Title: Lost
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,527
Characters/Pairings: Angel and co.
Genre: Reflective piece
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: "It used to be so simple. We help the helpless. Wasn't that the familiar catch-phrase he and his friends had used for years?" Angel's reflections toward the end of Season 5.
Notes: WOW, this piece is so old (10+ years)! I was looking through saved files and found of a plethora of unpublished fics. Figured I'd post in the off chance someone would like to read it. Enjoy! :)
Our champion had been lost for a long while now.
A hero, stumbling in the dark. Uncertain of what to do. How to help. Who to help.
It used to be so simple. We help the helpless. Wasn't that the familiar catch-phrase he and his friends had used for years?
We help the helpless. He reverberates the words softly, smiling each time he does. Things were more difficult, then, no doubt. It seemed that every night Angel went out to battle a demon, he came back in worse shape than the demon. Cuts and bruises. Blood oozing … everywhere. But, God, a certain part of him misses that more than anything. He misses the way he'd go back to the hotel and lie back on the couch while Cordelia patched up his wounds. Uh, it's my turn. Oh, yay! He misses her gentle caress. The way that she put on that bandage was a substitute for words of comfort.
Angel remembers watching everyone around him. Gunn would always kid Wesley for the way he spoke or something or other, and Wes would grin and continue with work. And Cordy was always sure to join in … after all, she didn't much care for the research and she'd do anything to distract herself from it. Sometimes, though, when Fred arrived, Angel would catch the two girls talking. Cordy was so happy then, even if she told everyone Fred was just a taco-loving, babbling, crazy girl that Cordy couldn't wait to get out of her hair. In truth, Cordelia had longed for a female companion. Pretending to be reading, Angel often used his super-strength hearing to eavesdrop on the girls' conversation. Cordelia kept telling Fred how they were going to go shopping one day, and how they were going to buy out the entire store. And glancing up, Angel could see Fred bringing her hands up to her face, excited. Angel can even remember the melody to every lullaby that Lorne sang to baby Connor every night.
Things were harder, then. Resources were limited, money was inadequate, and problems were big and dangerous. But through all the arduous tasks, at the end of the day, Angel was happy. Not lose-my-soul type happy, of course, but … content. He was able to look around himself and say that things weren't all so bad. He had come a long way from Sunnydale. He had opened himself up; he made friends. He made a family. They were a family.
But here, at Wolfram and Hart, they're no longer family. They're colleagues. Angel doesn't think he's hated a word more than that. This is an office – comprised solely of fancy suits and leather briefcases; this isn't a home. It's not proper for a family.
We help the helpless. Once upon a time, they did. He can't say when, though. He knows that by running Wolfram and Hart, their group can make a big difference in the world. At least he tells himself that. Working from the inside, from the belly of the beast, as Spike so eloquently put it, doesn't seem to be doing much. Every week he's helping someone who doesn't deserve it. These people – demons – aren't the helpless. They're scum. They're exactly the kind of creatures, Angel and his friends would have killed off that 'once upon a time', whenever it was.
Now Angel knows why he's here in the first place and doesn't regret making that deal; it was for his son's sake, after all. But sometimes, damn it, sometimes, he misses the save-the-damsel-in-distress routine. He watches Spike with envy. He's the champion of the people now. He misses that job – and hates this Wolfram and Hart promotion so much more.
Things used to be so simple. Good versus Evil. That's it. White Hats versus Black Hats. But now, lo and behold, the murky grays. Yes, oddly, once again we find ourselves in a bit of a gray area. He had heard Wesley tell him that once and Angel couldn't help but snap. Can we just get through one damn day without saying that! There were no grays in that distant 'once upon a time;' no okay-he's-evil-but-we-have-to-help-anyway-because-he's-our-client. But now, Angel is deaf, dumb, and blind. Still stumbling through the dark, he clings to whatever he can because he fears if he doesn't he will surely fall, never to rise again.
I think... I think I'm lost. And Angel was right to say that. Even his subconscious told him things weren't exactly picnic-like perfect. He was lost. He assumed that if he told himself the lies enough times, he'd come to believe them. But the thing about lies is that they corrupt. From the outside, right down to the insides of the inside. He'd do anything to believe them. Even continue living this way; helping the despicable grays.
It was right before Cordy temporarily returned to them that Angel threw in his white towel. He quit. He couldn't take it anymore. He was sick of it. It's not that you guys aren't doing your jobs. It's that we shouldn't be doing these jobs in the first place... or I shouldn't. This wasn't the right way. It couldn't be. Cordelia had looked at him and his lifestyle and said he had made a deal with the devil. Half-smiling, Cordelia had told him, I naturally assumed you'd be lost without me, but this? And realizing how much he missed her wit and everything else about his oldest friend, immediately answered, I am lost without you. He hadn't said that to appease her, he had said it because he meant it. Angel didn't know where he was going; didn't know what he was doing.
That night, though, there was a spark in Angel. That confrontation with Lindsey gave him something to think about. He had figured out that some things never change. Lindsey still had it in for Angel and vice versa. And although, he was losing the fight, his face turned to the ground, the blood running from his mouth plastered to the floor, Cordelia's words rang through his head. I can tell you who you were. A guy who always fought his hardest for what was right, even when he couldn't remember why. More than anything, he wanted to be that guy. And for that one thrilling moment, Angel looked down to Lindsey and said – I'm Angel, I beat the bad guys. Nothing he had ever done at Wolfram and Hart had felt as good as he did that moment.
Angel had been lost. Wolfram and Hart put up glamour for everyone on the outside. It offered things of beauty, security and protection, assets, everything anyone could ever dream of. Angel gets why people like Lindsey and Lilah worked here. But Angel is sick of his work being described as a job and his friends as colleagues. He wants it how it used to be. He wants the work because it was honorable, because it saved innocent people; he wants his friends to be a family again. He'd give anything for that old life.
And as Angel explains part of his plans to his group before the six minutes are up, he finally knows the real reason why he wants to bring the fight to them, to kill 'em all... burn the house down while we're still in it, as Spike once again stated. It's because it's the right thing to do. He knows he's not going to gain anything from this. Fred's not going to come back because of this; it won't save her from the monsters, as much as Angel regrets it. It won't mend Wesley's metaphorical wounds or Gunn's physical ones. It won't give Lorne the eased life he had had with Caritas. No matter how much he wants it, he is never going to go home to the hotel, welcomed by family cleansing his wounds and making him laugh. There is no hope for that anymore.
Instead, Angel recalls the things that can be changed. Lindsey was right about one thing. Heroes don't accept the world the way it is … they fight it. He was fooling himself at Wolfram and Hart, thinking he was making a difference. No, Angel was right in the very beginning. White Hats versus Black Hats. That's what is always was and will be about.
It's later on that day, and Angel should be coming up with meticulous strategies for, what is hopefully, the final fight. He should be thinking about the ones he's loved and lost. Darla, Buffy, Doyle, Cordelia, Fred, Connor. He should be considering contacting the ones that he still can. Maybe give a call to Buffy, maybe write one final letter to Connor, telling him everything he's ever felt. He should be feeling sorry about the ones that are risking their lives because they have faith in him. He should be worrying about the things he's going to do.
But he isn't terrified, he isn't preparing, he isn't apprehensive. Because all that's running through his head all day is, I'm Angel, I beat the bad guys.
He knows who he is: a champion, a hero.
He's not lost anymore.