AMARAQUE CURARUM ELUERE
(DROWN THE BITTERNESS OF CARES)
By D M Evans
Disclaimer- All characters within belong to Mr. Whedon. We all already know this and we're all thankful for the chance to bring them out onto our stage.
Rating - PG-13
Spoilers - Up through the first few episodes of S5, nothing really spoiler like.
Summary - Angel gets visited by three spirits who try to change the course of his life.
This is answer to the challenge in a can, http/ where the challenge was to use Spike, bittersweet and wallet. And in answer to the in vino veritas challenge at www.geekgirlz-r.us
Nominated at the Primordial Souls Awards - http/ awards.primordialsouls dot com/ (sorry guys, FFN scrubs all URLS out when you upload. I hope by doing this I'll confuse that program. Sorry for managling your URL
Spes donare noval largus, amaraque curarum eluere efficax
(Mighty to inspire new hopes, and able to drown the bitterness of cares)
Horace - Carmina IV. 12.19
When you get summoned back from the great beyond, you figure something earthshattering is about to happen. I didn't expect to be sent to Ryan's Retreat, a pub run by a real Irishman cashing in on what Americans think real Irishmen are like. I used to hang out here sometimes, when my pockets were a little more full than usual. Things at Ryan's aren't cheap, but the place almost does make you feel like you're back home. It's dark, smoky, noisy enough and the pints of Guinness are served room temperature like they're supposed to be. Real dartboards instead of electronic ones, pool tables for the betting possibilities.
The Powers That Be teamed me up with a pretty little blonde, slender, a tasty bird really. She was like me, a ghost, more or less, only she gets to show up in a beautiful deep blue dress that highlights her coloring. Me, I'm still in my usual, sort of worn out, lived in clothing that could stand a good pressing. Somehow I knew she was important to the big guy, probably the Powers That Be beaming information into my dead skull. I wondered if this was Buffy, the one Angel was always moping around over.
"Aren't you dead?" someone called as we were about to head into the boozer.
Me and the blonde turned to home in on that unmistakenly British voice. I recognized the man instantly, the eejit vampire who was after the Gem of Amara. Only now he was like us, a ghost. How did a vampire end up as something other than dust? I guess I didn't really care.
"We could say the same about you, Spike," the blonde said, giving him a fish-eyed look.
"Long story, Darla," Spike assured us. My mouth dropped. This was the woman who made Angel what he is. Another vampire ghost? What the hell was going on? "Doyle, right?"
I curled my lip. "Nice of you to remember. Any clue what we're doing here?"
"I was brought back and told to fix things," Darla said with a shudder. "Something has gone very wrong."
"They told you more than they did me, luv," I said. Yeah, big surprise there the PTB's tended to be real jackasses.
"No one sent me." Spike frowned. "Or maybe they did. I mean, Peaches has been hanging out in this place most nights, thinking the others don't know about it. Hell, he's probably right. They're all too wrapped up in themselves. Me, I knew but I didn't care. Until tonight."
"What is it you think you know, Spike?" Darla asked, getting up in his face. She was little but you could feel the deadly oozing off her. Spike cowed just a hair, enough to let her know she won but not enough to destroy his swagger.
The vampiric ghost shrugged. "Angel comes here for a piss up most nights when he ain't out saving the world from itself."
"Angel? Drinking? Are you sure?" I scoffed. "It's not like he's a social creature."
"He used to be," Darla said, her eyes soft with remembrance. "But how do you know, Spike? How do you know what he does all the time?"
"I'm here. I didn't move on like I'm guessing you two did. I'm stuck," Spike replied, a haunted look in his eyes. If I was a big softie, I might feel bad for him.
"Well, we aren't going to solve anything standing out here," I said, heading into the pub. Angel was tucked away in a booth in a dark corner. No surprises there, like I said, he defines anti-social. What did surprise me was the pint of black stuff in front of him and the unfocused look in his eye.
His head bobbled back as he took notice of us. An idiot grin split his broad face. This wasn't the vampire I knew. Angel didn't get langered but yet here he was, so paralytic he was likely to fall out of the snug. "I'm seeing things," he slurred.
"Not bloody likely," Spike said, sliding into the snug opposite Angel. Darla took the seat next to her childe, leaving me with Spike. Lucky me, some things never change.
"Angel, what's wrong?" Darla's hand passed through Angel's cheek as she tried to touch him comfortingly.
