Author: LJ

Spoilers: Through "Primeval" and "Blind Date". If I can work it in, then the season finales of both Angel and Buffy as well.

Summary: After Buffy's death in July 2000 during 'The End of Days', Willow begins writing letters to Angel in LA in an attempt to help him when she suspects he may consider suicide, and also to gain information for a prophecy. He responds, telling her about his long life, both as a vampire and his years as a human. A deeper friendship begins....

Relationships: While I'm open to a W/A 'ship, I'm hoping that this, like "Survivors", won't end up being romantic. There will be too much emphasis on his 'ship with Buffy (her being his soulmate and all that sort of talk). There will, however, be mention of Xander/Anya, Willow/Tara, as well as Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Riley and Willow/Oz in the past tense. Everything else remains to be seen.

Feedback: Always welcome. 'Mail me.

It's been two weeks since you were here, and you still haven't called to let me know you got back to Los Angeles safely, though I know that you did, through Wesley and Cordelia. I'm worried about you. Cordelia says she hasn't seen you for more than five minutes all together this week, and even then you refused to speak to her. You're scaring us.

I know that you're having a tough time dealing with Buffy's death - Gods, we all are, and I understand how bad it is for you, since you probably loved her the most out of all of us. But we all lost her - Giles lost his Slayer, both he and Mrs. Summers lost a daughter, Xander and I lost our best friend. And Riley lost the girl he was in love with - he didn't love her the way you have, and she didn't love him the way she loved you. She couldn't. He wasn't you. But they were in love. He's been pretty bad about her death, too. But at least he's letting us help him.

Angel, we can't make you do anything. You know that, and we know that. You're your own person. But we're worried about you - really, all of us - and we want to help. We can help each other if you let us. I really don't want to do the guilt-trip thing with you, but really - would she have wanted you to do this? To cut yourself off from everyone in your life, all of your friends, from us? I honestly don't think so.

There really isn't much more about that that I can say. I'm here if you need me, if you want to talk, or just sit, or whatever. I still consider you my friend. I always have. I'm glad you came back to Sunnydale, even for the short time you were here, even though it was for her funeral. For that short time, we were all together again, and I think that was good. I think even Spike, and Mrs. Summers, were glad to see you in their own ways, glad that you could come.

Moving on to other business. Giles is interested in knowing more about that scroll that Wesley told him about, the one with the prophecies, and particularly the prophecy that involves you. He's found another prophecy in one of his books that he thinks might be connected, but he needs to know more about those two hundred and forty-something years before you came to Sunnydale and started helping us. He won't show me the prophecy, or the book, so I don't know what exactly it is that he needs to know about your life before we met you. It would be helpful if you could call, or write back, and tell us something about all of that. I think, too, that Giles would be interested in a full autobiography - I certainly would be. It's one of those things - "You can take him out of the Watchers' Council, but you can't take the Watcher out of him" - you know? I've lost count of how many times he's complained that the Watchers' Diaries and other books he got from the Council (before they fired him, of course) have been severely lacking in detailed histories. Most of them read, "April 4, 1516 - Slayer eradicated Fyarl demon near Westminster Abbey" and that's it. No reasons why the demon was there or anything. I've seen Giles's Diary. The man writes too much sometimes, I think. But still, too much is better than not enough.

I realize how hard this is for you. I know that it's hard being around people who remind you of her. I know it's especially hard for you, that you've lost two people this last year - Oz told me about I heard about your friend Doyle. And now Buffy...I'm sorry. Truly, I am. But we need you, too. Please don't cut yourself off from us any longer.

Your friend,
Willow

Thank you for your letter. I was surprised to receive it, to say the least, but thank you. As you all know, this has been a difficult time for me, and my instincts, both demon and human, tell me to ignore the outside world, to retreat into myself and mourn her. Except for these last few years in Sunnydale, and now here in LA, I had been my own since 1898, which, with the exception of the year prior to my turning, the time which I spent in Hell, and right now, was the worst year of my life. I have been trying, these last few days since the letter arrived, to be more sociable to Cordelia and Wesley, but it is terribly difficult. Never in my fully adult years - and I do not count any of my years as a human in Ireland; though I had long since reached the age of maturity at the time Darla turned me, I had not yet become an adult, but that story can wait for another time. Never in my adult years, from the night I was turned to today, have I ever suffered such a loss as Buffy's death, except in the year 1898, which you may know was the year I was cursed with my soul, and it is that event which I shall now tell you about.

