AUTHOR: Goddess Isa
EMAIL: goddessisa@aol.com
DISTRIBUTION: Sure, just email me & LMK where you're putting it =) It'll also be at my site, http://planetslaythis.homestead.com
RATING: TV-14
SPOILERS: The Prom & GD2, but I changed a lot g
SUMMARY: Oh come ON! If I told you, you wouldn't have to read it. Oh all right, I'll tell you this. It's time for Ophelia to deal with the past. There. A summary.
FEEDBACK: Please, I live, die, breathe and Slay for it.
DISCLAIMER: Knew I'd forgotten something. Ophelia's mine. Rest are all Joss.
I go to my Mom's grave every week. I've never missed, not once. Not while I was working, not while I was away at school, no matter what, I always came, usually on a Saturday. I always plant a new flower when I come. A hundred and sixty-one poppies, carnations and orchids, just over three years worth of Saturdays, plus her birthday and Mother's Day.
Other people visit Mama too, especially Buffy. She was Mom's best friend, it's only natural that she come whenever she's in town. Giles comes too, usually just as an excuse to talk to me since I rarely stay in LA longer than half a day. Everything about it feels like her, looks like and smells like her, and it's too hard.
Giles has taken to calling me recently as well. I guess he'll always be a Watcher, even though he retired before I was even born.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be arriving in Los Angeles in about eight minutes. Please be sure that your seal belts are fastened and that your seats are in the upright......"
I began ignoring him right about then. With Mama being an actress and my own modeling career beginning since I was eight, I've been on hundreds of planes. I no longer think much about it going up or down, I'm just thankful once I get back on the ground.
I let my thoughts travel back to Mama, because I've been missing her more today than usual. I made sure we finished the shoot late last night so I could catch a flight this morning. I wanna be back home, visit Mama bright and early tomorrow. It's been five days, five days too many. I think now that I'm gonna be home, I'll visit her more often. I think she'd like that.
I wonder what she thinks about my staying in the house again. This is the first night I've stayed in it since she died. I've been there twice, once to get clothes and once to get my birth certificate. Both times I ran through so quickly that the memories couldn't capture me. I didn't want anything to get to me, to remind me that I was alone in the house now.
It's been three years though, and today is my birthday. I'm done with Calvin, I don't wanna sign another contract with him or anyone else. Modeling was fun and it earned me some security for the future, but enough is enough. And being an emancipated minor with a GED, I have all summer, well, the rest of my life, really, to figure it all out. A house, two cars, three Emmys and a cat. It's a lot for a newly sixteen year old girl to manage on her own. Sure, we have a staff at the house, but a staff isn't a family.
I don't have a family. I am my own family.
Is that it now? Am I an orphan? I really hate that word. I know it doesn't really mean abandoned, but if I refer to myself as an orphan I'm going to feel abandoned and I never have. Yes, my mother left me and she left me way too early, but she didn't abandon me.
That doesn't make very much sense, and right now I don't think I care.
The plane lands and after grabbing a Cinnabon I hang around the airport, shopping. LAX is busy, happy. People everywhere. Families with strollers and clapping babies. Mothers feeding their infants. It's a nice place to be.
After four shops, it's time to stop putting off the inevitable. I get into my mother's limousine and Leon drives quickly through the city I call, well, called, home. Tall buildings and shops and restaurants, all places I visited with Mom. All places I miss.
When we got to the house, it was empty, like I had asked. Rosaree left a note on the door, I could see that from the backseat of the car. Leon opened my door, but I made no attempts to get out.
"Rosaree said you can call her if you need to, Miss," he told me.
"Thanks."
"Aren't you going to get out, Miss?"
I should say something to him about the 'Miss' thing, tell him to call me by my name. Then again, my mother commanded he respect me as a lady from the day I was born, so I suppose I should let it go.
"Leon," I stepped out and took my carry on and purchases with me. "You can put my trunk and the rest of my luggage in the garage, please."
"Are you sure about that, Miss?"
"Yes. I'll get it myself when I'm ready."
"Very well. Call if you need me, miss."
He drove the car around to the back of the grounds and I slowly approached the door. I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and entered my security code.
The doors swung open and I entered, momentarily feeling like a stranger in my own home.
