Heart

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the show "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer."

It's been one year today, one year since Doyle died to save us. I still miss him, even if I don't talk about him anymore. Angel does too; he's the reason I don't talk about Doyle. I though talking would help and it did, for a little while. But Angel doesn't deal well with death. Which I used to think was strange since he is dead and all, but vampire dead is about as far from dead-dead as you can get. See dying, the ceasing to exist kind, is just a part of being human, everyone does it someday. Vampires may be dead, but unless something happens they're always going to be around. Angel and spike could, conceivably, bump into each other in another hundred years or so and go right back to fighting like always. But Doyle's gone forever, even if Angel can't stand to think about that, or talk about it. So we don't talk about Doyle anymore, even though we miss him and even though he's the reason we're friends now.

Doyle was what we had in common. We both came to LA with walls around our hearts a dozen feet thick and twice as high, and Doyle got to both of us. Doyle was the first friend Angel had had in a long time, and I fell in love with him.

Me, in love with Doyle, despite his drinking, his clothes and his complete lack of social status, he made me see past that. He was a good person, brave and caring, with bright, oh-so-blue eyes and a smile that could warm anyone's heart. Doyle broke through my defensive and I found that my heart wasn't nearly as hard as I liked to pretend it was. The gap he left in my walls let Angel in, and eventually Wesley and Gunn as well. My friends, my family, I wouldn't have them if not for Doyle, I'd still be all alone, behind the walls I built.

Doyle opened a crack in my defenses, but he did a more thorough job on Angel's. He shattered Angel's walls all together. I can still protect my heart, Angel doesn't. He gives it to every person that walks through our door, even those who don't deserve it, such as a certain formerly undead, blond bitch who shall remain nameless.

She's going to hurt him. I know it. She wants Angel, she wants his every thought and every feeling to be hers, and when she's done with him she'll leave his heart shattered… Sort of like another blond I could name.

It's kind of ironic, I guess, comparing the Slayer to a vampire, but if the shoe fits… And when it comes to how they feel about Angel it definitely fits. Neither one's real big on sharing. Witness Buffy's reaction to Faith or how Darla can hardly seem to say his name without adding a possessive.

Buffy got to Angel, like Doyle got to me, only where Doyle left my heart open, Buffy posted a guard on the door she'd opened to Angel's heart. That was her way in and no one else's.

It's been good for him to be away from Buffy. Without her around, Angel is free to make friends, to care about people in general not just her. I like the Angel I got to know in LA, but I worry about him. I worry about what he's going to let Darla do to him because of their history and because she's got problems. I worry about what Buffy can do to him, with her new life and her perfect new boyfriend. At least Angel finally told Kate off. One blond bitch down, two to go.

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