The Light of Revelation
By Danii
Email: HuffPuff1228@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Summary: Confused and lonely, Buffy wanders into a church and finds out just what she believes.
Sequel to: Christmas Revelations (written last year...)
Category: B/X, Religion
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing...
Dedicated: To Liz...who brings me more happiness then she'll ever know.
Bashing: None that I'm aware of. The only thing possible is Spike and B/S but not that heavily. It isn't a bashing story.
Spoilers: Up to present season 6
Warning: Deals with the Christian religion, and while I personally don't wish to promote any religion (my own faith system being a mutt of different things) as being better or more real then any other, this story works within Christianity. If this offends or bothers you, please don't read.
And now:
Buffy shivered.
It was rather cold for southern California in December. True, it was winter, but Buffy Summers couldn't remember a Christmas that had been quite so cold. Even when it had snowed the night of her confrontation with Angel, there had been warmness to the air, a trace of life, but this was cold. This was the kind of cold that seemed to creep into the bones like a parasite, sucking the very warmth from the heart.
Not that I have all that much warmth to begin with, she thought to herself as a gust of wine blew fine strands of blonde hair into her face.
She'd been alive again for three months. Three months since she'd been pulled from a paradise so wonderful she couldn't even describe it, and dropped right back into the world she'd so desperately wanted to escape...by her friends.
Buffy couldn't blame them. They couldn't have known where she'd gone. They couldn't have known that she'd had the peace she'd wanted for years, or that she'd gotten rid of the pain which had been a constant companion to her since her being called as the Slayer.
To their eyes, they'd given her a second chance. A new life...
And what had she done with this new life?
"Boinked the undead..." she muttered angrily to herself.
She still couldn't believe she'd done that, that she'd actually had sex with a creature who killed thousands and probably would have killed her if he had the chance. Add to that that he looked like a Billy Idol clone, and she was now truly disgusted with herself.
Why had she done it? To this moment, she wasn't sure. True, since her return to life, she had been withdrawn and constantly pained with the absence of heaven, but why had she felt the need to turn to Spike of all people?
"He's never even gonna see Heaven," she reminded herself, "He's a demon, remember, Buffy? A soul-less demon!"
But that's okay, Buffy, you're hurt. It's okay that you're making mistakes...your friends made the mistake of bringing you back from the greatest peace you've ever known...it's all right to make the mistake of forgetting them, forgetting the genuine love they have for you and turning to a demon because they made a bigger mistake.
Unknowingly, hissed her conscience as she continued walking, the mistake they made was unknowing and done only in love. They thought you were in hell. Your mistake was done on consciously.
Not really, she fought back, I...I'm not myself. I'm not right since they-
You're always yourself! shouted her conscience, it's impossible to be anyone else. You're just being a selfish, childish, and gullible version of yourself!
No, it's not me...it's the demon in me...the demon that made it so Spike could hit me.
There's no demon in here, it informed her, you're not human because you won't let yourself be. Now look up.
Buffy was startled by the command from her conscience, and then further startled when she realized that she was most definitely not home like she was supposed to be. Instead, what stood before her was a church.
The Slayer blinked once as she looked at the large building and it's stained glass windows, then took a look at the huge wooden doors facing her. One was cracked slightly open, allowing the tiniest sliver of warm light out into the dark and cold of the night.
"I haven't been to church in so long..." Buffy whispered to no one in particular, "And it is Christmas..."
The decision made, Buffy made her way up the worn granite steps to the doors and slipped in, trying her hardest not to be noticed. She thought that her efforts had worked until a voice whispered into her ear as she sat down.
"There's no being anonymous in my church, dear..." the voice told her with a audible smile. Immediately, the Slayer spun to face the owner of the voice.
A friendly face set with gleaming hazel eyes surrounded by fine blonde-gray hair that had started to recede looked back at her. The collar of a clergyman was beneath that face and as she looked down, she saw large, rough hands jammed into the small pockets of his black pants.
"Hello...Father..."
"Father Brogan," he told her with a smile, "The name is Father Brogan. And it's certainly nice to see you here, Buffy."
Buffy blinked in surprise. "Me?" she asked, "I've never even met you. How did you know my name? Why are you glad I'm here?"