I had met up with Darla, my sire, in Romania. I had just come from Paris, where Drusilla, Spike, and another childe of mine, Penn, had been living for about two years. Now that you know Spike somewhat, it may be interesting to you to hear a little about him and Drusilla in those days. We were still calling him 'William' then, and had only recently had someone called him 'Spike' as a joke. I'm no longer certain who it was that started it, but as I am certain that it is written in some Watcher's Diary of the time, it was due to his penchant for torturing his victims with railroad spikes that he received that nickname. He didn't like it much at the time, being called 'Spike', but Drusilla did, and as you recall from the time he kidnapped you and Xander, he was willing to go to any length to please her, not only because she was his sire, and her word should therefore have been law, but because he honestly did love her. He has always been an odd one, and a bit of a romantic, which in those days annoyed me to no end, but, at least for a vampire, he always meant well. And for a young vampire, he showed great promise, despite his other attributes. It did not surprise me that he eventually became a Master.

Penn had left us some months before I left Paris, to go to Spain. He liked the bullfighting, and he enjoyed walking along the Mediterranean at night. The ocean fascinated him, mostly because he had never seen it as a human, and believed for a long time that the water was black both day and night. He and I made plans to meet up again in Italy, in the Via di Borgo Pio, near the Basilica, on New Year's Eve 1899.

Darla and I had been in Romania for about two months, and in the town of Borsa for about a week. I had become obsessed with a band of gypsies - the Kalderash, as you know, Jenny Calendar's people - and because my birthday was nearing, Darla decided to indulge my interest in them. For a vampire, one's birthday is of course the day they were reborn as vampires, but I was special and it was also my mortal birthday, something that I never told Darla, though I don't know, to this day, why I hid that information from here. It wasn't terribly important, but she would have liked to know. Yet I never told her. Generally it was a fairly quiet celebration for me, due to my relative youth compared to some of the other Masters, Darla, for example, and the Master in Sunnydale, Josef Nest, whom Buffy slew, and also I thought it was a bit silly. Darla, though, enjoyed parties, so every five years - she always said that doing it every year was not only too often for a vampire, but also too predictable - she would hold a large celebration for her birthday, inviting all of her childer, including me, and her grandchilder and her friends and allies within the vampire community. She also enjoyed planning parties for others in our 'family', and in many such respects I can see similarities between my sire and Cordelia, though I shudder to think of losing Cordelia to the demon. In this past year, she and I have become close, and I consider her to be something of a sister now, though we do not share the closeness which I had with my own sister as a human.

It was the disaster of one of these birthday celebrations for my grandsire, Elissabeta, though, that made Darla decide never again to celebrate her birthday. It was a rather large celebration, even by Darla's standards, but I do remember being rather bored. It was 1854, so Penn was with me, but neither Spike nor Drusilla had been sired yet. Drusilla would have only been about thirteen or fourteen years old, I think, and William wasn't even born.

A Slayer and her Watcher got wind of the party and attacked. I killed my second Slayer that night, moments after she killed Elissabeta. Darla was devastated. Elissabeta had been the mother she had never had as a human, and her death cut her deeply. After that Darla never organized another birthday party, and never celebrated her own again.

I've just realized how terribly I've been rambling. Cordelia had had a vision, which meant I had to leave this letter for a few hours, and I've just now come back to it. I'll try to be more careful as I try to finish the story.

As I said, Darla stopped throwing those lavish celebrations and began, instead, spending our birthdays with us quietly, as a mortal might. I think she suddenly realized that though we may live indefinitely, we are not completely immortal. We can die just as a human being can, and I think the idea of losing any of us scared her. She saw us, her childer, as her family, and like any mother, the concept of outliving her childer was terrifying to her. So, as we say these days, she began spending 'quality time' with us. She and I had also been lovers during my early years, as nearly all childer and sires are, and we soon renewed our relationship. I had spent a good forty or fifty years on my own, only seeing my sire at her parties, which I was ordered to attend. Suddenly, I was seeing her quite often. I loved her in my own way, as she did me, a different kind of love than that of which Spike is to this day somehow capable, but it was a kind of love nonetheless. I enjoyed being with her - I had never been a solitary creature - but, like a bird forcing its young out of the nest, to fly or perish, she had forced me out of her life for most of those fifty years. In that time I proved myself capable of surviving on my own, and built up my reputation. It was during that time that I came to be known as 'the Scourge of Europe'. Now, she called us back, one by one, and we came. We were alone, she and I, during that short time in Romania, and I was very happy.

