Title: as the moment, this fic is called The Angel Box. Though since I do plan to continue with this, it's subject to change.
Author: The Lildat a.k.a. Ellie Lildat. what's a lildat? Not gonna tell you. email me at lildat08@excite.com
Disclaimer: I am a victim of multiple personality disorder, one of the personalities is a crazy man named Joss Whedon that I, along with anyone that can think, worship as a God. So technically, I do own the characters in this fic and just felt like doing something crazy like this instead of bring Buffy and Angel back together (or at least to the same network) like any one else would. It's better to keep the audience on their toes... YEAH, RIGHT! Joss owns them along with UPN, the WB, and second most importantly next to Joss: FOX.
Rating: PG-13 to R
Summery: A (yes I know, it's so over-done) post The Gift break-off. Buffy's been back for about a month and is trying to figure out how to live again. Definately B/A (did you expect differently???)
Author's Note: My favoite part of writing fic... the author's note. Can you tell that I write editorial and opinionated articles for a living? My last fic was completely ignored in the R&R catagory... Thank YOU! I feel special. Though I would prefer to be flamed than ignored completely... hell, I would prefer to be flamed rather than praised! I'm unbetaed, don't hate me! Also, anyone willing to write an NC-17 chapter to this story is welcome to e-mail me offering.
Chapter One: The Angel Box
As I slowly walk out the front door, I can feel her eyes boring into my back- though if it's with regret, pity, or hope; I'll never know. But what I do know is that I have to leave, I can't stay here any longer today and not fall apart in front of Dawn. That's why I'm leaving for a couple days, to straighten out the thoughts that are filling my mind; that's why Willow is watching me so carefully as I leaver her and Tara to take care of Dawn while I'm gone. She's afraid that if I leave, I'll never come back...but it's too late for Willow to worry, I left a long time ago.
Ever since I came back, I've missed not being here so much more than I ever thought. It feels perverse, but it's true. When I was... where I was, I didn't have to deal with all these thoughts and problems and what I miss best of all... I didn't have to live. For months, I ceased to exist and it was wonderful. I didn't know that I had a little sister that was now an orphan, I didn't remember the mother that just wanted me to have a good life, there was no reason to wonder if I was cable of loving another, and I didn't have to think about how I let the love of my life leave and how I should had stopped him. But now everything is back with avengence.
In these past few months, Dawn has grown up so much more than I ever wish she would. My little sister has been robbed of her childhood, even worse than I ever was. My friends are still uncomfortable with the whole situation, my surrogate father can't go a sentence without getting weepy over me, while my real father has no clue what happened to me at all, but only two thoughts plague my mind to a over-flowing state. One: Will Dawn ever be safe and care-free again? And the second: Was I even living before I died?
Looking back on my life (with the help of Mom and Dawnie's over-grown collection of home-videos and my old diaries), I started to notice how much I've changed since I was called over six years ago.I went from being care-free and self-centered and slowly progressed into a more generous, demon-butt-kicking, and observant friend before becoming slightly more secluded and mature only to be broken and become what I thought was the kind of girl for the world- scratch that, I became what I thought was the kind of girlfriend for the and boyfriend that I just had to hold onto no matter who got hurt in the process. I don't blame Riley, it wasn't his fault that I just became lost that fall. I made so many mistakes that were so much more painful to others than to me... if only I could use the excuse of being possessed or something. I don't blame Angel either, I definitely don't blame my sweet Angel. It was me, and now that I've gotten this new chance to fix my life and make the best of it for me and Dawn before the next Big Bad comes to town and ruins everything.
I sound so sure of myself, don't I? But I'm not. In my heart, that tender muscle that I had thought was long dead and broken, there is one thing I'm sure I need to do. Only problem is that I can't... I'd be responsible for some many deaths again, putting the world in jeopardy.
I've had several sister/sister conversations with Dawn since I came back. It was her choice to tackle this subject, not mine... I've run it back and forth in my mind so much over the past four years... it's too painful to purposefully bring up vocally.
