Echo's from the Past
Chapter 3
Willow walked up the front path to the mansion with Giles in tow and couldn't help but remember all the things that had happened within the walls of the old building. She shivered as memories assaulted her subconscious. She shook it off and knocked on the door. Liam opened it looking more like Angel than ever.
He was dressed in a rich deep maroon silk shirt, which was unbuttoned and open, and a pair of worn leather pants. He had no shoes on and his hair was in the familiar spikes and he smiled his trademark half grin at Willow as he stepped back to let them in.
He led them into the main room where he had some refreshments laid out and a fire going in the hearth. When they were seated he looked at Willow, studying her a moment.
"Liam, I hope you don't mind but I brought along my friend here. He might be of some help. Liam this is Rupert Giles, Giles this is Liam."
"No of course I don't mind Willow. Any help at all I am more than grateful for."
"Willow what? How? I don't understand." Giles stammered.
Giles was having a hard time with this. Angel had always been a sore spot for him no matter how well he tried to hide it. Angelus had brutally tortured him both physically and mentally and although Angel had tried very hard to prove his worthiness and his remorse there was some part deep within Ripper that would have liked nothing better than to have finished what he had started at the factory all those years ago. However Buffy was as close to a daughter he was ever going to have so he would swallow his feelings and do whatever he could to help.
"It's Angel."
"Angel?"
"Yes."
"Then why is he calling himself Liam?"
"Something happened during the End of Days. It changed him, completely." Willow was looking at Liam who was standing in front of the window watching the sun set in the distance. "He's human and he has no memory of anything before the morning after we sealed the hell mouth." She whispered.
Giles sat back in total and complete awe. First of all it was unprecedented that a vampire had been given back his humanity. Angel, however, always was one to be different and break the rules.
Liam watched how Willow and her friend interacted and he knew that what they could tell him about who he was wouldn't be easy to swallow.
"So Liam what exactly do you remember?"
"Well…"
~*~*~*~*~
10 Years ago…2001 Sunnydale
Angel sat bolt upright, his lungs were seizing for air. It was as if he hadn't used them in a long time. He was disoriented and very sore. There wasn't any part of him that wasn't in some degree of discomfort. He looked around and took in his surroundings but nothing looked familiar, however the city he stood in had been reduced to rubble so he couldn't really go by that.
He tried to remember what had happened to him and the city he stood in but nothing. A heavy black drape cloaked his mind from the light of his memories and he cried out in frustration. He sought out shelter and food and then made his way out of the city. He wasn't sure where it was he was going he just needed to leave here.
He traveled all over the countryside in search of something familiar. He went to China and Europe; he visited Ireland and London and although every place he went to seemed to touch something on the edge of his memory nothing felt like home. It was in Ireland, though, that he found his name.
A little old woman had told him stories about the O'Neill family. She had said that he looked like Liam O'Neill. She had talked about Liam and his younger sister Caitlin and the discord between Liam and his father. When she had told him how it was rumored that Liam had slaughtered his family and friends and the neighbors and that he had rampaged across the world, going by the title the Scourge of Europe it unnerved him but he could help but feel like she was telling the truth. Something in him made him want to bare the O'Neill name, something he couldn't understand.
So he moved from one place to another only staying a few weeks or months before moving on again. City to city, country to country until his dreams had brought him back to Sunnydale.
Right from the very beginning though, from the very first night when he found himself amidst the rubble of the unknown town he later learned to be Sunnydale, Liam had been having dreams about this beautiful blonde girl. At first she never spoke she just kind of watched him. She almost acted like these were her dreams and not his, like she doubted he was real.
Later on when she seemed to believe that he was real she had allowed him to get closer to her. She was beautiful and she exuded strength and power and yet at the same time she seemed so vulnerable yet she was totally comfortable in Liam's presence. She didn't call him Liam though nor did she ever ask his name. She simply called him Angel.
He remembered the night he learned her name. She had been lying in his lap, her golden hair cascading down his leg as they sat beneath a large Willow tree. She looked up into his face and with all the innocence of a child she asked him.
"Angel why don't you ever say my name?"
"What?"
"You never say my name. I miss the way you say it. Say my name Angel."
She waited patiently for him to say it but when he hadn't spoken she sat up and looked him in the eye, tears glistening in her own.
"Don't you know my name Angel?"
Liam closed his eyes and searched his soul. He desperately wanted to know her name and speak it to her if only to make her smile again. He concentrated and found himself praying to whatever deity would listen for the answer he was searching for. He didn't open his eyes as he opened his mouth and let what he prayed was her name roll off of his lips.
