promised One. He didn't want that responsibility.
"That isn't the point," Angel said. "You are the Promised One. And the demon that has you controls the Scourge. Maybe this is all part of the plan to stop them, once and for all."
"And I'm still supposed to die," Doyle added unhappily. He'd been willing to accept that back in the cargo hold, but not now, not after he'd just gained some hope.
"Not if I can help it."
On to Chapter 3
Send feedback to inheildi@gmail.com The MIDI file is Enya's On Your Shore courtesy of Judith. Back to Fan Fiction. Back to my main page.
The MIDI file is Enya's On Your Shore courtesy of Judith.
Back to Fan Fiction. Back to my main page.