The priest smiled again, this time a bit wider, then said, "Are you so naïve as to think that the priest knows nothing of his parish? That a man of God wouldn't know about the mouth of Hell in his own town, or the demons that frequent it, OR the one who saves the world from those same demons?"
Buffy didn't answer. For some reason, she was stuck on his second sentence. A man of God. God.
Was there a God? She'd never really had all that strong a faith in God before she'd died. She'd always thought that if there was a loving and merciful God, He'd never stick anyone with the kind of life she'd had. Then, when she'd died and gone to Heaven, her faith had returned. Who but God could've created such a wonderful place? But then, when she'd been allowed to be pulled out of Heaven, that faith had wavered. Hearing about 'heavenly dimensions' from Tara and Giles had crumbled it back down to its former nothingness completely."
"A man of God..." Buffy repeated.
"Indeed..." Father Brogan repeated, then he moved on, "Mostly, I hear about these things from the homeless who come to my church for safety at night. The young woman who saved them from a vampire attack...that, and Alexander had a few things to say about you the last time he was here..."
"Xander?" The mention of that name broke her from her slight stupor, "What do you mean, 'Xander was here'?"
Father Brogan smiled, "Oh yes, Xander, as you call him, has been a part of my flock since he was a child. For one so young, you'd be amazed at his faith. I wouldn't be surprised if the vampires fled from him and not the cross he holds..."
"Xander?"
"Yes, Xander..." the priest repeated, "But that's now...I'll have you know that last year around this time, he was having the same sort of crisis as you are having at this very moment..."
That surprised Buffy. "Shock that you know so much about Hellmouth-y monsters? Cause otherwise, I doubt Xander could have even the slightest inkling of understanding of what I'm going through right now..."
"You'd be surprised," Father Brogan told her with a gentle smile, "Xander was having a crisis of faith. He didn't know if he believed in God, so he was guided here."
"Guided?"
"Guided," the older man repeated, "Just as you were. Just as you are now..."
At this, Buffy snorted. This was ridiculous. Some padre who thought he knew everything was going to tell her that he knew more about her then she knew herself. And then he was going to say that Xander could understand anything other then a Twinkie!
He does...
The voice of her conscience sounded throughout her mind.
He does know...and your friend does understand more than you think.
"What do you mean, just as I am now?" she asked suspiciously, "I wasn't guided...I got lost in my thoughts and ended up here. I came in because I saw the lights..."
Father Brogan laughed. "My you are a skeptic...even young Xander gave me more leeway then you are...he was at least willing to believe something. You seem determined to believe nothing."
At this, Buffy got up. As she did, she turned to the priest, who remained sitting calmly.
"I don't have to believe anything...I'm not even human..."
And at that, she began to stomp out of the church. But as she reached the door, she heard something that stopped her cold.
"Everyone has to believe something...and in some ways, you're more human then anyone..."
The Slayer eyed the clergyman carefully.
"What do you mean by that?"
Father Brogan smiled, then patted the space next to him which was still warm. Buffy took the hint and sat down.
"What I mean is that you're human, and acting like it in the most unsafe ways, but you're not letting in the warmth that makes being human worthwhile, that's why the journey merits it."
"And I suppose that the warmth is the light of God, and that I should immediately convert to save my soul..." Buffy replied cynically.
The elderly priest shrugged. "That's it, but you don't have to take it that way. Just letting people into your life, just letting them love you...as a friend, a comrade, a father...that's the warmth. You don't have to love them back, though it does work better that way...just letting in that love..."
"I can't control other people's emotions for me..."
"But you can control if you respond to them, if you let yourself in from the cold...if you choose to follow that crack in the door, and the warmth promised within, and simply trust..."
"I've trusted too much if anything." Buffy told him, "I trusted Angel, and he turned on me after his 'moment of happiness'...I trusted Faith, and she tried to kill me...I trusted Riley, and he, I don't even know what he was doing, but it was just so wrong, and I trusted Ben and he turned out-"
"What about your friends?" Father Brogan interrupted, "What about when you trusted your friends? Willow, Xander, Giles... what about all the times you've trusted yourself to them, sometimes unknowingly, and they've come through?
"Xander brought you back to life that first time, stood before your hospital door when you were sick and protected you from Angelus, though he has never chosen to tell you, and he even saved the world by defusing a rather badly placed bomb, again never telling anyone, and a thousand other things over the years which ...all to save you, truth be told.