"I'm delusional," he snorted, knocking back his pint. He slammed it down on the table, half rising so he could spot a waitress. He flagged her down so enthusiastically he nearly fell on top of Darla.
"Ain't he a pretty sight?" Spike said, waving a hand in front of his face. "Stinks to high heaven of booze. This is what we've been sent to save."
I nodded, consenting to the smell and our purpose here. "Feels about right." Darla's expression said she felt it, too. The PTB's wanted us to help the poor bolloxed vampire and I guessed that wasn't a surprise. Angel was supposed to be a big player but I could see he was out of the game.
"Don't need saving," Angel said surlily then looked up at the waitress. "Another one." He stabbed a finger at the pint glass.
"I'll have an Arthur's, too," I piped up.
She shook her head, her attention on the big guy. "I'm sorry, sir, I can't serve you." She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else, obviously afraid of Angel's intense dark-eyed stare.
"Why the hell not?" He growled so loudly he caught the attention of the darts players who were just behind our line of snugs.
"You're drunk. It's against the law." She took a step back and glanced at me. "And we don't have anything called Arthur's here, sir."
I sighed. Ryan's help had deteriorated if he had a waitress that didn't know Arthur Guinness was the founding father of my beloved drink. "Guinness," I said.
"Oh, okay." She turned on heel, heading for the bar, weaving through the crowd.
"Now just wait a min-" Angel said, trying to get back up.
Spike leaned across the table, clamping a very solid-seeming hand over Angel's mouth. "Sit it down, Peaches. All you're gonna do is get yourself in trouble. You can drink the Mic's pint since he can't." Spike jerked a thumb at me.
"What do you mean? No drinking?" I sounded as horrified as I felt. Here I was in a little bit of heaven - pubs were always that to me - and I wasn't allowed to take part. I felt like that Greek bugger stuck in Hades with water and grapes all around him.
Spike sat back, shooting me a pitying look. "No drinking, no smoking, no shagging. It sucks to be us. It takes all my concentration just to be solid enough to touch and I can't hold it long."
"Someone's gonna owe me big for this," I grumbled and Darla rolled her eyes. Guess she doesn't appreciate the importance of a good drink.
"Not me. I'm not Scrooge and I don't need three ghosts to save me," Angel said, thumping his head against the wall as he lost some of his verticality. His eyes fluttered shut and I thought our rescue mission was gonna end with him sliding unconscious under the table. He rallied a bit though but his eyes were glazed. Did vampires get hangovers?
"I haven't seen you this sloppy drunk since before I turned you," Darla said, her brown eyes hot. "What would Connor say if he saw you?"
"He's gone," Angel said, with so much sorrow it touched me.
Who the hell was Connor? Whoever he was, the mention of him being gone visibly rattled Darla. I didn't know ghosts could go pale. Spike seemed as confused as me.
"How...no, he can't be gone. I would know!" She held a hand over that slender little belly of hers. She trembled. "I would feel it. I shared his soul, I would know if he were gone."
Shared a soul? Vampires could do that? This was giving me a vision-strength headache but lucky for me, my knight in shining bar gear showed up with my Guinness. Angel pointed to the pile of cash on the end of the table and she peeled up the money for the pint, disappearing quickly. No way I was taking Spike's word for it, I had to try to pick up the pint. Damn if the bugger wasn't right.
Angel grabbed my pint, quaffing part of it. "Not dead, just gone."
"Gone? What do you mean?" Her face went blotchy as her wispy voice turned shrill. Dogs were probably alerting to the sound. "What did you do to him?"
"Probably pissed him off like he does everyone else," Spike offered and Darla glared.
"I had no choice, Darla. Things were all wrong." Angel stabbed a finger into the thick brown-tinged foam of his Guinness, swirling it trying to distract us or himself.
"Things have a way of doing that," I agreed, feeling helpless. I don't know what the PTB's thought I was going to do here. I didn't even know what was going on but we were getting a bubble around us. The obvious tension had driven the patrons in the booths next to us to get up and go to the pool table. They kept looking back at us, curious and a little scared.
"I know they were going wrong." Darla paused, bracing herself from the looks of it. "I tried to stop him, to pull him back from the edge but I couldn't. Her influence was too strong. What she made my little boy do," Darla lamented. I wondered if she were Irish. She had the right touch of anguish for it. Her pain could have been woven into song. "Sharing his soul, knowing his heart, it wasn't enough to break her hold over him. She came back...if she hadn't."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Darla." Angel stared at her as if he were trying to mesh her into one non-wavering form instead of two or three bouncing ones. Boy, do I know that look, that feeling.
