Title: Forgiveness in mind
Author: Maeve
Part I of my series Alternations
E-mail: maevethefair@hotmail.com
Spoilers: All the eps, but it’s not as if you haven’t seen any of the Nifty 9 
Doyle was…no no, IS in.
Disclaimer: Doyle, Angel Cordelia and the multitudinous members of the Buffy 
Continuum and the Angel Atrium are not in any way shape or form, my own. Doyle 
*does* spend many a night warming himself by my fire...but that is something 
else altogether ::G::
Rating: pg13 for languge, angst like a mofo
Archive: If you would like to, you may because I consider this payment for all 
the fic I read.
Summary: Alan Francis Doyle, the man the myth the legend, what he should have 
told us long ago
Feedback: It’s my bread and butter...to go with a big bowl of PleaseSendSome, 
it’s Spanish like gespatcho (bad joke)
Notes: The Irish slang is obvious, I come from Kinsale , spent a lot of time 
in Dublin so it’s one of those in-the-know things...



 I’m not a strong man, never was. When They gave me the visions it was 
horrible, worst thing in my short but bothersome life. The things I saw- made 
me sick. Violently ill, but I had to go where the dreams led me, or risk ‘em 
getting worse. 

What about my life? So glad you asked, it’s been a real downer in the 
last five or six years, but what’s depression when you’ve got the ability to 
sense danger and change faces? Right, I thought so too.  You probably know how 
my marriage failed- my fault- and how I was an advocate for the underworld in 
LA... Alcohol, gambling, you name it- if it’s illegal Doyle has been through 
it.

Before then , oh God before I was just your average Joe. I had friends, 
I taught third grade, I was young and slightly successful. Then it happened. 
The change. I was nineteen when the first signs showed themselves, in a 
classroom in Wexford. I was writing on the chalkboard, my back to my students. 
My hand started to swing up into the letter i and a pain came roaring through 
my brain. Hard and angry red welled up in my vision and it was intense. I made 
a strangled sound and fell to the floor, the stick of chalk roiling from my 
fingertips. Coming to found more then a dozen people around me, The 
Headmaster, other teachers- my kids. 

“Mr. Doyle, are you well son?”
“No sir, I feel shaky.”
“Go home son.”

I went straight to Hospital, stayed overnight but they found nothing 
wrong with me- absolutely nothing. Instead, the nurses took so much blood I 
thought I was tapped dry and ran tests. What they found was that I was normal, 
healthy and ridiculously average. I shouldn’t even be there, as I was 
occupying a bed that could go to one who needed it! I was sent home, confused 
and a bit worried. 

I went back to my school- St. Andrew Academy- and my children. A week 
later it came again, on the lunch hour at tea with another of the young 
teachers, Miss O’Toleigh. We sipped and laughed and flirted. I was thrown 
backwards by the force of shredding pain, my face felt like it was *crawling*. 
I yelped and spun from my seat to the floor, howling and racked with waves of 
unnatural hurt. She screamed and ran for the school orderly, I did my best to 
hang on and passed out.

This time there was no going back to the school after Hospital tests, no 
third reprieve. I was fired for suspicion of drug abuse and that was that. My 
career was over before it began, and I had so wanted to teach. To be a Head 
Master one day, rising from the sadness of my mother’s house, empty and devoid 
of a father, to garner respect from children, to pass knowledge on to the next 
age of kids- oh it was such a great idea I tell you.


But was gone, taken from me by something I couldn’t explain. I couldn’t 
stay there, In Wexford, in Ireland. My record preceded me- rumours preceded me 
and I gave up the fight in a year’s time. I was twenty and moving to America 
alone. Mariel, my mother’s sister had cried and sobbed, my mother had stood 
staunchly by and kissed me on both cheeks and then my lips before hugging me 
and saying “Keep a watch on yourself.”
Which, in my opinion is the oddest thing to say to a son you won’t see 
very often from the non- not I love you or Please don’t forget to write and 
visit- just a good luck and a frightened stare before hightailing it back to 
the terminal watching my plane take off. I hadn’t given it much thought past 
that.