"Willow did the spell that restored Angel's soul, brought you back from depths of insanity when you lost your sister to Glory, not to mention all the hundreds of tiny things she's done over the years."
"And Giles?" Buffy asked, feeling the beginnings of tears in her eyes. She didn't know why she was feeling this way now, why she was close to crying, but she was. More importantly, she was feeling. She could feel the incredible ache in the pit of her heart as the priest spoke. She could feel.
"Giles...Giles has taken so many pains so you wouldn't have to take them...they are nearly uncountable. He loved you like the father you never really had."
"And the second I come back, I treat them all like second-class citizens..." Buffy realized suddenly as the first tear fell from her eye. She blinked in surprise as she felt the wetness trail down her jaw line and onto her neck, then quickly caught the tear with her finger, bringing the now wet digit to her eye.
"See what I mean?" Father Brogan told her with a gentle smile full of understanding, "It was all in front of you, but your eyes were clouded by the pain and the lies fed to you by your own fears."
"But-"
"Here..." the priest interrupted, pulling a small candle from who knew where and placing it in her hand, "Take this..."
"But-"
"The time is short...but understand that you've come a lot father then you think...you're almost there...but to guide you through the last of the darkness, take the candle. And as for your faith, remember that He who gave us the capacity to love...was God. And He who saved us all from true Death...who showed us all how to love again...was Jesus. And that the love of another person, the true, unadulterated caring...is one of the faces of the Holy Spirit."
Buffy simply sat there speechless, then got up and stared at the candle. But when she was about to look back and thank Father Brogan, he was nowhere to be found. In fact, the entire church was gone, from the stained glass windows, to the gigantic wooden doors, down to the pew she had been sitting on. In fact, the only remnant of the church she had left was the candle lying in her hand.
Buffy blinked, then began looking around for the surroundings which had changed so suddenly. But all she saw in the faint moonlight was the ruins of a building that could have once been a church, and a few shards of broken glass.
Then Buffy looked at the candle, and began slowly walking to Xander's apartment, knowing for once that she was going the right way.
The End
By Danii
Email: HuffPuff1228@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Summary: Confused and lonely, Buffy wanders into a church and finds out just what she believes.
Sequel to: Christmas Revelations (written last year...)
Category: B/X, Religion
Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing...
Dedicated: To Liz...who brings me more happiness then she'll ever know.
Bashing: None that I'm aware of. The only thing possible is Spike and B/S but not that heavily. It isn't a bashing story.
Spoilers: Up to present season 6
Warning: Deals with the Christian religion, and while I personally don't wish to promote any religion (my own faith system being a mutt of different things) as being better or more real then any other, this story works within Christianity. If this offends or bothers you, please don't read.
And now:
Buffy shivered.
It was rather cold for southern California in December. True, it was winter, but Buffy Summers couldn't remember a Christmas that had been quite so cold. Even when it had snowed the night of her confrontation with Angel, there had been warmness to the air, a trace of life, but this was cold. This was the kind of cold that seemed to creep into the bones like a parasite, sucking the very warmth from the heart.
Not that I have all that much warmth to begin with, she thought to herself as a gust of wine blew fine strands of blonde hair into her face.
She'd been alive again for three months. Three months since she'd been pulled from a paradise so wonderful she couldn't even describe it, and dropped right back into the world she'd so desperately wanted to escape...by her friends.
Buffy couldn't blame them. They couldn't have known where she'd gone. They couldn't have known that she'd had the peace she'd wanted for years, or that she'd gotten rid of the pain which had been a constant companion to her since her being called as the Slayer.
To their eyes, they'd given her a second chance. A new life...
And what had she done with this new life?
"Boinked the undead..." she muttered angrily to herself.
She still couldn't believe she'd done that, that she'd actually had sex with a creature who killed thousands and probably would have killed her if he had the chance. Add to that that he looked like a Billy Idol clone, and she was now truly disgusted with herself.
Why had she done it? To this moment, she wasn't sure. True, since her return to life, she had been withdrawn and constantly pained with the absence of heaven, but why had she felt the need to turn to Spike of all people?
"He's never even gonna see Heaven," she reminded herself, "He's a demon, remember, Buffy? A soul-less demon!"