She leaned against him, or almost leaned, I should say. Their shoulders almost touching but not quite or else she'd go through him. "They let me come back, Angel, to save our boy, but I couldn't stop him from letting that bitch use innocent blood to birth that demon child of theirs."
"I had no idea." Angel's hand covered hers, passing through it so it looked like hers rested on his. "It went even more wrong, Darla. I couldn't save him either. If only I could have kept him from Cordelia, things might have been different. If I hadn't thrown him out...if I had tried harder."
"I know you, man. You try too hard if anything. Whatever it is, it's not your fault," I said, still wishing I knew what was going on. How could I fix it when I didn't know what was broken?
Angel's eyes went wet as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. What had he done to it? It looked like he had a squashed hedgehog on his head. I know, cut him a break. He can't actually see what he looks like. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Doyle."
"Neither do I. What boy are you talking about? All this drama over one of your vamp kids?" Spike snorted. "I can't see you wasting this much emotion over a ponce like Penn. Hell, even Dru going to dust wouldn't make you go out to get piss-faced every night. A couple of days maybe..."
"Connor isn't a vampire," Darla said, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was still within earshot of this bizarre conservation. Our bubble was holding. "He's our son, a living child."
"Not possible!" Spike and I chorused.
"Is...was, and I screwed it up," Angel said with, all the sorrow of a chorus of Danny Boy.
"A baby?" I asked, rolling it around in my mind; vampires producing life. That's not right. I mean, I'm half a demon or I was and even that probably wasn't right. This was even wronger.
"Our bright, sweet child...who somehow wasn't a child any more." Darla's brow furrowed. "I thought maybe I had lost track of time. It doesn't work the same on the other side. But then I saw the bitch and she hadn't aged."
"Connor was raised in Quor-Toth," Angel said harshly. "By Holtz."
I didn't know Holtz but I had heard of Quor-Toth. Bracken demons use that for spooking kids into being good, or so Harry told me. Leave it to my ex to know. I wasn't raised Bracken but I could imagine the terror, 'be a good little demon or you'll get carried off to Quor-Toth.' I hadn't realized ghosts could cry but Darla was.
"I'm sorry," Angel said, reaching for Darla, pulling up short. "I couldn't protect him, Darla. I tried but I was betrayed...by Wes, by Cordelia, by myself."
"Wait a minute, if you two have a brat, why have I never heard of him before?" Spike's eyes slotted suspiciously. "You can't hide something that big!"
"Yes, you always were the best ferret I've ever seen when it came to finding out and exploiting secrets." Darla's look should have turned Spike to ice, not that I'm complaining.
He shrugged as if used to frostbite. "It's a talent."
"Angel, if he's not dead, then it's not too late to change things," I said. I was still confused but at least now I could see a way to help, or at least I thought so. "I mean, you still have chances, which is more than any of us have, to do things differently. He might be gone but not beyond reach, right?"
"Wrong." Angel polished off the black stuff. He leveled his gaze at me and I was thinking, 'Angel is a nasty mean drunk.' "Order another."
"No," I said and he curled his lip at me. I half expected him to go all bumpy right here in the boozer. "You're already drunk as a lord."
"I can handle it," he said, slapping the pint back to my side of the table like a hockey puck.
"You always did think that. If syphilis didn't get you, you would have died from liver failure," Darla sniffed, giving him a knowing look. I guess she knew him better than any of us...or at least knew his ugly side. I had only ever seen hints of Angelus.
"We'll never know now, will we? Thanks to you. All my troubles started with you," Angel said harshly but she didn't even blink.
"No fair blaming the lady, Angel," I said; never could bear that nonsense.
Darla held up a hand. "No, he's right but he forgets he asked for me to show him the world."
"I never though you meant to kill me first," Angel said, drawing more stares from the dart players. I wished they'd shove off.
"So how's the Mic wrong?" Spike pressed, obviously eager to get to that secret. He didn't seem to care people were looking at us funny. None of them did, except maybe Darla. It must be a vampire thing.
Angel turned his bleary gaze to the weedy man. Spike was only a hair less delicate-looking than me. "I had Wolfram and Hart rewrite history."
"Wolfram and Hart?" This time I was singing chorus with Darla.
"Angel, how could you trust them? They brought me back from the dead, made me try to turn you back to Angelus." Darla smiled slightly, making me uneasy. "Which was a pleasant prospect at the time."
