Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish they were.
Set post 'Origin'.
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I love Connor, and I love his mind. These are his thoughts
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ORIGINATION
I was born.
That is one thing of which I can be certain. And since that day I have had more people love me and hate me than most have in a life time – in a meagre nineteen years I've seen the gruesome world of death and destruction and felt the overwhelming grip of despair.
I have…I have so many thoughts now. They're building - It's layer upon layer, thick and black and yet as soft as snowfall. My father and my mom, and my sister, and my life at school, at college – that is all so undeniably real to me.
And yet, there's the truth – he's there, he wasn't some nightmare. And I recognise him to be a hero; part of me, perhaps the false part, sees him like everyone else does. He may not be a champion yet, but I can at least understand the person he is trying to be.
The bitter taste of all the words Holtz whispered has not disappeared. God know, everything I saw – that old, unrelenting anger that burned so much that I wanted to tear myself apart just to make it stop – the tears and the loss, the look in his eyes…
He was my father. I remember that. I know.
I barely understand what he did – neither me has taken a course in temporal shifts, or mind-spells, or false realities or whatever it was. But I do know that it was a lie, just like all the others I used to live, just like everything he offered to me.
Just like the one I was so happily living.
The more I think and consider, the more I remember, and the more confused I get. It isn't exactly a memory; it's more distanced than that. It's like watching a home video, that you starred in and someone else filmed. It's not my eyes through which I see. I don't know my eyes anymore – how can I, when I don't even know what lives behind them?
I'm an amalgamation of shapes; of prophecy and broken rules, of fluffy backgrounds and a mound of truths I daren't even touch. I'm everything, both sides of a coin…and I am nothing, because in each existence I should never have existed.
There are more lies here than simply realities…
I remember what Angel did. His open arms and his harsh words. I see him, and I see sadness, and regret and a monster. But he's also a man trapped in an ageless body. His heart may not beat, but I have known people in my false life far crueller than him.
In the store, on that day when my mind was just a fury of noise and pain, and everywhere I turned I faced a thousand more days of suffering. I…I could barely think, and, whilst I couldn't beg him, of course, because I was so proud…I needed him to do what he did. I needed that fresh pain, because it was final. I was grateful and I found resolution. I almost believed he loved me in that moment; he was also everything I had suspected him to be. He was a killer…but he was oh so merciful.
And now I'm here, months later. I find that he took it all one-step further than simple mercy. He gave me this second chance.
I got the best family a kid can have. We squabble, we argue, but there's a trust between us all that is unifying. I need that, I needed it because of where I was heading, through college, through the skies, and I need it now because of where I came from. I can't think of that past without a cold sweat breaking out on my skin, a shiver creeping down my spine, a thousand nightmares exploding in the dark…
I still know him – the boy I was. He is still me. I can taste the blood in my mouth, and the deep-rooted prejudices in an instant.
I remember the only love in that life: my Cordy; even when it all got so confusing and twisted, and her sleeping form was no longer enough to keep me sane. I remember her touch and her whispered words, and I see now just how much security they offered. I was craving a home, an opportunity to break away from my past; or perhaps just simple acceptance. And in her arms, her smile, I found something that resembled those desires. Sure, she was evil, and may not have ever been Cordy, but a lie upon a lie means nothing to me. I was the cause and effect of her destruction; and every thought of that will make me sick for eternity, but I think I…
I know She was beautiful. And for a time she was all I had.
But that's not true. I've got to remember that's not strictly true. A memory is a memory, whether created or not, and I've become who I am today because of them. Facing Sahjahn – I was doing that because of a true desire to protect my father, not through some sadistic drive to hurt, and maim, and destroy.
The Destroyer was my name: the old Connor. I can be him, and I was when it counted. I am a wild thing, a beast, and I could kill a man and his family in mere seconds.
Thing is, I don't want to anymore.
I tasted that life. I've been in that place, where the sun is black and smoke occludes the sky. Where every action is a curse, each breath is merely another step in the quest for survival. I was so lost, that I turned in on myself and lost all perspective.
Angel, he tried, but all my foundations, everything I had learnt, had taught me a thing like him could never be anything but evil. How could I listen to words that issued from the mouth that had killed thousands?
Of course, I have to smile at the miracle of retrospect. And of comparison. I've lived two so very different lives. Perhaps even three, when my name was Stephen (but that is one I don't wish to remember)…and I have been loved in each of them. It no longer matters that one of them was a lie. I've become who I am because of every single situation, be it real or fabricated. I know I placed Angel in a box and buried him in the ocean. I know I lied to Fred, sweet Fred, when she was so kind and loving. I know I played and manipulated everyone I touched, because I was scrambling for purchase on foreign ground. And my justifications mean nothing, they're jokes on the wind. I took it all too far for a simple apology to suffice.
Yet I also know I once dated a girl named Tracey. I know I aced my SAT's, and that I passed my driving test first time. I remember when my little sister was born, and I remember every single birthday I ever had, in crystal clear quality.
That's the information that doesn't conflict; it merely fills the empty spaces.
And those spaces are filled with lies. Part of me can see the simplicity of the truth, for things to be akin to how they were before, with the hunt and the kill. Angel may have sold himself out, but there's still evil to be fought and that's the one thing the old me knows that the other me doesn't. The roar of blood in my ears, and the surge of passion in my belly when facing down and slaughtering the demons of the world…I miss that, because that is all I ever was. It's all I ever had, except Cordy.
But I have to go back to my family. I can't be selfish anymore; I'm no longer a kid.
They need it to be how it was before; they can't cope with the dangers and the darkness that crawl around this world. They need security, like I craved. They need sanctuary, like I found with Cordy for a time.
I need to take them away from all this, because I lived in both worlds, and this is not the place to be. I care for them too much to let them become cynical and fatalistic, as they would if I returned to the kill. And I haven't the heart to abandon them.
Angel will manage; I know he will, because that's what his type do. Humans are far more fallible – they need help from us 'superhumans'. They need my protection; I can be their hero. I have the experience of 16years in Quor'toth to draw on, I know what goes bump in the night – but they don't have to. My family can be protected from that.
I will live in the middle, knowing both the truth and lie. I can keep secrets. Something I inherited from Angel…
And I think, perhaps, I should go back, despite what I know, what I remember. If I'm not careful, the lies might start to fade and I don't want to live in that blood-red darkness again. I'm a better person now. I have secure foundations, a future. And here, I can acknowledge that the people around me love me. I know they do – I have no cause for doubt.
Besides, I figure this lie is better than all the other chances I ever got to have.
This time, I'm gonna take it.
And I'm going to live.