 When I landed in Philadelphia it was like a re-birth, a new Alan Doyle, 
ready to face what was to come. But I couldn’t be Alan anymore, he was tainted 
now with bad memories and pain I didn’t have a cause for. I was feet first 
into 1991 in the US, an immigrant. Lucky.
       It was like opening a new book, everything was fresh and different, but 
I didn’t have much of a like for Philly, to provincial and not fast enough. I 
had had enough with old cities and now I was ready to find the newest one I 
could get into. 

Valparaiso, an old Spanish settlement turned town in northern 
California. The school principal contacted me and offered me the job of 
teaching English. English, the sounds nice enough then, might as well give it 
a go.

I loved teaching those kids, little boys and girls in colours of every 
hue of mankind, sweet and laughing children. Like my children back home 
before- well that’s ancient history...but they were just as eager to learn, 
more so from a man from another country.

“ Mister Doy-al, where’d you say you came from?”
“ Ireland, Jessi, Ireland.”
“Izit cold ‘dere, teacher?”
“Very cold sometimes, never warm like here.”
“Mister Doy-al you talk funnie.”
“It’s only an accent Manuel, your mummy and daddy have them too.”
“They ain’t like you , we’re Meck-si-kan!”

I wasn’t like any of them , that’s more than obvious. I was an adult 
now, not old enough to legally buy beer (more’s the pity) but an adult. I was 
lonely.

On a bright Sunday, which is the only kind of Sunday you can have in 
California, I was under a tree in the local park, correcting sheets of English 
homework concerning a classic American children’s writer and why on earth did 
I teach this? Really my only qualm is that the US has no mythology like other 
countries, no Cuchullin and Mab, nothing, just an underbelly of demons and 
vampires that they refuse to believe in. I’m off subject now- where was I?	
Right, so there I was, taking in the beauty of an afternoon without 
sadness, and there she was, jogging through on a worn path, a UCLA tee tied 
around her tight abdomen. Harry. Blond curls clinging in wisps to her neck and 
forehead, escaping from the thick pigtail at the nape of her neck. She 
stopped, wiped sweat from her face and bent over a little to check her pulse. 
Beauty, longing... I was smitten. So smitten I had taken my hands off the 
papers and they flew from my lap out onto the green grass, scattered by wind. 

I cursed and followed them, snatching up what I could and growling 
angrily as they floated off. She saw me, she came towards me, scooped up the 
ditto sheets as she went. We met in the center of the park and she grinned.
      “These are yours?”

“Well, gotta keep up with the homework or the teacher will kill me...” I 
smiled back. Hoping she’d think I was a college student or - no no, she looked 
down and read the top line off Clarindo’s assignment.

“I like my mom, she is nice and pretty. She has pretty black hair and 
pretty black eyes. My daddy says she is linda, witch is Spanish for butefol.” 
her brown eyes laughed and crinkled, “ I see your assignments are a little 
easier than mine. I’m Harry, Harriet, Harry”


“Francis, “ I blushed and took them back, the beauty had beat me at my 
game. Never fear, love did bloom and a year after that we were sharing a 
little house in town as Mr and Mrs Francis Doyle. Ah love, ah youth, I had 
both. She and I were quite the pair, always holding hands until I was out the 
door and off to school. She went to UCLA studying Ancient Cultures. It was her 
passion. Our house was jammed with bits and pieces she has collected. There’ s 
talismans and books and carving s all over the place. It makes it feel more 
like home then the apartment Mam and I used to share in Dublin. 

But if you know me in any way, you know that this sort of a good thing 
won’t last. It didn’t. A year and a half later we were still happy, still in 
love (as you’d expect a couple to be) and completely lazy on a rain-drenched 
night. We were in bed, laughing chatting, reading, making love, enjoying each 
other because we had forever. She turned over to me-

“Francis, what are we going to do?”

“Do?” I asked and grinned bringing her body to me, playfully tickling 
until she made me settle.

“We’re happy, aren’t we?”

“Sure are, pet. I never had so much fun in my young life.” she smirked, 
I knew she would say : ‘ Just wait until later.” she did and added a but to 
the end of it.

