Acknowledgements: Thanks to my husband for love and childminding, and Zigi for feedback and general hand-holding!
Cordelia looked up from her magazine to see a familiar figure framed in the doorway of the Hyperion Hotel.
"Giles!" She exclaimed, happily "What are you doing here?"
"Hello, Cordelia." The watcher responded, good manners on autopilot, "How are you?"
"I'm good. You?"
"Very well, thankyou"
There was an uncomfortable pause as each of them searched for the next piece of small talk. Giles broke the silence. "Actually I need to speak to Angel. Is he here?"
"Sure. He's downstairs beating a defenceless punchbag to death. Go right ahead, he's due a break soon anyway"
Giles went down to the basement. Sure enough, Angel was there, training hard. He had his back to the door, but stopped as Giles approached, put his head slightly to one side and said "Hello Rupert, what brings you to the City of Angels?"
Although slightly unnerved, Giles kept his composure. "I have a proposition to put to you that you may find interesting."
Sitting in the managers office, Giles looked across the desk at the vampire. He hadn't laid eyes on him since the events of Thanksgiving a year and a half previously. He took the chance to study Angel while he sorted some papers and made coffee. He had definitely changed. He looked ... Giles frowned ... content. When Angel had first left Sunnydale, and for a while afterwards, he had been wearing his heart on his sleeve about Buffy. He had looked so sad. Los Angeles had clearly grown on him. He had found his niche, and that combined with the wealth of experience he had gained here had left him with a look of maturity and satisfaction that had been lacking thus far. Giles realised with some discomfort that Angel's change in fortune irritated him. He had felt a little better, he realised, when Angel had been suffering more.
"So Giles," Angel broke into Giles' thoughts "What brings you to LA? It can't be anything too serious or you would have told me by now, surely" He swung his legs up on to the corner of the desk and pressed the tips of his fingers together. "So what can I do for you?"
"I had some recent dealings with the Council of Watchers, during which it transpired that one of their number had written a thesis on William the Bloody. That started me thinking, suppose I was to write a piece about the workings of the vampire mind? It would make excellent training material for future Watchers, and future Slayers come to that."
"So what do you need me for? From what I hear, you have your very own pet vamp right there in Sunnydale." Angel didn't even try to mask his disdain.
"I wanted to get the perspective of a mature vampire. In his day, Angelus was as formidable as any vampire I have ever come across. More so than most."
Angel considered for a moment. "What do I have to do? Go through therapy and give you the notes?" His sarcasm could not mask the fact that his interest had been piqued.
"I would like to conduct a series of interviews. If you are able, I would like you to remember Angelus' perspectives on the world, mixed, where possible with the insight you have gained from your ... um ..."
"Curse?" Prompted Angel
"Yes, quite. Your curse, indeed"
"There's no need to be embarrassed, Rupert. If you're going to ghost my autobiography, you'll need to get over that."
"Then you're willing to participate?"
"Sure. I have a little time on my hands right now." Angel was solemn for a moment "What I need to know, Rupert, is are you ready? Are you going to be able to deal with what I tell you? Some of it won't be pretty, you know."
"Yes, I think I'm fully prepared, thankyou Angel" Giles was offended by Angel's lack of faith in him. He had been a watcher for many years, seen many terrible things. A few stories weren't going to frighten him.
Armed with a notebook, a tape recorder, and a thermos of tea, Giles arrived just after lunchtime to begin his work with Angel.
They sat in the managers office once again, and Giles made himself comfortable.
"So where do you want me to start, Rupert?" asked Angel. "This isn't a movie you know, I can't start talking and have it melt into neat memories. This is stuff I've spent a century trying to forget."
"Please just start where is most comfortable for you. I can arrange the chronology later"
"Okay." Angel closed his eyes and allowed the memories to flow. He began. "You know the strangest part about dying? I always thought that it would be like falling asleep, where you can't remember actually doing it, you just know that you were awake and that at some point you weren't. Well, it wasn't like that at all. I remember exactly how it felt to know my heart was stopping. I remember seeing black roses blooming in my eyes. I remember feeling like if I took one more breath, I'd just burst. I remember closing my eyes and knowing that they were never going to open again. I remember seeing Darla. She was smiling. I was dying and she had killed me and she was smiling. Of course, it could be the same for everyone, they just don't get to talk about it.
Liam died that night. Whoever I have become since then, Liam died in 1753 and won't be back. No great loss to the world, really. I remember my first feeding. When you wake up a vampire, the first thing you feel is hunger. Nothing more or less than simple hunger. Other things come later - cruelty, hate ... pleasure - but nothing is stronger than that thirst for breakfast. Mine was my own sister, but then you probably knew that already. I knew she was my sister, I hadn't forgotten my life. I just didn't care any more.
It's the most incredible feeling, waking up as a vampire. It's like the whole of your life has been a dream. You remember it, but it's blurry round the edges, and you can remember how it felt, but you can't feel it any more. You open your eyes and everything's bright and fresh and you can see the grass growing and smell the wind changing. I can walk past a person's house at night and hear them turn over in bed. It's strange - even though I'm dead, I sometimes think that I feel more alive than some humans ever will. When I felt the power that I had for the first time, it was a real thrill. Liam was a powerless person. Afraid of his father, a bit of a laughingstock, I suppose. When I realised that I had real power over people, I guess it went to my head, drove the demon crazy, perhaps. Not all vampires are like that, you know. A lot of them are going on with their existence, feeding when they have to, but not really doing any major harm. It wasn't like that with me though."
