I was waiting for so long
For a miracle to come
Everyone told me to be strong
Hold on and don't shed a tear
Through the darkness and good times
I knew I'd make it through
And the world thought I had it all
But I was waiting for you
Hush now I see a light in the sky
It's almost blinding me
I can't believe I've been touched by an
Angel of love
Let rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it free my soul and drown my fears
Let is shatter the walls for a new sun
A new day has come
She found him in his office. His eyes were bleary from lack of sleep and she could still discern the presence of twigs and other such bramble in his hair, remnants of their excursions the night before, proof that he'd yet left time for himself to rest. "Doyle?"
He looked up from his papers at the sound of her voice. "Cordy?"
"What are you doin' here?" he asked. "You should be restin'."
She slid into the room, closed the door behind him. "So should you."
He smiled dispiritedly before turning back to the paper in front of him. "I still have so many things to do…after Saeryth's attack, I didn't have time to do any clean up work 'fore I went out to find you…I need to catch up now."
"Didn't Maj do it? I heard him say…"
He waved her off with his free hand, the other one still scrawling out the letter. "Yeah, he did some o' the brunt work. He uh, he got the funeral taken care of, an' the new commissions, I just need to finish the condolence letters…"
She strode over to the desk; put her hand on top of his to stop the writing movements. "Doyle, you haven't slept in like, 2 days. You're exhausted."
He shook her hand off, a mixture of anxiety to get his work done and discomfiture with the intimacy of the gesture. She decided to interpret it as the former, when he went back to writing. "I just got… I only have 'bout fifty more of these…I uh, I only write 'em for the officers, you see," he explained. "The commandin' officer o' the corps writes 'em for any of his men that got killed. It's ah, it's not that many," he told her, though his mind was clearly on his letter.
She smiled softly. **I can't believe I didn't see it before,** she admonished herself. "Hey Doyle, will you please stop a minute? I have something important I need to talk to you about."
Hearing the determined set of her voice, and knowing her well enough to know she wouldn't stop until he indulged her, he ceased working on his epistle and set his pen down on the desk. He looked up at her. "What can I help ya with, Delia?"
She walked around the desk and turned his chair to face her. "Let's sit over there," she suggested, pointing to the two the small couch situated in the corner, beside his miniature library.
"Sure." He got up and let her lead him towards the sofa, sat down beside her. Once situated, he watched her, waiting for her to start whatever it was she thought needed to be said so urgently.
Cordelia wasn't really sure how to start it. In the movies, when this sort of thing was revealed there was a big set up, some fancy music in the background, and an inspirational speech complete with an attention getting opening and an explosive finale. She smirked to herself. Doyle had never been one to get caught up in all that Hollywood hype. Instead, she stared him straight in the eye and said exactly what she was thinking.
"I finally figured it out."
He didn't bother to hide his confusion. "Yeah?"
She smiled, radiant, like the essence of her inner demon was illuminating her aura, a soft white light all around her. "It was never Saeryth. It couldn't be."
Realization dawned on him, and he nodded. "Oh. That." He eyed her then, skeptical. "Well Princess, with the clues Whistler gave ya, who else could it be?"
"I tried my powers on Saeryth already. But there was just so much there, that desire to stay, I couldn't wash that away from him. I couldn't make someone that cold inside want to be better. He wanted to stay the way he was. I think the evil was too far inside of him, too much a part of him to come out without killing him."
He snorted. "So the Powers led ye on a wild goose chase then? I wouldn't be surprised. Bastards do that occasionally."
She laughed a little, took one of his hands between her own. "Doyle, he wasn't the one I was sent here to help, he never was. We were just looking at the obvious clues the entire time, we were looking just at the bad guys. I mean, everyone always thinks it's the bad guy who needs to be fixed, right? They're the ones we've got to turn around and all that. We never flipped the coin over."
He looked confused, did that thing with his eyebrows she'd found so adorable when she'd first known him. "So you're sayin', what exactly?" he asked, wary.
She rubbed small circles onto the back of his palm with her thumbs. "You've been sick of this for the longest time, haven't you?"
