From: bsummers@ucsunnydale.edu
To: phantom_dennis@aol.com

Dear Dennis:

I’m sending this from my daughter’s email account because I want her to find it. By the time she (and you) read this, she’ll already have found my private note to her, and I hope, found it comforting. But this letter...I don’t find it in the least ironic that my last motherly act will be to help another woman’s child, because there are two lost children who need each other. And there is a greater perspective I want to leave them with.

I’m sure I’m violating all sorts of rules by writing to you like this. I understand the rationale behind “no real names, no real places,” I really do. And I’ll try to keep real names out of this for as long as I can. But we’re a special case, you and I. Who would have thought that of all ghosts to find each other, it would be the only two who both have a special connection to the Powers-That-Be---and the same connection at that?

Your lady was here, Dennis, and as soon as I saw her, I knew that I had one last part to play in her life. I don’t know your girl as well as I probably should. But I knew her before she was your girl, and when she still was…a girl. So many layers that one had! Take away money, and she still had status. Take away status, and she still had looks. And underneath the looks, she had smarts, wits and the tongue to go with it. I know her family, knew her mother, and when my daughter would complain about the terrible “Queen C” I tried to explain to her that hiding in your looks, your money, your status…it’s not a show of strength, it’s a show of weakness, of insecurity. And I know that from personal experience: I hid in my marriage for far too long, used it to define things, to excuse things. It was the only true mask I wore, and when it was gone… I stopped hiding things because I had
nothing left to hide them in. Your lady…

They got in around dinner time, Friday night. It was not a happy reunion. They were reuniting to bury me, after all. But even so…my daughter has quite the history with their little group. In your lady, an old rival whom she grudgingly tolerated. In your English, an old working relationship that ended badly. And in your Fang, the ultimate romance gone wrong, her first great love and first great wound. And all of them, camping out in my living room because this friend lives in a dorm room and that friend in a one-bedroom apartment…One slice into the pizza, and I’m ashamed to say my daughter started it. I don’t remember exactly
what set it off, what small snark or exhausted lapse of tact. If your lady hadn’t been so fragile herself these days, she might have had a snappy rejoinder, which surely would have the situation worse. But instead…her eyes briefly flashed anger, before they
teared up and looked beseechingly at English to defend her.

Even my daughter, through the haze of grief their presence barely soothed, noticed that. Queen C, in such upset over such a lackluster dig? They hadn’t fully realized, you see. Hadn’t seen how she stayed in her own corner, clung to English and kept a very close eye on Fang, albeit a hazily suspicious eye. And Fang---they hadn’t noticed his split attention, half on my daughter, and half on her, to carry her bag, get her a drink… to atone for a somewhat mysterious tension, and for whatever he had done to cause it.

They hadn’t noticed the slight limp that English walked with, the awkward way he held his stomach when he sat down, how their old friend Queen C watched him protectively, wincing at each small adjustment he made to keep himself comfortable. And they hadn’t noticed her at all, Dennis! If they had seen the timidity of posture, the hard, battle-scarred eyes, they probably
thought it was because of the funeral. And they certainly didn’t smell YOU on her, not the way I did the moment I saw her body shiver in subconscious recognition when I drifted too close…

Still, there was something in her features that shut my daughter up before things degenerated. I wrapped myself around my girl, coaching silently, be gentle, love. Both of you, be gentle All those comebacks, all those insults…they were layers, sweetheart. They were coping skills, defenses, panicked attempts to keep her heart safe from the world. Kill, or be killed, and she
wanted to live, thank you very much. Masks, and frankly rather transparent ones. Nobody talked much until the pizza was finished. My youngest had kept up a steady stream of nervous chatter, and normally, this would annoy them. But that night…they welcomed it. Keep the rivals away from each other. Keep anyone from saying something they’ll regret. Do nothing to bring out uncomfortable tears, from either of them. After dinner, let her catch up with the gang while Fang hustles daughter dear out of the way, joins her on her nightly nine-o-clock-and-all-is-well.

And they were just about to leave for that patrol, dressed for outside and bag of supplies at their feet when your lady screamed suddenly, doubling over, face wrenched in agony. Fang was at her side in a second, folding her onto the couch, massaging her forehead with cool fingers and whispering comforting “it’s okay” and “breathe, breathe” directives. You could have heard a pin drop, Dennis: she had stunned them into horrified silence. When she stopped writhing, he took his hand away and her head dropped between her knees, her breathing ragged as she struggled to regain her equilibrium. “Bronze,” she gasped. “Back door, vamps versus ravers…” He nodded, grabbed my daughter’s arm and hustled her out the door.

“There are painkillers in her bag,” English said quietly, gently wrapping his arm around her. “Can somebody…” Somebody did, and somebody else broke the silence to ask “what WAS that?” Between the strained breaths he nursed her through, English filled in what blanks he could. Visions, not usually as bad as this one. Powers-That-Be, still a bit unclear on how that
works. Are you all right, love, perhaps you should lie down…No, no, the effects aren’t permanent. She’ll have a headache for a little while, but…here, yes, lie down and can I get you…all right, then. Just rest, you’re all right now. And when her anxious fidgeting finally degenerated into sleep…he filled them in on the rest of it, just as you’ve filled me in, Dennis.