But that's okay, Buffy, you're hurt. It's okay that you're making mistakes...your friends made the mistake of bringing you back from the greatest peace you've ever known...it's all right to make the mistake of forgetting them, forgetting the genuine love they have for you and turning to a demon because they made a bigger mistake.
Unknowingly, hissed her conscience as she continued walking, the mistake they made was unknowing and done only in love. They thought you were in hell. Your mistake was done on consciously.
Not really, she fought back, I...I'm not myself. I'm not right since they-
You're always yourself! shouted her conscience, it's impossible to be anyone else. You're just being a selfish, childish, and gullible version of yourself!
No, it's not me...it's the demon in me...the demon that made it so Spike could hit me.
There's no demon in here, it informed her, you're not human because you won't let yourself be. Now look up.
Buffy was startled by the command from her conscience, and then further startled when she realized that she was most definitely not home like she was supposed to be. Instead, what stood before her was a church.
The Slayer blinked once as she looked at the large building and it's stained glass windows, then took a look at the huge wooden doors facing her. One was cracked slightly open, allowing the tiniest sliver of warm light out into the dark and cold of the night.
"I haven't been to church in so long..." Buffy whispered to no one in particular, "And it is Christmas..."
The decision made, Buffy made her way up the worn granite steps to the doors and slipped in, trying her hardest not to be noticed. She thought that her efforts had worked until a voice whispered into her ear as she sat down.
"There's no being anonymous in my church, dear..." the voice told her with a audible smile. Immediately, the Slayer spun to face the owner of the voice.
A friendly face set with gleaming hazel eyes surrounded by fine blonde-gray hair that had started to recede looked back at her. The collar of a clergyman was beneath that face and as she looked down, she saw large, rough hands jammed into the small pockets of his black pants.
"Hello...Father..."
"Father Brogan," he told her with a smile, "The name is Father Brogan. And it's certainly nice to see you here, Buffy."
Buffy blinked in surprise. "Me?" she asked, "I've never even met you. How did you know my name? Why are you glad I'm here?"
The priest smiled again, this time a bit wider, then said, "Are you so naïve as to think that the priest knows nothing of his parish? That a man of God wouldn't know about the mouth of Hell in his own town, or the demons that frequent it, OR the one who saves the world from those same demons?"
Buffy didn't answer. For some reason, she was stuck on his second sentence. A man of God. God.
Was there a God? She'd never really had all that strong a faith in God before she'd died. She'd always thought that if there was a loving and merciful God, He'd never stick anyone with the kind of life she'd had. Then, when she'd died and gone to Heaven, her faith had returned. Who but God could've created such a wonderful place? But then, when she'd been allowed to be pulled out of Heaven, that faith had wavered. Hearing about 'heavenly dimensions' from Tara and Giles had crumbled it back down to its former nothingness completely."
"A man of God..." Buffy repeated.
"Indeed..." Father Brogan repeated, then he moved on, "Mostly, I hear about these things from the homeless who come to my church for safety at night. The young woman who saved them from a vampire attack...that, and Alexander had a few things to say about you the last time he was here..."
"Xander?" The mention of that name broke her from her slight stupor, "What do you mean, 'Xander was here'?"
Father Brogan smiled, "Oh yes, Xander, as you call him, has been a part of my flock since he was a child. For one so young, you'd be amazed at his faith. I wouldn't be surprised if the vampires fled from him and not the cross he holds..."
"Xander?"
"Yes, Xander..." the priest repeated, "But that's now...I'll have you know that last year around this time, he was having the same sort of crisis as you are having at this very moment..."
That surprised Buffy. "Shock that you know so much about Hellmouth-y monsters? Cause otherwise, I doubt Xander could have even the slightest inkling of understanding of what I'm going through right now..."
"You'd be surprised," Father Brogan told her with a gentle smile, "Xander was having a crisis of faith. He didn't know if he believed in God, so he was guided here."
"Guided?"
"Guided," the older man repeated, "Just as you were. Just as you are now..."
At this, Buffy snorted. This was ridiculous. Some padre who thought he knew everything was going to tell her that he knew more about her then she knew herself. And then he was going to say that Xander could understand anything other then a Twinkie!
He does...
The voice of her conscience sounded throughout her mind.
