Photograph Memories
© 2001 Kylie
Continuity: S5 of Buffy, S2 of Angel. No S6 or S3 cannon.
This has pictures included in the text.
There was no real reason for her to be so... so... poleaxed by a simple photograph.
She no longer had the right. Not after all these years.
Not after the way she'd treated him.
He'd done what he had thought was right... what *was* right... and she had thrown her new life in his face.
It was only now, after a failed marriage, that she was beginning to see just how her releationship with him had colored all her others. He hadn't demanded anything from her, had always been there when she needed him, yet never there when she didn't. He was the ideal boyfriend. Around when she wanted him, nowhere to be found when she didn't. She'd come to expect that...demanded that in all her other relationships.
It was an unrealistic expectation.
Had she somehow thought that she wasn't dealing with flesh and blood people? Had she thought that they were shadows? The grown up version of dolls for her to play with when she wanted, then put away when she tired of them and wanted to do something else?
Why had he let her treat him like that? Why hadn't he called her on it?
These questions and more plagued her as she stared at the photograph.
He looked... Happy.
Which was a good thing. Really it was.
He'd never looked like that around her. He'd never laughed like that with her.
Not like he did with the woman in the photograph.
Did he let her treat him like a doll? Or was their relationship more... equal? More give and take on both sides, rather than give on his and take on hers?
She tore her eyes from the photograph, and placed it face down on the floor beside her. Once more she reached into the box.
She knew that she shouldn't be doing this. Had realised almost immediately that it wasn't the box of books that was supposed to be shipped to the shop. But her curiosity had gotten the better of her when she had spotted the framed drawing. She didn't know what it was, it looked remarkably like an ugly grey blobby...*thing*. An ugly grey blobby thing that had seen better days, if the singed paper inside the blackened frame was any testament. That wasn't what had gotten her attention however. No, what had caught her eye was the distinctively familiar scrawl accross the bottom.
'Thank you Doyle.'
After that she had continued to delve into the box. A piece of blue chiffon tangled with a bullet hole ridden leather jacket. The remains of what once was a red silk nightgown -- now ripped hopelessly beyond future wearings -- entwined with a pair of worse-for-wear leather pants. Hospital wrist tags bearing Cordelia's name, a crushed half-filled packet of cigarettes, an out of date bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, a worn copy of 'Of Mice and Men' and several official looking pieces of paper. All of these things were now spread out on the floor, curiosities to be examined and puzzled over.
It wasn't until she found the photographs that she realised that these seemingly inconsequential things were in fact highly personal keepsakes.
The first photograph was of a man she had never seen before. Wearing clothing that would have placed him firmly in the 50's or 60's, he smiled at the camera, almost carefree.
The second photo was of Cordelia and... she searched for the name... Doyle, standing back to back looking less than happy.
Then came the picture of Angel, Cordelia, Wesley and a young black man she had never seen before posing at the foot of a set of stairs. None were smiling and the photo seemed almost... business like. That impression had been confirmed when she had pried off the back of the frame. 'A.I. 2000 - 2001' was printed neatly at the top, 'The first photo I didn't have to threaten A. to pose for!' scrawled in a much different hand accross the center.
Then came the photo that had poleaxed her. Angel and Cordelia, their heads together laughing.
And for the first time that she could recall, he wasn't wearing black.
Another picture of the group, this time with a green skinned demon and a strange woman with them.
The next photograph wasn't in a frame, but showed both Angel and Cordelia grinning, looking at something on the other side of the camera.
She turned it over, and her world... fractured.
Wedding. April 2003.
Added down the bottom in Angel's neat print; "Gunn & Lorne just got 'got' by Fred."
Angel and Cordelia. Married??
Surely he would have let her know? Wouldn't he?
Ok, so they had agreed that it was over, and realised that both of them had moved on, but surely Angel would have told her if he was getting married? And to Cordelia.
No. It had to be someone else's wedding.
Wesley maybe. Or this Gunn person... whoever he was.
Once again, she placed the photograph face down on the floor and delved into the box once more.
With the new photograph every certainty she had ever held... shook.
A baby. There was a picture of a baby.
Why???
Removing the back of the frame, she carefully pried the photo out of the frame.
*Moira Lynn. Born 21st June 2006*
No. It couldn't be.
She tipped the box towards her, searching for more. Searching for something that would shed light on the parentage of the baby in the photograph.
The box was empty. No, wait. Lodged under the cardboard flap was a...
...positive pregnancy test wrapped in a piece of paper.
Carefully, almost reluctantly, she unrolled the paper from around the plastic stick.
And found a copy of a birth certificate.
And her world shattered.
*******
Spike stood silently in the doorway, watching as the Slayer emptied the box, a mixture of dread and relief pooling in his stomach. This got him off the hook. He wouldn't have to be the one to tell her. Her own curiosity was going to.
What was it they said about curiosity killing the cat?
It wasn't that he had meant to keep the poof's marriage a secret from her. It was more that a good time to tell her hadn't come up.
When exactly it would have been a good time to tell the Slayer that his poof of a Grandsire had fallen for the Cheerleader, Spike couldn't really say. He hadn't found one at the time.
Nor had he found a good time to tell her about his own friendship with the former May Queen -- born when he'd ended up passed out on Peaches's couch in a drunken stupor for two days after a particularly nasty fight with both the Slayer and the Niblet. Cordelia hadn't shown him any pity, going so far as to shove a feather duster and a broom into his hands, telling him that there were no free rides and he better get working. While he was suffering from the biggest hangover that he'd ever managed to induce onto himself. Which was saying quite a bit.
So was the fact that he and Peaches had managed to patch up their relationship -- at the Cheerleader's insistance -- to at least be civil and on occasion friendly to each other.
He'd been at the wedding, laughed himself stupid when Fred had played the practical joke on Gunn and the Host, drunk just enough to ensure that he was in a very good mood, and even managed a dance with the bride without the poof ripping him to shreds.
He'd been struck mute when Cordelia had announced that she was pregnant, and fainted at the birth of his goddaughter -- something that he was *never* going to live down if the ex-watcher had anything to do with it.
All of which he hadn't been able to tell the Slayer.
Because she had been married to an absolute git, and been on a horse so high that the enevitable fall was going to be very painful.
So now he watched her final tumble to earth as she realised that the dream that she had held onto for so long was no longer within her reach. Hadn't been for years.
That the Happy-Ever-After she'd been dreaming of with Angel -- even as she married another -- didn't belong to her, but to Cordelia Chase.
********
The End.