There is the idea among some vampires that just as humans may have soulmates, vampires have perfect mates as well, a sort of demon-mate, somewhere in the world. Just as I believe Buffy may have been my soul's mate - so intensely I loved her and continue to do so - I think maybe Darla had been my demon's mate. I do not know for certain. In those days, the concept was still unknown to me, and I never thought much about the bond which we obviously shared. This is why it was so difficult for me to kill Darla when she attacked Buffy and Mrs. Summers. A battle was waged within me, between my soul and my demon, between the two halves of my heart, and my soul somehow won. I have wondered on occasion, had the demon within me won, would it have come to the forefront, as it did when I was with Buffy that single night? Would Angelus have reemerged? Had my other self taken control that night and Darla survived, rather than being staked by her only remaining childe, I have no doubt that I would have killed Buffy. Darla and I would have taken control of the territory surrounding the Hellmouth, and it would have been a terrible sight.

While we were in Romania, following the Kalderash, I became obsessed with one specific gypsy girl. I do not know what her name was, or truly why the elders of her people held her in such high regard, nor even why I became so obsessed with her. She was, indeed, beautiful, and I fantasized about killing her for a very long time - well, a long time for a vampire. We have preferences, of course, of who we choose to kill when we feed on humans, but she was not my typical kill. And, in fact, I had not yet decided to kill her: Darla brought her to our house as a birthday gift.

It was actually the eve of my human birthday, as I had been born during the day. Darla had me blindfolded and the instant she brought me into the room I could smell her - not just her blood, but her fear as well, the terror which had settled into her heart. She knew what we were and already anticipated her own death. I did not recognize her at first, as I'd only seen her from a distance until that moment. I didn't realize until I began that she was the one.

I killed her.

Darla and I celebrated my birthday. It was to be my one hundred and forty-fifth year as a vampire.

Later, in the early morning hours, while there was still plenty of time before sunrise, I decided to go for a walk. I was restless, and I still don't know why. Perhaps Fate was stepping in, forcing me to follow Her blindly. The prophecies on the scroll, which Wesley described to Giles, do indeed speak of a vampire with a soul. It was preordained that this would occur. I do not know if it was indeed supposed to be me, or if I was simply convenient - the right place at the right time and so on - but it happened, just as it was supposed to.

I left the house. Darla decided not to join me. She said she was tired, she wanted to sleep already. I went on alone and soon found myself on the outskirts of the town. The moment I saw the gypsy caravan, I had a sudden flash of memory. I remembered killing my father. I don't know why; I hadn't thought on my human life in many, many years. Then, there was shouting and yelling, and the gypsies chased me. I killed at least one, perhaps two, before the elder woman completed the curse. I dropped to my knees. There was a terrible pain in my stomach and in my heart.

An older man stepped up to me, and asked me if it hurt. He promised me it would be worse. I was confused; I didn't know what was going on, where I was, anything. The shock was that great. The man told me that I would soon remember everything I'd done during my time as a vampire, that the faces of my victims would haunt me, that I would know true suffering.

I didn't know what he was talking about. I was still confused. I couldn't remember killing anyone. I remembered fighting with my father, leaving home, getting drunk at the pub. My last memory before that moment was seeing Darla for the first time. Then slowly other memories became clear, and I realized the horrors of what I had done in the last one hundred and forty-five years. I think I started crying; everything had suddenly become clear and it was terribly painful. I ran off; my mind still wasn't clear enough to consider suicide, so I searched for some place to hide. I sat the whole day in a collapsed barn a mile or two outside of the town, unable to truly think the whole time. Thousands of faces swam before my eyes and I broke down.

As the sun began to set, my mind became clearer and I started getting hungry. The moment the thought of hunting crossed my mind, I became ill. Finally, I thought to myself, Darla will know what to do. I trusted her completely, my sire; she would of course be able to help me.