Angel stopped and opened his eyes. So far his monologue had been more of a stream of consciousness than a narrative. He was almost surprised by how much he had revealed about himself.
"You still with me, Rupert?"
Giles nodded and motioned for him to continue
"I guess I just got off on the power. Not just the killing, but the feeling of watching a person go from trust and pleasure to terror. That was why I took Dru. Poor little girl, she was so sweet and innocent. I took away everything that kept her together. Her family, her faith, and finally, her sanity. Why? Because I could. It was the same with the gypsy girl. It took Darla and I three days to kill her, and all the while she begged for mercy. She knew what we were, but still begged us to spare her. When I finally killed her, it was pleasure like I'd never known before." Angel stopped again, this time moved by the horror of what he had done so long ago.
Giles looked at him questioningly "Why do you continue to blame yourself for the actions of Angelus? You aren't responsible for him. He isn't you."
To Giles' surprise, Angel snapped out of his reflective state and rounded on him angrily. "Is that what you think, Rupert? That Angel and Angelus are two separate people? Well you're wrong. I am Angelus. He lives in me. A soul doesn't change the person who has it. It's just a compass not a muzzle. If having a soul is such a great deterrent to evil, then how is it that humans kill more of their own kind in a year than all the vampires in history have ever managed? A soul tells you what is right, but it's up to you to decide to listen or not. Angelus is a psychotic, a pathological killer. So am I. So are you. There's a hunter in all of us, Rupert. We just choose to suppress it. Every day I wake up with a thirst that no amount of pig's blood will ever quench. It's part of what I am. This is pointless. You'll never understand." With that he marched from the office, leaving Giles to switch off his tape recorder in stunned silence.
Angel was attempting to concentrate on a complicated history book when Giles returned the next day.
"Angel, I'm sorry if I offended you. Please, can we continue?"
"Rupert, you're a good man. I hurt you badly, in many ways. I know that. I live with that every day, as you do. I understand that it was easier to deal with me coming back if you could separate Angelus from me, but the truth is, his actions were mine. I am responsible for all that he did. Any apology would be inadequate. You can't tear a persons life apart and expect them to forgive you. That's why I never asked you to. Believe me though, I am more sorry than you could possibly imagine."
Giles realised that he was crying. He had never allowed himself to consider the events of three years ago in any detail. Angelus had taken the woman he had loved and killed her without flinching. He had kidnapped and tortured the Watcher without mercy, revelling in his pain and anguish. Giles had hoped that when Buffy despatched Angel to Hell, it would be closure for him. Angel had returned though, and Giles could never have forgiven him unless he had been able to blame the demon Angelus, not the man Angel. He was silent for a moment. Then he nodded slightly, and removed his tape recorder from his holdall. "Shall we continue?"
Angel shot him a look of gratitude and began to speak.
"The one thing you must remember about a vampire is that although we can have no compassion, we have a great deal of empathy. It's nature's way with predators. Imagine a lion. It's an efficient killer. It knows how the herds move, they way they will run, when they start to get nervous, it's there. It has empathy for its prey. If that lion looked down at the baby zebra it was about to eat and thought "I can't kill this - it's never lived" or thought about all the little wildebeest it had left motherless over the years, it wouldn't be able to hunt any more. Compassion is the enemy of the predator.
After I first got a soul, I tried to hunt still. The instinct was strong, the desire was there. I thought that if I slaked my thirst, I'd feel better. I could manage it for a while, taking rapists and thieves and lowlifes. In the end though, the thought of taking life became abhorrent to me, not because I had a soul, but because I felt compassion. It got stronger every day, and the more it grew, the more I hated what I was."
"Why didn't you just ..."
"Kill myself? I thought about it. But I realised that the point of me having a soul was to make me suffer, and I couldn't deny that family their revenge. I deserved everything that they gave me and more."
"What did you do? How did you live?"
"I wandered a whole lot. Getting crazier and more withdrawn with every year that passed. In the end, I lived like a hobo. Stinking and alone. That was when I found what I needed. You see, it was all very well just hanging around suffering, but it wasn't doing anyone any good. I owed the world a lot more than that. I still do. Every day the debt gets a little smaller, but there's a long way to go yet."
"Do you think it will ever be repaid?"
"I don't know. All I know is that now, compassion is all I have. I can't love, or allow myself to be loved. I can't seek warmth or comfort, I can't stop. Not ever. Every day I wake up and feel Angelus' hunger. I need him, his strength, his courage but I have to keep on my guard all the time. I know how easy it would be to just say "the hell with it" and grab myself a snack. Remember that killing and eating humans was a way of life for me for 150 years. When I hear what they did to Spike, I find that I almost envy him. The only control I have is my own conscience. I can't let go for a minute. Not a minute. Even now, I can hear your heart beating, I can smell your blood and your fear. It would the easiest thing in the world for me to reach out and take you. There wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it. But I won't. Not because I don't want to, but because I know I mustn't. I have to make that choice myself. As Angelus I never did. That is the nature of my punishment, Rupert. The desire to kill lives in me still, I just have a choice now. Free will is not always a blessing."
****
Back at his hotel, Giles listened to Angels voice on his tapes. He hadn't got the interview he'd been expecting at all. He'd been fully prepared to hear that the demon inside a vampire forced them to take life. Now he realised that the demon existed in him too. In everyone. He had wanted to kill many times. In the end, all that had stopped him from doing so was the voice of his conscience. Take away the thin veneer of compassion and sympathy, and we are all Angelus. The removal of the soul merely sets free the demon that lives inside us all.