"They are the root of all evil in a dozen dimensions if not more," I chimed in, wondering if my friend had lost his mind.
"He works for the blighters," Spike said, "heads up the L.A. division."
"Oh that's bloody deadly, that is," I groaned. Aye, Angel had gone barmy. "Angel, how could you do it? You're supposed to be one of the good guys."
"I am." He bristled, waving over the waitress. He refused to elaborate on his motives, waiting on that hapless young blonde to come our way. "My buddy wants another drink."
She looked at me and I nodded. Maybe Spike could make his hand solid enough to knock it over or something. I didn't want to put the poor girl in Angel's path, not in this state by refusing to order.
"You can't be a good guy and work for Wolfram and Hart, can't be done," I said once we were alone again.
"I'm changing things...using their power to make it better," Angel said but I don't think any of us thought he was convinced of that.
"If you believed that, you wouldn't be in here getting drunk every night," Darla argued.
"Believe what you want. Working with them is the right thing to do," Angel said, getting a stubborn set of his jaw, pissing me off.
"Stop acting the maggot," I said. "You're fooling no one. If this was the right thing, would the Powers have dragged us all here?"
"Whatever you're here for, it's not to stop me working with Wolfram and Hart," Angel replied as the waitress returned. He barely waited for her to turn her back before grabbing up my pint.
"No, maybe we're here to stop you from getting plastered every night because you know what you did to Connor was wrong," Darla said, tossing her blond mane.
"What I did wasn't wrong. He was going to kill a mall full of people. I did the only thing I knew how. I made it so he doesn't know me. He doesn't remember the real life he lived and he's living with a family. He thinks he belongs to them. He's going to college. He's happy," Angel argued, tears forming in his eyes.
"You turned a demon hybrid child loose in a mortal world?" I asked, too horrified to feel sympathy for my friend's obvious anguish. This time it was my raised voice garnering attention. "That's bloody deadly, too, Angel. Take it from someone who grew up like that. Is he stronger than a human? Faster? What happens if he gets into a fight at a college party? Do you know what it felt like the first time I sneezed and I turned into a pin cushion? There's always hints you ain't like the rest of them. Damn, first you give up your humanity for Buffy and now you use major magic again to rewrite your son's history. Either you have the biggest capacity for self-sacrifice I've ever seen or you have a martyr complex."
"Wait, he did what for Buffy?" Spike asked, his eyes filled with a jealous glint.
"Nothing! Don't tell him that story, Doyle," Angel growled, stabbing a finger at me. I didn't know what he could do to me in the condition I'm in but given his mind set I didn't want to find out either.
"It's a dangerous thing you've done, Angel," Darla said. "Too nasty, too much could go badly."
"No one asked for your opinion, any of yours, so butt out," Angel said, crossing his arms. He looked like a sulky child.
"Feck off," I shot back. "The PTB's asked our opinion, more or less. You keep going like this Angel and something big and bad is going to happen."
"Did you ask yourself why Wolfram and Hart wanted to help you? They wanted to get their hands on Connor even when he was still in my womb," Darla reminded him, giving her belly another unconscious rub. "You gave him to the people who wanted him the most and you trusted this little story they spun...or did you?" Her eyes narrowed. "Is that why you're here every night? You can't escape the fact you may have turned him over to have lord knows what done to him while you work for these monsters thinking you're doing good."
"I am," Angel said, weakly. "Doing good...and wondering. I saw him once but then I think, was that just to shut me up? Where is he now? Is he really in school? Did I sign his death warrant? Did I sign away the souls of my friends when I agreed to this deal?"
"Pretty standard contact for those tossers from what I hear," Spike said and it gave me a start. I hadn't ever thought about that. What had Angel done?
"Angel, even I wouldn't bet on Wolfram and Hart changing their spots and I've been known to bet on some really stupid things," I said.
He polished off the pint. "I know. I acted without thinking. But it's too late now, he's gone. The contracts are signed. I've made my bed."
"Giving up that easily? I'm embarrassed to know you, you git," Spike said, waving a dismissive hand at Angel. "At least Angelus had stones."
"Doyle was right when he said it wasn't too late. Our son is still alive. You can change things back." Darla mimed touching his hair. "Use Wolfram and Hart to find a way to undo things."
"Change it back to what, Darla? To the boy who hates me, thanks to Holtz? I never got my son back from Quor-Toth. I got someone so twisted he couldn't trust anyone."