“But?”

“Have you ever given any thought to a family?” she bit her pink lip and 
watched my face, my smile spread.

I gripped her hands and kissed the knuckles, “ If they all look like you 
and me, they’ll be the handsomest beasts in the world!”

She laughed, I laughed, we tumbled to the covers and switched out the 
light. It was midnight, one o’clock, two and we lay together in the dark, 
listening to the rain, whispering things about how our daughter will have 
Harry’s smile and my eyes, her hair and my nose- our son will be Alan Francis 
too, and he’ll be the spittin image of his dad...

I felt a pounding, like a hammer against the back of my head, spreading 
to my hands and slamming into the backs of my eyelids, my face shifted SHIFTED 
mind you! I was yelling in Irish, English anything I could form in my mouth- 
Harry was screaming at high pitches, jumping to the far end of the bed. She 
was up and out and dialing 911...her fingers flew and I writhed in the bed, 
sweat pouring from my body onto the covers, eruptions like bits of hot glass 
bore down into my face and neck, my chin of all places felt like a huge welt 
was coming up- 

I stiffened and then went slack. It was gone as quickly as it came. 
“Harry, “ I croaked. “ Harry hang up the phone, I’m better.” I heard her 
talking in a low voice, she stopped. 

“Francis, honey is that you?”

“Yea, oh God my head hurts, but I’m better... come in and help me up.” I 
heard her say goodbye to the operator and ring off, her feet padding in, 
stopping at the door. She muffled a shriek.

“Christ-”

I can’t tell you how badly I felt, how horrible it was to see that look 
on her face, she didn’t know me, didn’t know what I was or what the hell was 
on my face. I recoiled and watched her, standing in silence. “ Harry, what’s 
the matter?”


“Your face Frank, oh god your face is...” she ducked out of the room and 
ran back to the phone, redial ‘Hello, 911, my name is Harry Doyle, I just 
called about my husband he’s got something on his face, could you send an 
ambulance... please?”

I struggled to sit up, ran a hand through my hair, back and forth until 
I hit my forehead and jerked the palm off it- my skin had pricked me. What the 
hell? I touched again, gingerly to test what I thought I could see in the 
middle of my nose, that pink blob always at the center of my vision wasn’t 
there when I switched on the lamp by the bed. It was a blue one, with blue 
bits jutting out. In the reflection of the night-dark window I saw what had 
made her scream, and now made me do the same.

Spikes, hundreds of them, pins embedded in my face like they had grown 
there, blue and menacing, under it was a charactericture of my real self, and 
they moved with me, as I opened my mouth for a soundless yelp of fright, the 
moved like grass in the wind, sharp and hideous. As I so often so do I could 
feel the passing out come over me, but a whisper feeling like breathing in 
through a tube made the horrible things recede into my face. I pawed at the 
skin, smooth a little stubble, just as it had been only ten minutes before.

“Harry- I...Harry?”

The doorway was suddenly filled with three men, they were EMTs, with a 
stretcher and more tests...the drug tests I was used to, they tested Harry 
asked if she had xtc, heroine, pot. I was insulted, I yelled at them to leave 
her alone and they only checked my eyes, wrote a report and left.

The next morning I picked up the phone and dialed international 
exchange.

“Mam?”

“Alan! Oh it’s good t’hear yer voice son, how’s Harry and the house?“

”Mam something’s happened.” I choked and took a deep breath. She was 
unnaturally quiet, like she had been the morning I left for America.

“What is it, heart?”

“Mam, there are feckin’ spikes in my face, I’m changing into things Mam, 
God I’ve been possessed by a demon! Have you heard of this before?”

Silence again. That queer kind when there’s a secret hanging in the air. 
She was barely breathing on her end of the phone. 

“Mother.”

“Alan, I should have told you years ago-”

“Told me what?”

“Who you are.”

