Sorry for the delay (again). Something that will show up in the next chapter was eluding me, and I didn't figure out what I wanted to do with it until last night, which finally freed me up to keep writing.
Visiting these parts of Angel's past had eased the regret Buffy felt for lost opportunities in life. As bittersweet as the experience had been, she could not express how much it meant to her, but she was no longer surprised when Kathy looked as if she understood anyway.
As if she had glided from one dreamscape to another, she found herself back in the warm, peaceful, and indescribably beautiful place where her mother and many members of her extended family resided. With a smile, Kathy departed, and Buffy knew that she had returned to watch over her big brother. She decided that she was going to have to figure out how to do that herself one of these days, but for now, the untraceable yet firm knowledge that Angel and everyone else she loved were okay was enough.
The passage of time was surreal, but she was starting to get a small grasp of what eternity felt like. It had been years—no, decades, surely—of this place's time since her return from Angel's past when she received the first visitor. Not long after, there was another. And another. Each time one came, she felt a small stir of recognition, sometimes very strong and sometimes barely noticeable, but she was always unable to place the source of it. They came, they thanked her, and they left.
She received their gratitude warmly even though she didn't understand what prompted them to offer it. If these were the people whose lives she had saved during her time as the Slayer, why were they here among the departed? And why did she have so much trouble recognizing them? As much time as she had spent here, she knew it hadn't been anywhere near as long as on Earth, so she doubted that all of them could have managed to die of natural causes or at the hands of something more sinister since her own death.
It was difficult to muster emotions like irritation or frustration in such a place as this, but the mystery her visitors presented proved to be an effective catalyst, and when her latest guest—a tall, thin man with brown hair and eyes—seemed more content to remain than any of the others had been, she could contain her curiosity no longer.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
He looked surprised. "Why? To thank you. If you thought me insincere—"
"No," she assured him quickly, for he truly seemed worried about it. "But why are you thanking me? You aren't the first. All of you come here, thank me, and leave. I don't understand." She smiled. "I don't think I've been here long enough just know those kinds of things yet."
"You don't know?"
"Should I? What don't I know?" Her frustration was starting to grow. He was already dead, so it obviously couldn't kill him to give her a straight answer.
"You freed me," he said, looking at her with awe and reverence. "And the others, I'm sure."
"Freed you from what?" she asked. Why was he so familiar? She scrutinized each feature of his face separately, but could not find the source of her recognition in any of them. Perhaps it was his voice? Yes, she was sure she had heard that voice before, but it was different now—smoother, warmer.
"I was trapped for a thousand years, give or take a century or two, until you freed me. It was as if I was suspended in dreamless sleep, unable to move on—unable to move at all, but aware in some small way of what the body I had left behind was doing, of the time that passed." His brow furrowed, and he suddenly appeared very troubled. That wasn't an expression Buffy had often seen in heaven, and she couldn't help feeling concerned. She thought over his words, searching for what could cause such an expression, and understanding washed over her.
"You were a vampire," she said.
"Yes."
"And the others?"
"I can't be certain without meeting them myself, but if they came here to thank you, then it seems likely."
Buffy let that sink in for a moment. She felt her pride in her calling as Slayer grow, and wondered if she would have fought harder if she had known she was freeing souls as well as destroying demons. "Why did they leave before I could ask them? I would have understood why they were thanking me. It would have meant more to me, and probably to them too."
"Perhaps they feared your judgment if they stayed," he said thoughtfully. "After all, though we may not have understood what was happening, each of us made that choice, in the end, to drink. To surrender to the demon."
Buffy frowned. "But you're still here. Everyone here made mistakes or chose wrong sometimes. I did."
"That means a lot, coming from you."
Something occurred to Buffy that made sorrow well up inside her. Though many freed souls had come to find her so far, Ford had never been one of them. She was sure she would have known him immediately, and that the reason she didn't quite recognize any of the others was that she hadn't known them before they became vampires—those souls had been strangers to her.
But not Ford's. He had been her friend for half her life. He had betrayed her, plotted to have her and all those people killed in return for being sired. Was he only afraid of her judgment like the others who had come and hastily departed again? Or was he incapable of coming in the first place because he was somewhere else? She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.
"Why didn't you leave quickly like the others?" she asked, hoping it would distract her from her previous train of thought.
He didn't answer immediately. Perhaps he wasn't entirely sure of the reason himself. "Considering how long I was trapped, a brief show of gratitude hardly seemed fair repayment for being released." He chuckled. "Then again, I waited this long to thank you."
"I don't mind," she said. "I'm glad I was able to help you."
They smiled at each other. Buffy's sense of being complete had intensified with the knowledge he had given her, and he looked as though she had lifted a burden from his shoulders. But now he did seem ready to depart.
"Wait," said Buffy before he could go. "What's your name?"
"Joseph," he said. He started to walk away, but then turned back. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry my demon killed you. I'm grateful that it wasn't the death that held."