Next time your faced with a decision between duty and love, don't sacrifice yourself again. You've done so much for the world Buffy, next time just let the world end. Her tone fell between a beg and advising, my little Dawnie had grown up so much... and I so badly wanted to believe her. But I just hugged her tightly and kissed her hair as I fought the tears in my eyes.
Though if there's one thing that I know about my baby sister is that she's smart. Nobody could ever be as cunning as my Dawnie, and she knew just what was wrong with me since my return and she knew just what I needed. And only my sister would know just how to push me to make up my mind and be so brave and incredibly stupid at the same time.
That same day that she advised me, we both fell asleep together on Mom's bed. Neither of us would sleep on it without the other, it was the best way to feel that Mommy was truly still here. But when I woke up at three the next morning, Dawn was gone from the room... and in her place was a familiar looking shoe box.
When I died, everyone had agreed to split my stuff up for grabs- though not much was taken. By the time that I was back, it took me weeks to figure out that one of the butterflies off my wall was missing, along that sparkle-y hair clip I bought at the store with Willow, even the perfume that Faith had stolen from the mall and slipped into my pocket was taken for memories- but nothing major. I had noticed though, that this shoe box had been taken from my trunk, the trunk that I had locked and hid the key to make sure that certain little sisters wouldn't go into it- oh,well.
I timidly removed the lid that morning, not minding that it was still dark outside and that I couldn't see much. Every item in that box was tattooed on my memory in eccentric detail. A movie stub, a pair of cotton panties, a cross, a ring, a worn white t-shirt, an almost empty bottle of cologne, a book of sonnets, about twenty pebbles, and many other odd little tokens. I affectionately call this my though when he and I were still together, it was simply The Angel Box. It had first been filled right after he had changed, initially a way to hid the memory of what I had done and how much I missed him.
First came the pair of panties... from a time that doesn't need much explaining. Next, came the cross and about ten of the pebbles that had collected in my shoes every time we together before my seventeenth birthday. About only four other items were placed in the box in the few months after that, the easiest to remember was the chunk of charcoal that he had once used to draw with... I could still tell where his fingers had gripped the rock. It wasn't until he had returned from Hell that I started placing more things in the box and changed it's purpose. But by June of 1999, I had placed most of the items in the box for good. There had been few things added to the box after he went to L.A., the t-shirt from the mansion was the only thing added that entire summer.
It wasn't until I went to tell him off at Thanksgiving that I added what I thought was the last thing to the box. I was beyond heart-broken when he spoke of , it was only seconds after I left his office that I had broken down into tears and was more than an emotional reck. On my way out of his building, I accidentally ripped off a doorknob from a door at AI. That doorknob was added to the box as soon as I returned to Sunnydale. Can you tell what a disaster I was? Not that my emotional state can ever begin to excuse my behavior in the months afterwards.
It's ironic that I didn't start leaving my shaded and jaded state until just days before my mother died. It had been months since I had ever even held an object from the box in my hand that day that I opened it up to relive the past and didn't even care that Dawn was watching from the doorway of my bedroom with sympathy in her eyes towards the tears in my own. It almost seems like I've been about four or five separate people in my life, all living different parts of the story and all handling things differently. But once again, shadows of the girl that had been Angel's love were showing as I rebuilt myself... only to come home to find my mother laying limply and cold on the couch.
The last object I added to the box... it was relatively new. A piece of bark from the tree we had leaned and kissed against was added to the box the day after my mother's funeral. The good always gets mixed in with the bad; another perverse part of my life. My mother was dead and buried six feet under, and I was kissing the long lost love of my life for the first time in two years and having my love rekindled.
And now, thanks to the pushing from my little sister, I was on the road to L.A. for a reason that was beyond me. The Angel Box was securing buckled into the passenger seat and I was driving in silence and darkness towards the city Angel called home. If someone could just tell my what I'm planning to do once I get there, it would be great.
TBC...