His name was Anloch, the name he gave her. He was a poet, a handsome man 
with dark hair and burning eyes any woman could love. A demon in disguise who 
met my mother in Sorrento on her summer holiday in Italy, 1969. They danced 
and laughed and of course made love. Her last nights in Italy were good ones, 
spent with him and talking together of a future they could build from a moth 
of knowing each other. And then he told her there was a secret that she had to 
know, and he changed before her eyes, told her he was a Bracken Demon, and was 
old, centuries and centuries old. She screamed and yelled and fought her way 
from him, running away, never knowing she was pregnant with his child. 


Nine months later in Dublin hospital she gave birth to a beautiful human 
looking boy. She named him for her father and said she had met and married a 
dashing Irishman abroad who died in a boating accident. She kept her name, 
gave it to me and never thought to tell me.

“You had no sign of him in your body Alan, none. I thought- If you ever 
did, I’d tell you then.”

A few pictures she still had, she would mail them to me if she wanted. I 
simply hung up, angry and scared and sad. Harry came home and smiled nicely 
before going into the kitchen to drink a cup of coffee. I loved Harry, but she 
didn’t love me. 

Three months after that, it was like she and I had never been. We called 
it quits but never made it official. Something had come down between us, a 
wall a curtain I put up. At any time the spikes could come out and stab me in 
the heart. She did extra research in her department library, came up with a 
book of demons, found one like me said there were huge benefits...she tried to 
sound genuinely interested but I shook my head and retreated further. It was 
me who was the devil, why was she being the tormentor?

“You have to explore your roots Francis, the world of demons is vast and 
amazing, it’s like one of my ancient cultures- but this is real!” she was so 
happy to let me feel like a specimen, to forget I was here as her husband.

 Never, never would I let this hurt her. So I told her when I came home 
from school “It’s over.” not like that, have you ever heard of a marriage of 
lovers that ended without tears? I won’t give you the details, but I left with 
less water in my system than I came with, a lot less. Bags too, two bags of 
clothes and possessions, I let her take the house and walked, called my school 
from the train station and said I was done. No more Francis Doyle for the 
children, tell them I love them and I wish I could have stayed, but there’s 
been pressing business in the family.

I cut ties, turned tails and fled myself, popping out in spikes whenever 
I let the emotions I was running from catch me. I hated myself. I took up 
smoking, I was loathe to admit was anything but human, I drank it away. I had 
money enough for a cheap dive in a bad part of Los Angeles. This time when I 
came out into the light of the day I wasn’t ready, wasn’t fresh. I could never 
be Francis, not Alan, they were human men left in a cloud of demonic dust. 
Doyle was all I had left, it was all I could be now.

There I was then, three years after coming to America, twenty three, 
twenty four or so. I was a schemer, a cheater, ready to swindle the shoes off 
your feet to stay alive. I borrowed money, made friends and frequented demon 
bars in the worst areas of LA. I made a name for myself in racketeering and 
extortion. I became a thing you’d never recognize the young teacher as. I was 
a human demon, or a demon human, whatever.

Coming home from a business meeting out by the warf I was taking the 
last drag of my cigarette and sensed something inside the dingy one room flat. 
 One of my father’s kind. Not of his immediate family but you know that story- 
he and others of his family needed my help from the Scourge, they had to hide, 
they wanted me to help them as much as I could. I wouldn’t I refused, I 
threatened him, I yelled with harsh anger:

“I was raised human! I’m not about to go exploring my roots!”

“If you don’t believe we share a common blood, believe we share a common 
enemy.” and he left.

Good riddance thought I, smoking and tying to sleep. But I couldn’t. 
Then the vision came. I told you how badly it had hurt when the change 
started, this was worse. Much much worse. A migraine that threatened to make 
my ears bleed. And now this time there were terrible visions warping over top 
of the pain. 

They flashed before me, cries and redness, I could 
see skulls breaking and laughter so horrible I couldn’t
belive it was from something with a sense of humour.
           The Brackens. It was them, the ones who had needed 
my help. They were dead.


I didn’t believe it. I had to see it for myself. Some days I wish I 
hadn’t. 