And then it hit me. The place still looked and smelled how it did when my mother lived here.
I went into her office and hit the button on our photophone to check the messages. The first two were from Rosaree, directions about heating up food and so forth. The third was from my former boss at Calvin, asking me to reconsider my decision. The last message was from Buffy.
She appeared there looking how she always did. Hair pulled back, sweater and skirt, perfect lipstick. Buffy should've been a model.
"Hi, happy Sweet Sixteen. I'm sorry I can't be with you to celebrate it, but I sent balloons, as you'll see when you get upstairs. Giles and I are gonna visit you next week. We're stuck in France for this damn Watcher's Council conference, I never should've taken this position. I like being in the action. Watching is too boring for me. And yes, you hear Giles snickering at me. I need to get serious for a moment. There's a gift on the table in the dining room from your mother. Don't ask, you'll figure it all out on your own, and when we see you. Bye honey. We love you."
The screen went back and I left to find the gift.
There were actually two boxes on the table, and one card.
I picked it up and knew instantly by the handwriting that it was from Angel. I opened it to find a recreation of a Degas painting of two ballerinas at the barre. I wasn't surprised that he remembered how much I loved Degas paintings. Angel never forgot anything.
"Hi," the card read. Angel wasn't much for names, unless the name was 'Buffy'. "Happy birthday from Doyle and me. Call us when you get this, all right? You know where we're staying in New York and we should be back in a day or two if you need us. Love you. Worry about you. Miss you."
That was it. Angel was always brief and to the point. It was so sweet of them to think of me though, I didn't realize they even knew when my birthday was. I worked the last two, after all, and I haven't had a party since Mom was alive, though it really shouldn't surprise me. Angel's been my buddy since before I could walk and he and Doyle are the closest thing to a father I've ever known.
I opened the box and, surprise, found a piece of Irish jewelry. It was a Claddagh pendant, something I'd never seen before. I slipped the chain around my neck, kissing the tiny heart before letting it fall down against my dress.
The last box gave me shivers. I knew by touching it that Mom had wrapped it before she died, and I wondered how she possibly knew.
I opened it and found a videotape with the words 'Play Me' in her handwriting.
Already fighting tears, I took it into the screening room and ran it.
"Hi baby," she said, her face and voice alive as ever. I had to keep turning around to make sure she wasn't watching this with me. I swear I felt a hand on my shoulder more than once.
"I grew up in Sunnydale, where you've only visited, and even though you've seen some things in LA, you have no idea what my high school days were like. You learn to know that dreams and thoughts are more than just that: they're prophecy.
"Something tells me I won't live to see your Sweet Sixteen, so this is my gift to you: The house. Everything in it, it's yours. I know you already know that from the will, but I want to make it official.
"Also, ask Buffy to give you the yellow box. It'll answer a lot of questions you probably have about where you came from."
The tape went fuzzy and through my tears, I realized that I'd never asked my mother about my father. It didn't really make any sense to do so. I mean, I had Angel and Doyle and Mom never mentioned my father, so I figured it would make her sad to ask her. I guess looking back now, I wish I had, but you can't go back in time.
I took the video out of the VCR and went up to bed. It was the middle of the afternoon but I was exhausted. I fell right to sleep and dreamed that Mom was still alive. She never was stabbed and she was watching me get ready for my senior prom. I was wearing a silvery-gray sparkly dress that had been hers.
I woke up knowing that if I did wind up going to prom with Aunt Willow's son David, I would wear Mom's gown. And I hoped that with help from Buffy and Giles, I would know why.
*****
The next day I got up early and went to Mama's grave. I'd spent the remainder of my birthday in bed even though I didn't sleep much. I just tossed and turned and thought about my mother. How much I miss her and want to share everything with her.
I brought pictures from my last shoot to the cemetery and I was heading towards the garden where she was buried when I noticed someone at her grave.
Someone I didn't know.
He was tall, handsome. Dark hair and eyes. For a brief moment I thought he might be the Xander my mother wrote about in all her diaries, but I shrugged that thought off. She said he'd died during the Ascension, and I know that hurt her a lot. I think she must've cared very deeply for him.