"What?" And then the meaning of her question sunk in. He withdrew his hand from hers like he'd been burned. "Me?"
She smiled, a "there-you-have-it" smile, causing the sides of her eyes to crinkle ever so, a sad, understanding type of expression. "It's you. I figured it out, last night. I dreamt of when you killed Breia."
He shook his head. "No… you're sayin' I've been slippin'? To the dark side, then? The powers afraid I'm gonna turn evil? Breia…that was a mistake. I couldn'ta known."
She shook her head. "No… you couldn't have. But it was the look you gave me after you did it, I could see it in there. You weren't sorry. You were just, tired. Angry. I can see it when I look at you now; I've been able to see it since I first got here. I just didn't realize it was what they wanted me to take care of. You need your balance restored."
He scoffed rebelliously, averted his eyes from he all-knowing gaze. "You sound like a protein shake."
"I'm serious, Doyle. Whistler told me about two types of people, right? The really good and the really bad. The ones with vision." She put her hand on his cheek, turned him to look at her, into her eyes. "I thought all this time that I was sent here to fix the bad guy, I thought I could make Saeryth good. But I can't. No one can. What they want is for me to fix the good, because it's been tired. Because it's been fighting for so long, and it can't take too much more without a little hope to help." Her hand glowed warmly against the skin of his face, against the five o'clock shadow and the traces of scars left from previous battles. "Don't you see?" Her voice pleaded for an honest answer, and for as long as he'd known her, he'd been able to deny her nothing.
It was there. He'd known it for a long time. He was so sick of it all, so weary, just pounding down the course mechanically, becoming bitter and angry and lost. The raw wounds from the death of friends, the constant fighting, the struggle. It ached something fierce inside of him, a burden shouldered by himself alone, to lead, to inspire, to win. He grasped her hand against his face, the warm glowing just under her skin calling to him like a beacon, calling him to let her help him ease his troubles. "I hate war," he murmured. "I'm so sick o' killing that I don't even care when I do it anymore. Like it don't even matter. Sometimes I just want to let them kill me…"
She drew him in to a hug; let him press his face against her shoulder. "I know, sweetie, I know." She wrapped her arms around him, ran fingers through the dark unruly mass of hair that was tickling her cheek. Closing her eyes, she felt her skin begin to warm, to glow in his embrace. She felt his arms tighten around her, a sort of mild panic at the strange sensations her demonic powers evoked as they began to take place, but she only held onto him tighter, clinched him in her embrace even as the hard muscles of his back and arms strained against her in an attempt to flee, to run away to something more familiar, the darkness, the pain. She pushed his face against her shoulder when he began to shake, when the luminescence of her demonic essence grew slowly brighter and flooded the chamber to blindness so that even she had to shut her eyes to protect them from the harsh, bright beauty of it.
She felt him quiver, convulse heavily as the light swelled to its inevitable crescendo, and she felt simultaneously, what he had experienced three years past, a lifetime past, and could trace it as it was dragged into herself, a pocket of long suffering ache that was his and his uniquely. She enveloped it with the soft tendrils of light and gently shook it from where it was imbedded inside his soul, her essence slowly taking from him the poison that ate at his heart and bringing it into her own body, to be dealt with, to be done away with.
Even as the light faded, even as everything that had hurt him flowed into her body, she felt him heave in her arms, terrible, choking sobs of weariness and loss, confusion, and overwhelming responsibility. She felt the warm tears through her shirt and held him moments longer, staring at the back of his head, at the unruly mass of half-curls and isolated tufts of hair resting against her shoulder, and she hoped that she had done enough. That maybe he would care again. That even though he wasn't completely fixed, (in that road lay a long and arduous journey) maybe he was on his way. He shuddered in her arms moments longer as he as forced to part with a piece of himself he'd had to live with for a long time, and she could only mutter sympathies and platitudes in his ear as she held him against her.
Soon after, the choking sounds of grief trickled into a long wearied murmur and the heaving ceased. She felt him breathe heavily into her, a deep, fortifying gulp of air as he came to realize that he had no tears left. She felt the muscles of his neck and arms relax, though they continued to lean into her a moment longer, before she pulled back and looked at him. He hastily wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "How do you feel?" she asked, gently, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead.