"He trusted the bitch, certainly trusting her over me, even when I thought I was reaching him. He can trust and love, Angel. I know this," Darla insisted. I just sat back and let her run with it. Sometimes things need a woman's touch.
"Talk about bittersweet irony. We left Holtz his daughter as a vampire to kill. He left me with a warrior son out to shove a stake in my heart." Angel laughed mirthlessly. "Maybe I got what I deserved but Connor deserved better. That's what he has now."
"You hope that's what you gave him. Don't trust Wolfram and Hart, mate," I said.
"I don't but I don't see what else I could have done." Angel dropped his gaze, shuddering at whatever was playing in his mind's eyes. "Connor's sanity was pretty much gone. He was suicidal and homicidal."
"So was Faith and you took the time to help her," Spike said, poleaxing Angel.
Angel leaned against the wall, his face turned from us. "That was..."
"Don't you dare say different," Darla said. "Your son deserves every effort and then more. I don't expect you to run out tonight and undo things Angel. This time, take the time to think things through. Instead of coming here drowning in a sea spilled from a pint, use Wolfram and Hart's resources to see if you can keep Connor sane and bring him back to the life he was supposed to have. Nothing could be worse than living some fantasy life. Doyle had a point. Our baby isn't human, not completely. One punch and he could be a murderer without even meaning to and he'll never understand why it happened."
"Even if you don't wake the kid up, at least send Harry his way. She's got lots of experience with working with hybrids." I shuddered suddenly, memories of my death flooding back like someone had turned on the tap. "What if the Scourge come looking for him?"
"Or the idiot vampires who thought Connor was the miracle baby prophesied to lead them to who the hell knows what...I didn't hear past them wanting to wear my entrails as a belt." Darla scowled.
"Another damn prophecy...too many of them around Connor," Angel grumbled.
"Oh, better yet, you gave away prophecy boy," Spike snorted. "How stupid could you be?"
Angel grabbed for him, reaching through Spike's chest. Angel nearly ended up under the table again. He sat back, trying to regain his dignity.
"He's got a point, Angel. If your son is the center of a prophecy, changing everyone's memories of him isn't going to stop the prophecy. It will come and it will happen, only he won't know what's going on and that could be a very bad thing," I said. "Take it from someone who knows a little about telling the future."
Angel slumped. "I don't know how to undo this."
"You're not an idiot, as much as it kills me to say it, Angel," Spike said. "You have every known arcane text at your disposal in Wolfram and Hart. Do the research, help the kid or, with our luck, the three of us will be stuck haunting you."
"I don't want that. You deserve to be at rest," Angel said then frowned. "Unless eternal rest is hell, I guess."
"Not hell," I said.
"The demon in a vampire doesn't get a soul, remember? I don't get punished for the things I did after I died...just a little purgatory for the life I lived." Darla looked misty. "Not too bad, really."
"You're still stuck with me." Spike smirked as if enjoying that.
Angel laughed and there was a hint of humor in it now. "I'll try to figure out something better for Connor. Happy?"
"You will be," I said.
"Take it from someone who knows a little bit about telling the future?" Angel asked, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Yeah," I said even though I had no idea what this future might be.
Angel nodded, dragging up to his feet. "I'll try." He reached for his money and went to put it back in his wallet but didn't. He nodded for Darla to move and we all got up. He handed the money to the waitress on our way out. "Sorry if I was any trouble."
The sky was orange with light pollution, not a star to be seen. As much as I loved cities, I would have liked to have seen stars. My job here was done. I could feel something tugging at me. Angel was at least going to try and I guess that satisfied the Powers.
"Time to go," I said, noticing Darla was looking more see-thru now, too. Spike seemed unaffected.
Angel nodded. "Thanks. Wish you could take Spike with you."
"I've lived with him enough, thank you very much," Darla said, a slight smile on her pretty face.
Angel went to cup her chin even though he couldn't. "It was bittersweet seeing you again, too, you know."
"I know. Take care of our boy, Angel. I'm watching," she said then faded out.
"Doyle, if it means anything, your death changed Cordelia for the good," Angel said. "She got your visions, which wasn't so good for her but seeing your sacrifice, maybe having the responsibilities of the visions, it made her a stronger, better person, no matter how it turned out in the end."
I smiled. "It means a lot. If you see her, tell her that I loved her. Thanks, Angel. Who knows, maybe I'll see you around some time."
His answer was lost as I was drawn out of that reality. At least I had made a difference then and now.
My only wish was that the PTB's would have let me have a taste of beer.