Lawyers, spells and rituals, raisings.

(They worked together, and he had this little tantrum...)

Epiphanies.

(If he thinks he can just abandon her, then turn up again when she’s finally…)

Hurt bodies, hurt feelings.

(Nightmares, she sometimes gets them on nights like this…)

What was it you told me about her? That she has the kind of street smarts you can only get from knowing what the world is really like, in all its terrible, powerful glory. That she’s seen redemption, and once or twice, she’s even had a hand in it. There were sacrifices made along the way, some by her. And at some point, someone realized that she had grown up, found her destiny, found out that the only one who ever really got away…had not gotten away at all.

By then, I knew, Dennis. She slept fitfully until my daughter came home. Fang, on his way in, stopped by the couch and gently touched your lady’s forehead with a fond smile. She stopped fidgeting instantly, and slept peacefully for the rest of the night.

She did all right, Dennis. And part of my reason for writing this letter was to tell you that. And now, if you don’t mind, I have a few things I want to tell her.

Cordelia, you probably don’t know what happened after Buffy got home. They got your vampires, as I’m sure they told you over breakfast the next morning. And they spent a good couple of hours just walking, talking…about her, mostly. It wasn’t until they got home and snuck past you on the couch that Buffy thought to ask for an update. Angel, bless his souled little heart, tried chivalrously to play things up on your behalf. He told her you worked for him, that you cared for him, that he liked having you around. That the visions were not such a new thing, but he never felt it was his place to tell her about them. That you had your ins and outs, your moods and moments, and lately more of the former and partly on his account, but that you had a remarkable ability to maintain perspective on things…

The next morning, she got the righteous anger version from Wesley, via Willow. Sweetheart, I wish you could have seen her face! It was a growing-up moment for her too you know, to realize that Angel’s good side and bad side were not as clearly distinct as she liked to tell herself they were. It was the same epiphany you reached yourself, and I think the reason why you still
haven’t been able to write off what he’s done. But she’s not as personally involved in what happened as you are, and she took the epiphany one step further. She realized, as I hope you will, that it isn’t right to hold him up to higher standards, or even to
different ones, just because of what he is. You’ve been hurt by humans too. But that hardness in your eyes…you didn’t have that before, and it isn’t quite fair to put all the blame in Angel’s lap. I know it’s probably easier to separate things in your head, to preserve an essential difference between human and vampire, us and them. In your line of work, you’d go crazy if you didn’t. But as soon as you take Angel out of that collective “them,” you have to judge him by the same standards as you would a human friend. And remember that just because the shades of gray in his heart CAN involve the fate of the world, it doesn’t mean they always do.

Do you know what Buffy did when Willow had finished telling the story? She barely spared a thought for Angel, for his rights, his wrongs, his guilt or responsibility. Instead….she glanced over her shoulder to where you were still half-asleep on the couch and softly whispered “Maybe we should have tried harder…to keep in touch.” I know: someone like you will probably be horrified to think that you finally earned their friendship through pity. But it isn’t really like that, sweetie.

You’re more like them now, since you’ve been drafted into the good fight. But you’re still you. They didn’t know what you were going through only partly because they underestimated you, never validated you enough to expect the kind of serious growing-up you’ve done. But you---you never volunteered it, did you? You still maintained enough of that steely Queen C invincibility, that blink-and-the-world-is-fine-again armor that you fought so hard to polish. And what they finally realized was why the rest of them never built that kind of shell: because all of them had someone who had gotten inside their armor before it hardened, someone who it cracked open just enough to let the others in. A crack you didn’t have because you never had a mother, or a friend that deep, get in there soon enough.

Xander and Willow, friends since infancy, had each other for that. Buffy had…me. And you? Your mother? It was she that helped you built that armor up in the first place. And it was she that abandoned you as soon as growing-up started cracking it. You faced moving away, you faced losing your life as you knew it…you faced that on your own. And the first person you truly, truly let in…Angel…you had your ups and downs with him, but you also have a second chance, sweetie. And that boy just might be strong enough to wedge a crack even in you…and keep it open wide enough to share the lookout post with other people.

Buffy and Willow…they realized that they had been luckier in some ways, and it was that guilt---not pity----that prompted the olive branch. In some ways though, you have an advantage because you’ve already done what this latest growing up is about to force the others to do: find the kind of love they got from me…to find it elsewhere. You’ve already done that---you’ve got Angel and Wesley and Gunn. And you’ve got a very special friend out there who loves you enough to stay in limbo on your account. Something is telling me I’m needed elsewhere, perhaps in another life, perhaps to another child. I can’t make the sacrifice that your Phantom Dennis has made and stay with you, with them forever. But his relationship with you…it’s inspired me. And I think the best chance I have of passing that on to my daughters is to leave them with the sorts of friendships that can change their lives as your friendship has changed Dennis. I can leave them with your phantom, your vampire…and yes, love, you.

Best,
Joyce Summers

*the end*