I stepped closer and took a deep breath. "Mama, give me the strength," I muttered. "Who are you?" I asked.
He jumped. I got a good look at his eyes, and I swear to God, they looked like mine. "Wha-what?" he asked.
"Who are you?" I demanded. "What are you doing at my mother's grave?"
"Your mother?" his eyes were wide and his face was covered in shock.
"Yes, my mother! Now tell me who you are before I call security."
"I went to high school with your mom. I cared very much for her. I should've come to her funeral, but...."
"Are you Jonathan?" I asked. I could've sworn he was killed a few years ago in a car accident. Mom said he'd been a dork in high school but he'd grown up to be a computer mogul.
"No! I'm Xander."
I sank to my knees, dropping the flowers I'd brought. "Xander."
"Yeah, and you are...."
"Ophelia."
"Ophelia?"
"Yeah, my mom did it on purpose. Being in the business and all."
He looked at me blankly. "I don't get it."
I rolled my eyes. "Cordelia and Ophelia?"
"Oh." he still seemed in the dark.
"People have always made fun of it, but I like my name. It's different. And my mother picked it, so...."
"Did your mother ever speak of me, Ophelia?"
I couldn't look at him. Those eyes....it was just too eerie. "Once in a while." I whispered. "She wrote about you a lot in her journals."
He set the flowers he was still holding down and kissed the picture on her headstone. "I need to go. It was nice to meet you Ophelia. I'll.....I hope I see you again sometime."
I muttered some sort of a goodbye and stared at the image of my mother. She looked so beautiful, so alive. I had a hard time believing she was gone. And I was wondering why all these years, she thought Xander was dead.
*****
Buffy and Giles couldn't come visit, and that bummed me out. I began staying in my bedroom twenty-four seven, listening to the radio. I never really heard the music, but it was always there. Then one day, Buffy sent me a large box via Federal Express. Rosaree brought it right up to my room and woke me up so I could open it. She left me alone, of course, but I knew it was killing her to do so.
Inside the ugly FedEx box was a bright yellow plastic sweater box, the kind you put under your bed with yearbooks and prom corsages inside. I set it on my lap and opened it.
There were pictures, tons of pictures, and two journals.
I opened the first and saw that instead of being made out like a regular journal entry, it was a letter addressed to me.
"Dear Ophelia,
Today you are one year old, and as you sleep at the foot of my bed, I'm going to write you and tell you as much as I can about my past before it slips away from me.
My parents met at my mother's debutante ball, blah, blah, blah, you know the rest. They split up and my life crumbled.
That was just after the first semester of senior year began. I began counting quarters and buying Rit dye to make my old clothes look brand-new so no one would think anything was wrong monetarily with Cordelia Chase. It was Hell.
I began talking to Xander late at night on the phone. It didn't go any further than friendship for a few weeks, but by prom night it was getting serious. He found out where I was moving to and what I was going through. I'd gotten a job as a salesgirl! Can you picture it? I bet I still have my name tag somewhere.
I couldn't afford my dress by the dance, so Xander bought it for me. I think that was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me. I loved the dress. It was perfect. Long and silver and glittery, it was the kind of dress you saw at movie premieres. And every dress I've had since then, no matter how pretty they were or who designed them, they never meant anything to me. The only gown I ever cared about was the one Xander bought me.
I'm going off on a tangent now. Where was I? Oh, prom night. I didn't have a date, and Xander took this demon named Anya. They kinda separated near the end of the night and he and I met up in the hall. We walked outside talking and we wound up going back to my house, the one that I was leaving for good the next morning, and we made love. I'd never felt so safe in my life as I did that night. It was like the one perfect moment every girl should get on her prom night.
After that, we went back to hating each other. Xander had it in his head that he wasn't going to survive the Ascension, and when the whole thing went down, he was there, fighting like everyone else. But when it was all over.....
We never found him. No body, no nothing. No one had seen him since the vampire attack where that boy Jonathan saved my life. We assumed that we'd lost him and let it go.
When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I couldn't stay in Sunnydale, so I moved to LA. Angel was already there, and he found me, took me in. I had to get a job, but I couldn't really do anything, besides, you know, look pretty and be bitchy, so he found me an agent. I got Days of Our Lives and you pretty much know the rest.
