Disclaimer: These characters belong to WB/Joss/Fox etc etc, but certainly not to me. I'm only writing this for fun and therapy. And because there are NEVER, ever, enough flashbacks.
Pairing: Angelus/Liam/Anna
Spoilers: Based loosely on events in Becoming and The Prodigal
Short Summary: Angelus finds the past has a greater hold over him than ever. As he waits for the chance to consummate his obsession with Anna, more memories swamp his conscious hours, and he turns to Darla for help. Angelus' POV.
Feedback: Yes please. The address is soofic@hotmail.com - I'd love to hear from you if you're reading and always reply to feedback!
Comments: Follows on from "Echoes (III) - Chosen". Fourth in the "Echoes" series. The "Echoes" series is a sequel to Pen Pictures, and the whole lot starts from the premise that Liam was having an affair with Anna (the servant who appears in a flashback in AtS) before he was turned. [ There will be five in this series altogether: "Caught Red-Handed" from Liam's POV, "Still Life" from Darla's POV, "Chosen" from Anna's POV, "The Wheel's Kick" from Angelus' POV and "Kaleidoscopic" from everyone's POV. ]
When I was a child, my Father took me frequently to a beach near our home. He would hold my small, cold hand in his large warm one, and deliberately swing our arms a little too roughly, so mine would feel like it was going to part company with my shoulder, and I would have to beg him to stop, half-laughing, half-pleading. We would walk along the margin of the bay and he would tell me confidentially about his business plans. If I listened attentively enough he might swoop down and pick me up, and perhaps let me ride on his shoulders.
I remember one day we flew a kite that he'd made for me. It was an unnaturally still day, and we didn't have much luck, until an unexpected gust of air blew it from my hands suddenly and tossed it into the sky. The skein unravelled and unravelled through my fingers, and my Father whooped as the kite went higher and higher, and then the string snapped and it was lost.
I expected a cuff around the head for that, but my Father seemed transfixed as the kite looped and whirled, out over the waves, out of our sight. Later, he bought me another from a travelling pedlar, but we never flew it together, and so it remained safely stored under my bed for many years.
On one of these occasions, we saw a beautiful ship, fat and squat on the water, rolling gently from side to side on the swell of the sea, with a steady wind in her sails, unfurled and full to bursting. My Father's family had always been involved with the sea, and I think he saw his profession as a come down, although he made more money and it was a more settled way of life for my Mother. He was a proud and haughty man, but always had great respect for the common seafarers he met in the course of his trade, and treated them as his equals, although most of them could never aspire to his wealth and social standing.
As the ship rounded the bay and disappeared from our sight, he murmured a scrap of poetry, the only time I recall him quoting anything that wasn't from the bible.
"All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by..."
I asked him what it was, and after I pleaded with him and promised to behave myself forevermore if he complied, he recited the whole verse.
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.
I recall asking him how a whale could kick when it didn't have any feet, and he laughed and told me I hadn't been listening, as usual. The "wheel's kick", he explained, is the sudden jerk of the ship's wheel in the captain's hands, when the waves or the current move against the tiller, and try to take the boat their own way. A captain has to be ready for the kick, he told me, and must be strong enough to hold the boat on course, or it might hive off to the rocks and be smashed. On the other hand, the boat is made of wood, and the sea is stronger, so the captain must give a little to the kick sometimes, if he doesn't want the wheel to come off in his hands or to lose the tiller altogether.
"Angelus? Where are you?"
She's back. I scramble the scribbled scraps of paper together, and shove them behind a large volume of history on the bookcase. By the time she enters the room, I am reclining in one of the opulent chairs, and pretending to be in a doze.
I sense her as she bends over me, and fear that I'm in for some punishment. She'll know I've been writing down memories again. She'll be able to tell just by looking at me.
But when I open my eyes, she is smiling at me. "Guess what?" She's brimming over with glee about something.
"What?"
She places her reticule on my stomach and opens it to pull forth a scrap of paper. The same kind of paper that I've been scribbling on all evening. I try not to gulp. If she knew, she wouldn't play games like this. She'd just break my leg.
"This," she makes the paper into a rigid v-shape and scrapes it down the side of my face, "is an address. Now, can you tell me who's address you think I've found?"