"Buffy."
Liam had looked forward to his meetings with his goddess and in his mind's eye she truly was a goddess. She was kind and loving and protective even of him although he couldn't understand why. He truly believed that she was a product of his imagination. They would laugh and talk or sometimes they would just hold each other.
Liam never once believed that his goddess might be a real person from his life he couldn't remember until one night about four years after the dreams had started. One night she looked into his eyes and he could see the tears shining in her beautiful hazel eyes and she asked,
'What do you mean?' I asked confused.
'You left me again. Why? Don't you love me Angel?'
'With everything that I am.'
'Then come home Angel, come to me.'
It had been that conversation that had drawn him back to Sunnydale, drawn him back to her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"When I walked into your office and saw her, saw that she was real and she seemed to know me. I saw it in her eyes. I knew I would find answers to my questions here."
"What do you think Giles?" Willow inquired.
"I think we should bring the other's in on this. They may be of help."
"What's going on?" Liam asked as Giles pulled out a phone from his pocket.
"You're going to meet your friends."
Giles had called the gang together. They were all going to meet at the Magic Box including Buffy.
Xander had come with Anya, Cordelia had come with Wesley and Gunn and Buffy had come with Dawn and Tara. They weren't exactly sure why Giles and Willow had called this meeting but they were all curious nonetheless. When Giles and Willow walked into the room everyone had questions.
"So G-man, Will, what's up? I thought the days of Scooby meeting's were gone with the last of the demon's?" Xander asked.
"Yea Giles what's going on?" Buffy inquired.
"Willow and I have asked you all here because we have discovered something and we need your help with it."
"Giles I think I speak for all of us when I say huh?" Buffy stated.
Willow got up and walked into the other room and when she came back she had Angel on her arm.
The whole room sat in stunned silence. They couldn't believe after ten years that Angel was still alive.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Battle of The End of Days: Ten Years Ago 2001
Giles and Wesley had found the incantation to seal the
Hellmouth. Buffy had organized a mass sweep to make sure that they had cleared
out the last of the civilians had been pulled out of the town to safety. When
they were sure they had everyone to safety they had begun the ritual.
As the ritual words were spoken a mystical cloud of magical energy had formed above the two Watchers'. It grew as they spoke and moved over top of the Hellmouth opening. As the last words of the incantation were spoken the energy cloud dispersed and all was still for a moment. Buffy looked over at Angel locking stares with him for the briefest of moments and then there had been an incredible explosion.
The blast had knocked everyone surrounding the opening a few feet back and had rendered them all unconscious. Buffy wasn't sure how long she had been out but when she had slowly begun to come around her first thought had been Angel. She had held her head in her hands to mollify the throbbing ache she had due to the impact she had hit the ground with. She got to her feet and looked around her taking in the damage.
Corpses, both demon and human, littered the ground and Buffy saw Giles and Wesley in a heap a few feet away. She stumbled over to them and tried to assess them. Both men had a pulse and seemed to be breathing.
"Giles? Wesley? Are you okay?"
"B-buff-y?" Giles asked weakly. "Did we do it?"
"Yes Giles we did it." Buffy said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Buffy had searched through the debris and so far Xander, Anya, Willow, Giles, Wesley, Cordelia, Gunn, Dawn, Spike, Tara and Riley had been accounted for but no one had heard from Angel.
"Maybe he went to find shelter after all he is a vampire. You know sunlight bad."
"I don't want maybes I want to see him and hold him and know he's okay."
"Wait until sundown, he'll most likely come to you then."
So wait Buffy did, for ten years Buffy waited with no word, no nothing. Nothing until, that is, now.
~*~*~*~*~*
Present time
Liam shifted uncomfortably under the penetrating gaze of …well everybody.
"So deadboy isn't dead?"
Cordelia shot him a look. Everyone looked at Buffy, who had tears running down her cheeks. She took a tentative step towards him.
"Angel?" She asked hopefully.
Liam held out his hand to her and gratefully Buffy launched herself into his arms, almost knocking them both to the ground.
"You're alive, you're real, and you're here. You're really here." She mumbled into his chest.
Liam looked at Willow and Willow spoke for him.
"Guys this is Liam. He is Angel but he has no memory of being Angel. If fact he has no memory of anything before the sealing of the Hellmouth."
"So he doesn't remember what he was?" Cordelia asked.
"No I don't remember anything. All I know is that this feels like home." Liam said looking down at the goddess in his arms.