How can I ever explain on paper the smell of death, the theatrical over-
abundance of blood? Tiny children with faces like mine, limp like toys and 
crushed like paper.  Dead, more than twenty altogether, a whole clan. Mothers 
father old ones and the kids, bloodied and slashed with a savageness that 
comes from hate. 

I was angry, I wept in that warehouse- but don’t you dare tell anyone 
that- the one who had come to me, he was there too- one of the worst ones, his 
neck a gory mess still wet. I couldn’t look anymore and so I ran, like I 
always do. I’m not a brave man, never was.

I wanted to drink, but I couldn’t. Wanted to sleep but in dreams the 
bodies were there. I didn’t know them but they were my people so to speak, and 
I was responsible for them all. I had let them die when I could have helped 
and saved them and known who they were and if they knew my father-

It came again, the insight the vision wracking my spine into a curl, I 
gritted my teeth and welcomed the vicious pain. A vision, come to me then, a 
voice over the jolt of bright white hurt...

*Doyle, you have cause for atonement...you are indebted to the Powers 
That Be... till this be repaid you are in Our services-*

I growled low and frightened, thrashed and clutched my forehead.

*It is Our Will that you seek out this man and this woman, help them and 
repay your sin to us... he is Our Champion, Our Warrior, she exists as his 
protectorate and your confidant. Find them and help them, follow these visions 
you will receive from now on-” and then it was gone for an instant, and 
something new returned.

 		Battle, anger, a mourning vampire, a chestnut haired girl, 
she was hurt and running, he ran too but for other reasons 
and they were coming here...to LA...there would be death 
for evil things at last with this newcomer, the man- the angel.	
 
A vampire? You’re kidding? No, oh god this’ll take some doing, but 
anything to rid myself of these dreams and horrible headaches.

Two weeks it took me, trolling the bars and asking around, finding the 
vampires became tricky- they were dwindling to a population of a few dozen 
where only a month before I remember being kicked out of one of my favourite 
pubs because a gang of the blood suckers had taken it over.  But you couldn’t 
find two to rub together in here, Smitty’s. A vamp bar for twenty odd years 
now. Very few humans, most like me. 

There were stories circling in there and in every other place like it. A 
vampire, huge and dark who killed his own kind, took out gangs of ‘em a night. 
Was bringing the district to it’s knees. He was vengeful and angry- saving 
humans from them all. You stand in his way and you die. Simple as that. He 
cannot be fought, he cannot be survived. Sounds like my guy.

“Ya got a name for the bugger?” I asked gently to a sobbing HellRat 
biker, so drunk and emotional he might ask for a hug.

“Non of us know, man, just some big guy, wears one of those rings you 
got on.”

I looked down at my hand. It was the band of silver Harry and I’d picked out 
forever and a day ago. Claddaghs, turned outward now because I had lost all I 
loved. I had forgotten it in the last months. Now it came as a horrible hurt 
to me. I whipped it off and pushed it into the biker’s palm, he gasped and 
dropped it.


“Don’t fuckin touch me with that thing man!” he snapped and stood up to 
go. I pocketed the rejected jewelry and yelled after him: “You got a name for 
that guy?”

A hiss came into my ear. The waitress, a succubus of amazing beauty. 
“Angel.” she tried to kiss me, but I took her hand and pressed a memory into 
it, one I hated and she looked at me with wet eyes.

“Don’t come back here, or I swear I’ll take your life from you.” I 
nodded and walked out. I had no intention of going back, it was in Inglewood 
anyway. I said the name to myself once to get a hold of it. “Angel.” and I let 
the demon surface and pick up his scent. It was a matter of finding his last 
place of battle and smelling for him. Not in the conventional “Mm, I smell 
bread baking” sort of way. It’s like finding a trace of soul and following it 
to it’s source. Can take days, but it works. If you are of demon heritage I 
urge you to try it. 

I went to an alley behind yet another bar, found dropped stakes, ash all 
over the place. Terrible smell of long-preserved death. Vampires, two of them, 
dead and gone. Human blood, human fear. Ancient sadness... that must be him. I 
went closer, sadness and longing, intention and- and a hint of broken heart. I 
know how the poor devil feels. I found it, mixed with tire, he had a car. 
Christ, this made my job worse. The smell intensified- I think I had some help 
here, amplifying the stuff that was so faint any good tracker could miss it- 
and I followed it. Walked forever, almost three hours, forever when you’re a 
non athletic type like myself. 