She wasn't home when I finally got there. I went inside anyway, added wood to the fire like nothing had happened, trying, yearning for normalcy. But then the faces and the memories emerged again and I broke down. When she finally came in, she wasn't worried about me; she assumed, as on other occasions, that I 'd wandered too far and hadn't had time to return before sunrise. And that's certainly how I'm sure I looked - my hair bedraggled, my clothing dirty. She came in, the same as always before, straight from the hunt, and the first thing I said to her, broken, sobbing, was, "Not everyone screams."

She stood there. "What?" she asked, almost stupidly, in confusion, surprised.

I can remember every word still. "When you kill them," I replied, my voice muffled by the wall. I was standing in the corner, as if I were trying to hide from the world. "Some - just stand there. Frozen...While others..."

"What are you doing?" she asked sweetly. "Are we playing a game?"

I ignored what she had said and continued. I was in absolute horror of what I had done. "The children," I replied, "they usually scream."

She smiled. "Hmm, yes. They sound just like little pigs," she said. "Have you brought me some?" she asked in anticipation. I didn't reply, and she misinterpreted my silence. "What you don't think I’ll share?  I can't believe that you would think I'm that insensitive."

I finally turned around and looked at her. I think she was a little surprised at how bad I looked. "We've drunk and killed for how long now? One hundred and forty-odd years. We've drunk them all up and they're all dead," I exclaimed hysterically.

She tried to cup my face in her little hands. "Where have you been?" For the first time since she had entered, she sounded just the least bit worried. I pushed her away from me. "Don't," I told her.

She was angry now. "What is this?" she asked. "Have you met someone else?" she accused. She had always been jealous, particularly of other women, like Drusilla, but how she could think that my relationship with her could change so quickly, just overnight, I don't know. I leaned against her shoulder, sobbing, trying to take comfort in her. She began pushing me away from her. "No!" she said. "Let go! Let go of me!" She pushed me hard, backwards, and I almost hit the wall. I looked at her and suddenly she appeared worried again. "What happened to you? Angelus, what happened?" She had a commanding tone in her voice, the tone sires take when they're trying to figure out what's gone wrong in their scheme, and I answered as her childe, and not the Master I had become, not as the Scourge of Europe, but as a childe.

"That gypsy girl you brought me," I finally managed to say, "her people found out.  They did something to me."

"A spell?" she asked intuitively.

My voice was almost calm, that kind of calm that falls upon you when things are so terrible you can no longer face it sanely. "Funny," I said, more to myself than to her. "You would think with all the people I've maimed - and killed - I wouldn't be able to remember every. Single. One." She walked up to me. "Help me," I pleaded.

She cupped my cheek with her hand, watching my eyes. "The spell," she said, mostly to herself, "they gave you a soul. A filthy soul! No!" She screamed that last bit and scratched me with her fingernails. "You're disgusting!" she told me.

I said her name, almost as a prayer, but she moved back and grabbed a chair, wooden, of course. "No, get away from me," she ordered.

"You brought her here," I reminded her, not really wanting to place the blame on her, but I'm certain that's how it sounded. She smashed the chair, taking one of the chair-legs as a stake, and took a stance as if she were going to stake me then and there. "I am like you," I told her desperately.

She looked at me with continued disgust. "You're not like anything. Get away from me! Get out!" she ordered.

I left, nearly falling as I went down the few steps just outside the front door. "I'll kill you!" she yelled as I continued on my way. I turned back, to look at her, and she stood in the doorway, the makeshift stake still raised in her hand, a look of anger, hatred, and disgust on her face.

That was the last time I saw her until we were both in Sunnydale. I carried the pain of her rejection and hate in my heart for nearly a century.

The next night I found myself wandering the streets of Borsa. I was confused, hungry. A small group of people, rich by their clothing, emerged from an inn or a restaurant, and I approached them, desperate. "I'm hungry," I said in their language, and one of the men just looked at me and told me to leave them alone. The sole woman of the group, a pleasant-looking brunette, defended me. "Leave him alone," she told her companion. "He's just a beggar."

The man sighed and threw a coin at me, saying, "Here. Have a pint on us."

The coin landed on the ground, and I picked it up and threw it back at him. "I don't want your money!" I told him angrily.

The man was outraged that I would refuse his attempt at charity. "How dare you!"

My face changed. "I want her."

The woman screamed, yelling, "He's a monster! He's a monster!"