He does know...and your friend does understand more than you think.
"What do you mean, just as I am now?" she asked suspiciously, "I wasn't guided...I got lost in my thoughts and ended up here. I came in because I saw the lights..."
Father Brogan laughed. "My you are a skeptic...even young Xander gave me more leeway then you are...he was at least willing to believe something. You seem determined to believe nothing."
At this, Buffy got up. As she did, she turned to the priest, who remained sitting calmly.
"I don't have to believe anything...I'm not even human..."
And at that, she began to stomp out of the church. But as she reached the door, she heard something that stopped her cold.
"Everyone has to believe something...and in some ways, you're more human then anyone..."
The Slayer eyed the clergyman carefully.
"What do you mean by that?"
Father Brogan smiled, then patted the space next to him which was still warm. Buffy took the hint and sat down.
"What I mean is that you're human, and acting like it in the most unsafe ways, but you're not letting in the warmth that makes being human worthwhile, that's why the journey merits it."
"And I suppose that the warmth is the light of God, and that I should immediately convert to save my soul..." Buffy replied cynically.
The elderly priest shrugged. "That's it, but you don't have to take it that way. Just letting people into your life, just letting them love you...as a friend, a comrade, a father...that's the warmth. You don't have to love them back, though it does work better that way...just letting in that love..."
"I can't control other people's emotions for me..."
"But you can control if you respond to them, if you let yourself in from the cold...if you choose to follow that crack in the door, and the warmth promised within, and simply trust..."
"I've trusted too much if anything." Buffy told him, "I trusted Angel, and he turned on me after his 'moment of happiness'...I trusted Faith, and she tried to kill me...I trusted Riley, and he, I don't even know what he was doing, but it was just so wrong, and I trusted Ben and he turned out-"
"What about your friends?" Father Brogan interrupted, "What about when you trusted your friends? Willow, Xander, Giles... what about all the times you've trusted yourself to them, sometimes unknowingly, and they've come through?
"Xander brought you back to life that first time, stood before your hospital door when you were sick and protected you from Angelus, though he has never chosen to tell you, and he even saved the world by defusing a rather badly placed bomb, again never telling anyone, and a thousand other things over the years which ...all to save you, truth be told.
"Willow did the spell that restored Angel's soul, brought you back from depths of insanity when you lost your sister to Glory, not to mention all the hundreds of tiny things she's done over the years."
"And Giles?" Buffy asked, feeling the beginnings of tears in her eyes. She didn't know why she was feeling this way now, why she was close to crying, but she was. More importantly, she was feeling. She could feel the incredible ache in the pit of her heart as the priest spoke. She could feel.
"Giles...Giles has taken so many pains so you wouldn't have to take them...they are nearly uncountable. He loved you like the father you never really had."
"And the second I come back, I treat them all like second-class citizens..." Buffy realized suddenly as the first tear fell from her eye. She blinked in surprise as she felt the wetness trail down her jaw line and onto her neck, then quickly caught the tear with her finger, bringing the now wet digit to her eye.
"See what I mean?" Father Brogan told her with a gentle smile full of understanding, "It was all in front of you, but your eyes were clouded by the pain and the lies fed to you by your own fears."
"But-"
"Here..." the priest interrupted, pulling a small candle from who knew where and placing it in her hand, "Take this..."
"But-"
"The time is short...but understand that you've come a lot father then you think...you're almost there...but to guide you through the last of the darkness, take the candle. And as for your faith, remember that He who gave us the capacity to love...was God. And He who saved us all from true Death...who showed us all how to love again...was Jesus. And that the love of another person, the true, unadulterated caring...is one of the faces of the Holy Spirit."
Buffy simply sat there speechless, then got up and stared at the candle. But when she was about to look back and thank Father Brogan, he was nowhere to be found. In fact, the entire church was gone, from the stained glass windows, to the gigantic wooden doors, down to the pew she had been sitting on. In fact, the only remnant of the church she had left was the candle lying in her hand.
Buffy blinked, then began looking around for the surroundings which had changed so suddenly. But all she saw in the faint moonlight was the ruins of a building that could have once been a church, and a few shards of broken glass.
Then Buffy looked at the candle, and began slowly walking to Xander's apartment, knowing for once that she was going the right way.
The End