It was strongest in a slow neighborhood, old buildings, I stopped in 
front of one that was right out of an old Sam Spade novel. It was his. Angel. 
I went in, introduced myself and nearly got killed when he didn’t believe me.

A piece of advice- never surprise a vampire, especially a warrior. They 
hate that and you are prone to attacks, sarcasm and bloodletting. Nasty 
business really, I’ve not the stomach for that.

“I have visions, messages from Higher Powers.” I told him everything- 
no, not everything, just all the details that were pertinent... I have 
visions, I’m half demon, I’m not a fighter, just a sidekick. That just about 
summed it up.  He was to help me, I was here to help him, we’d work a good 
deal, and what’s better I found an ally, and a friend. It’s struggling a bit 
now and again but Angel is my man, he really understands what’s happening with 
all my turmoil about who I am and all that. Good man to know. 

About a week later she surfaced, the girl of my dreams, meant both 
literally and figuratively. Cordelia Chase, a goddess with the kind of face 
most woman kill for, a body they pay a fortune for, she’s a little harsh...in 
the same way rats are a little covered in fur. But I’m drawn to her. She has 
innocence, yea, but something else. She’s been tried and tested a thousand 
ways and she has stood through it all. She’s a brave girl, she’ll be a warrior 
someday- it’s in her. And who better for a warrior woman like her to curl up 
with at night then a demon who can see the future?

Myself, of course. I suppose you assumed I’ve got a thing for Miss 
Cordy. I do, she’s puts fire in me, just being near her fills an empty spot 
that I haven’t remembered in so long. Not since Harry, but this could be 
stronger. Better. She has a high tolerance for things unnatural...working for 
a vampire and knowing a slayer and all that. Yea, mmm. But no, it’s the better 
course to not tell her who I am. Better to let the beauty figure me out at her 
own pace. Should work well if I’m given the right amount of time. 

      Another thing, she’s young, real young. Four for five years younger than 
me at least. Angel tells me she’s only just graduated last year, a baby in my 
standards, myself being nearly twenty eight. You heard me, twenty eight. I 
must be careful with her, must walk on eggshells and treat her like she needs 
to be treated. A princess, a figure (literal and figurative again) to worship. 
      She has so much to learn and loose yet. And there’s so much I can’t tell 
her, or anyone, not even Angel.


I recently found that I get my visions and knowledge with them, I 
suppose sort of a consolation prize for the migraines. I don’t just see 
things, I know them. I know my future, I know hers, I know his...day by day 
and month by month...anything more than a few weeks and it’s cloudy but in the 
here and now I can tell you she’ll have a mocha latte in the morning if she 
can find the money (she will, in a pencil jar under her couch) wear a green 
sweater with holes in the arms and about two inches of bare midriff. And don’t 
you go thinking just because I know it I’m not impressed to high heavens and 
aroused to high hell when she comes in with it on. I love her, but I want her 
too. It’s a give take sort of thing.

I can’t tell her that she’ll wear green or drink coffee, I can’t tell 
him he’ll loose a case when the poor client dies in two days, I want to but I 
can’t. It’s a block in front of me, a wall I can’t get around. I can’t tell 
any more than I’m allowed. Ah now, ah now.

I’ll miss them, her most of all. The way she smelled when her head was 
on my shoulder, her nasty glare when I offered to share a couch with her, 
trusting me so completely (which I reveled in, no one had given me that for a 
long long time), taking so much for granted the way only she can. She’ll think 
she had so much control, she’ll be wrong she’ll cry.

I gave in to her wishes, only because there was nothing inside me that 
could stop it. Her charm, her cattishness if I said anything about any woman 
but her (which was rare). I remember I woke one morning to find that Harry was 
no longer the first thing I thought of when I woke up, it was Cordelia. Things 
were making sense in for the first time in more than six years. 