The men - there were three of them - pulled me into the alley. "I am a monster!" I screamed in agreement. "I am a monster!"

We fought, the mortal men and I. I was weak, but I still won.

I killed those men with my bare hands.

A few moments later, the woman looked into the alley, a fearful look on her face. "Rudolph? Are you all right? Rudolph?" she called to her companion, who lay there on the ground. I grabbed her, dragged her into the alley with me, pushed her up against the wall, sank my fangs into her neck, fully intending on drinking her, killing her. I was that desperate.

But I couldn't do it. "I can't." I stumbled out of the alleyway, completely beside myself. "Oh, god, I can't."

I left the woman there, still alive. I hadn't had a single drop of her blood. I just couldn't do it. I left. Most days and nights after that blurred together. Some I have memories of, others none. I wandered, wherever I could walk, or hide in a train, a boat, a truck. It was all the same to me. I never again attacked a human after than night, even those who attacked me. I was homeless and lived like that for almost one hundred years.

But then, the year nineteen hundred and ninety-six arrived without my really knowing it, and one night a strange human-looking demon came up to me without fear or disgust. His name was Whistler. Perhaps Buffy told you about him. A week later, I was in Los Angeles for the first time, and I saw Buffy meet her first Watcher.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

When I think of Darla, and that night, it is less painful these days, but it hurts nonetheless. She was my sire, she had always loved me, we were kindred spirits of sorts. And yet she threw me out of her life, breaking the bond between us just because I had been cursed. I didn't understand for the longest time. I hope that I do understand, now, but I still wish I'd had the opportunity to make things right with her. My heart aches still, just as it now does for Buffy and has done in these last years.

I hope that this was perhaps what you were looking for, Willow. Do with this story what you will, what you must; everything I have written here today is the absolute truth as I know it. I hope you will be able to use it in some manner.
 

Angel

Thank you for answering my letter. I am glad that you are trying, that you are making the first steps towards healing. We enjoyed hearing from you, though it obviously sparked less pleasant memories. We had no idea that your connection with Darla, your bond, as you put it, was so strong. Is it usually so between sires and their childer? None of us truly know that much about vampire "society" or "culture", as one might call it. It's not as if we can be like foreign exchange students and immerse ourselves in the life of vampires. You are our only real link to that world. We only know Spike in the most limited and basic definitions of the term, and he does not really communicate with us very often - unless he wants something.

Speaking of Spike, he's now mad at you for some reason. He was at Giles' with us yesterday as I was reading the letter aloud, and he suddenly became quite hostile, began calling you names - I think. Giles refuses to translate (and I quote) "such low, vulgar terminology". A thought: was he angry because of what you were saying about his nickname? I always thought he took pride in it, but I may be wrong. Sometimes, I wonder what he'd do if one of us called him "William" one day. The chip's still there, so he can't hurt any of us physically, but would he threaten us? Hm.

Another question. We were all under the impression that you were truly his sire, that he and Drusilla are "siblings", for want of a better term. Xander even remembers him calling you his sire, back on that Parent Teacher Night when we were still in high school - the first time we saw Spike in Sunnydale. And even now, whenever someone brings up your name, he'll say something about his "damn poof of a sire" (that's another direct quote). Could you maybe explain that for us?

Yesterday, as I arrived at Giles' with your letter, I found him sitting on the couch, Mrs. Summers in his arms. She was crying uncontrollably. I felt very sorry for her, but at the same time glad that she had - at least at that moment - someone to lean on. She's never liked him very much, and has always wanted to blame him for Buffy's destiny as Slayer. But I think she's finally realized that it wasn't anyone's fault, and that he truly did love her, and saw himself, as we all have, as a surrogate father for Buffy and the rest of us. Mrs. Summers herself has been the closest thing to a mother Xander and I have ever had ourselves. I'm glad that they - specifically Mrs. Summers - have been able to put aside their differences, though it took something as awful as Buffy's death to accomplish that. I can, quite easily, see them becoming friends, in time, now.

Please write back and let us know how you are doing. We miss you, though Giles and Xander would be hardpressed to admit it.

Yours,

Willow

PS: When Cordelia told me that you've become like a big brother to her, she wasn't alone in the sentiment. I don't know about the others, but I could certainly see you as my big brother. [smile]
Little Sister Willow