If you're reading this Ophelia, I'm gone. I love you, and please know that no matter where I am, I will never stop loving you.
I only wish you could've known your father. He was a wonderful, funny, caring man. He would've adored you had he been given the chance.
Love forever,
Mama"
There were tons of entries with other thoughts about things that happened in her life. Reading all about my mother through the eyes she wanted me to see her through, it made everything hurt more. I wanted to scream at Xander for staying hidden away all those years, but I couldn't hate him, even though I wanted to. He was, after all, my father, and the only family I had.
Still and all, looking at the prom picture of the man with my eyes and my mother in that dress, all I could do was sob.
///Something went wrong
You're not laughing
It's not so easy now
To get you to smile
You got to be strong
To walk these streets and keep from falling
And when you're not
Just let yourself cry
But if you throw a stone
Something's going to shatter somewhere
We're all so fragile
We're all so scared
Say you want to learn
How to live your life without tears
But we've been trying to do that
For thousands of years
So go on and cry Ophelia
It's the only thing to do sometimes
And I'm crying too right there with you
It's all right Ophelia, everybody cries
And yeah thank God
For my bad memory
I forgot some of the stupid things
That I've done
I've come too little is done
Through a whole lot of failure
So I watch more carefully
What rolls off my tongue
I pray for rain
But you don't want it from a storm
Yeah yeah you find a rose
Cut your finger on a thorn
So go on and cry Ophelia
It's the only thing to do sometimes
And I'm crying too right there with you
It's all right Ophelia, everybody cries Ophelia\\\
The song ended and the DJ came on. "And that was 'Cry Ophelia' by Adam Cohen, special request from Xander to Miss Chase. Miss Chase, if you're listening, he says to feel better and eventually, you'll be all right."
It hit me then that Xander didn't know about me. I mean, he knew, but I wasn't sure he *knew*. I went down into the office, photocopied the first journal entry of my mother's that I'd read and drove her red BMW to the cemetery.
As I knew he would be, Xander was there.
"Xander?" I asked when I was close enough for him to hear me.
He turned around, looking at me. He had sunglasses on but I could see he was covering tears. "Hi, Ophelia, how are you?"
"Still crying."
"You heard the song."
"I did. Thanks."
"Just thought you might--"
"I'm your daughter." I blurted it out, even though I hadn't wanted it that way.
"What?" his voice was barely above a whisper.
I thrust the papers at him. "I'm your daughter. My mother....she thought you were dead." I was still crying, but I didn't realize it until just then. "Where were you?"
"Africa."
"What the Hell were you doing there?"
"Helping people."
"While my mother and I and Buffy, God, we all thought--"
He took my hand and led me to the bench Aunt Willow had had dedicated to my mother. "Listen to me Ophelia, all right?"
I nodded. My voice had gone to some far off place where I couldn't find it.
"I saw a lot of people, a lot of friends, die in that Ascension. When it was over, I made sure everyone else that I cared about, your mother, Buffy, Willow, Giles, Angel, Oz, they were all alive, and I left."
"Where did you go? I mean--"
"Your mother told you about Anya?" he held up the letter.
"My mother hated Anya."
"With good reason. We were married in 2005, divorced in 2006. She went to India, I went to Africa."
"Where had you been?"
"Nova Scotia."
"In Canada?"
"Yes, it's beautiful. Peaceful, quaint, I loved it."
"So why'd you leave?"
"Memories. Same reason I left Sunnydale."
"What brought you here now though? Why did you come see my mother after all these years? And why didn't you know about me?"
"I never was one to keep up with the media. I did hear about her death, and it's taken me this long to get over it. Can you ever forgive me for what I did?" he asked.
"I honestly don't know. I can't forget, but I want to move past it." I stared into eyes that were identical to my own. "I want to know you."
"I wanna get to know you, too."
"Where do we start?"
"One day at a time?" he guessed.
"Hopefully," I said.
"I want us to be friends."
"I already have lots of friends," I told him. "I need a father."
"Fair enough. I need a daughter."
It's probably just my paranoia, but I swear, as Xander gave me a hug for the very first time, that I heard my mother laugh. She knows the truth now, as do Xander and I, and maybe that's enough to build a family on.