I tried to tell her, to cross a threshold and let her see me. Confidant 
that I wouldn’t be rejected, but there was the proxy again. Anything to stop 
me, a vision, a phone call, an interruption. Onto more nights of thinking of 
her, wishing she was with me so I could satisfy my soul and close my eyes with 
her head next to mine, notched under my collar bone. 

But I think to myself, if I did, let my face change, of the reaction 
she’ll probably have.

“Oh, ick much?!” she say and back away slowly, not wanting to frighten 
me into attack. It’s not a pretty face, no demon is, but I’m really bad, all 
green and blue and frightening. 

No, as I said before, I have faith in her. She is more than a bad 
secretary and a snide beauty queen, she’s a tender heart caged in iron. My 
attraction *was* physical only at first, but now she is more to me, and to 
angel. She’s an anchor of sorts for the two of us. A bright lamp in a dark 
place. I do love her, and I’m only saying that now because I’m only realizing 
it now. For the first time. I love her more than a father could, more than a 
lover or a friend. I love her for what she is and will be to me forever. Hope.

I know that I could save her from the pain of days to come, but my hands 
are so weak. When I’m gone, I hope she won’t forget. Angel wouldn’t let her. 
He’s to good a man for that. He’ll remember me when Cordy has moved on and 
married some Mr. Armani with little Ralph Lauren kids running around. That’s 
the benefit of knowing an immortal, they’ll never die and you’ll never die so 
long as they remember you.

Thinking on it, I don’t want her to worry for me to much in the future- 
what am I talking about?
 OF COURSE I DO!

 I want her to wail and keen and her warm tears to melt the ice of where 
ever a half demon goes after serving his purpose to the Powers That Be. I love 
her, Angel, protect her.

-----------------------

Cordy flipped the page over, and found it empty. She burst into tears. 
Doyle, jeez she hadn’t know he’d- she had. It was a lie to deny that she 
caught him looking at her, not in that hungry way Xander used to, like he was 
only barely keeping his libido leashed for fear of arrest. Doyle watched her, 
because he wanted to see the light change on her hair. He wanted to watch her 
face. She missed him. She really and truly missed him and couldn’t think of 
anything but his smell and remembering the night she *had* fallen asleep on 
his shoulder and loved the feel of a protective arm around her.


Heaving into a couch pillow she snuffled and looked up to the ceiling. 
All the emotions that damn journal of his had plucked from her were the messy 
mushy ones, best filed under useless and forgotten. In the world of Cordelia 
Chase, there was no room for self-pity. Not even for a “what if” with bad 
dressing habits.

Turning to rest on an  arm of the office couch she felt the bubble rise 
in her throat again. Her nose was tingling and they came in a fresh torrent, 
hard and heaving sobs she hadn’t expected. Salty and wet down her cheeks and 
chin, staining the fabric under her. Doyle, oh no, he had known everything 
that happened and didn’t-

Didn’t play the stocks to get them a little extra cash for a floundering 
business?

A cold hand brushed her shoulder, she looked up. Angel. He had the 
battered notebook in his hand.

“You read it. I think he meant to leave it for us.”

“He could have left himself. “ she muttered in a defeated tone. If I had 
known this stuff before-!”

The vampire shook his head. “ It doesn’t work like that Cordy- but think 
of it this way,” he perched on the corner of a desk. “Vampires, demons, 
hellmouths, it’s all part of a world that...” he couldn’t finish, there was no 
way.

“I want him back.” she said softly.

He hung his head. “Me too.”

--------------



Deep in the bowels of hell, beyond the fire, beyond the terror, sits the 
field of souls, a place to wait until you have completed a debt un-payable in 
life. There are many there, like him, millions of years to wait yet.

 He lays there, sealed in ice. He is alone, watching the ice shift above 
him, feeling emotions filter though a million years of rock and mud. A drop of 
water collects just above the massive tundra. It drops, heat searing the air, 
leaving a trail in the ozone, drops onto his face, burns a path down in to 
where he is. Warms him, makes him cry. 

“thanks princess.”