He laughed at her question, understandably flustered. "I feel like I've been crushed to a million pieces an' put back together again one sliver at a time."
She regarded him tenderly. "I can feel it inside me, Doyle. All your hurt," she murmured. "And I know there's still some inside of you, that even I can't touch. But…"
"…it's another chance," he finished for her. "It feels like a second wind."
"Well, that's what it's supposed to be."
Both of them started at the new voice that had seemingly intruded on such an intimate revelation. Cordy's hand went to her heart. "God, Skip! Warn a person!"
The demon guide chuckled endearingly. "Sorry Cord. Bad habit, I guess. But I just had to congratulate the two of you." He turned to Doyle. "Glad to have you back." He stuck out his hand.
Doyle looked at Skip for one hesitant moment, and then grasped the proffered limb in a firm shake. "I hadn't even been aware that I'd left," he admitted to the stranger.
Skip smiled back. "Hey, no worries. Happens to the best of us. We all need a little refresher every now and again, am I right?" he asked, voice light and amiable.
Cordy coughed. "Not that I'm not glad to see you Skip, but, why are you here?"
Skip turned back to her. "I thought that was obvious. You've completed your mission. I'm here to take you away."
Cordy and Doyle looked at each other. "I just got here!" she exclaimed, incredulously.
"Yeah, but you did what you came here to do," Skip reminded her.
"There's still a war going on," she responded. "It's not done yet."
"To tell you the truth," Skip started, looking first at Cordy, and then to Doyle, "the war isn't going to be over for a while yet. Not in either of your lifetimes, anyway."
Doyle closed his eyes and sighed. "I guess it was presumptuous ta think…"
"Hey, don't worry about it, Doyle. You do the best you can," Skip assured him. "And just because the war isn't off quite yet doesn't mean we'd make you stay and fight it forever."
Doyle looked puzzled at his revelation. "Then why go through the trouble o' makin' me a mission?"
Skip smiled. "Well buddy, the Powers need you here. For now. Time'll come when you can retire from this whole mess, you live that long. I can promise that, at least," the black demon assured the General. "I mean, even Angel has a light at the end of the tunnel waiting for him. Wouldn't be fair if we didn't give you the same, right?"
"Shanshu," Cordelia breathed. "For Angel. But what for Doyle?"
Skip looked cryptic. "Doyle gets the same-his fondest wish."
Both of them turned to him. In Doyle's eyes there sparked a small fire of hope. "I'll get to go home," he murmured.
"Got it in one," Skip rejoined. "Now c'mon, Cordelia. I think we'd better get going." He held out his hand to her.
"Where?" she asked. "Right now? Can't I stay a little longer? I mean, it seems so soon." She looked first at Doyle, and then back to Skip.
The Demon-guide deliberated her request for a moment, looking slightly grim. "We need your help in another place, before we can take you back to LA," he told her. "But… the big guys upstairs say that it doesn't have to be until tonight." He smiled at them both. "We'll open up a portal in the arrival hall at midnight, okay?"
They both nodded.
He pointed to the two of them. "I hope that's enough time to say everything that needs to be said." With that, Skip saluted and disappeared in one blink, silent as he'd come, gone without even the benefits of fireworks and sound effects.
"I turn into a pumpkin at midnight, huh?" she asked, smiling tiredly at Doyle.
"Our work's never done, Princess," he agreed. "But 'm in no mood to work tonight, are you?"
She laughed and told him she did was not either.
"I feel…" he took a breath, as if approaching brand new soil, as if the word had been so long from his vocabulary that it took him a moment to remember its meaning. "…I feel like…celebratin'… myself."
She eyed him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. So, you up for a party?"
I was waiting for so long
For a miracle to come
Everyone told me to be strong
Hold on and don't shed a tear
Through the darkness and good times
I knew I'd make it through
And the world thought I had it all
But I was waiting for you
Hush now I see a light in the sky
It's almost blinding me
I can't believe I've been touched by an
Angel of love
Let rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it free my soul and drown my fears
Let is shatter the walls for a new sun
A new day has come