(Takes Place After "Hero")
Tonight, I was going to give up my life to save humanity.
Wasn't something I wanted to do, but it's something I'm prepared to do... have been prepared to do.
It's something I expect some night I will do.
But not tonight.
Tonight, Doyle took my sacrifice.
Tonight, Doyle decided that his test had come and what the outcome would be.
Tonight, Doyle died.
I've lost the guide in my mission. But more importantly, I've lost a friend.
Time is different for vampires, but even in human terms I knew him such a short time.
I wondered about the things he'd done before his demon side showed itself, and after.
I know some of it but there's always so much more.
Now, I guess I'll never know.
Cordelia is crying again. We watched the tape she made of him earlier, not quite accepting what had happened.
But, the numbness wore off quickly.
Mixed in with her grief is anger because he never told her the truth about himself. That he didn't feel close enough to her to tell her that.
To give her a chance until it was too late.
And now she'll never know for sure if she could have accepted him. That's always the worst part of losing someone; not knowing how different things might have been.
Well, it's almost the worst part, right behind the fact that we've lost him in the first place. I'll have to call Harry and tell her... just as soon as I can figure out how I'm going to do that.
And I'm angry too. I've sat here denying it but I know it's the truth.
He shouldn't have died- that's what I'm supposed to do.
He was supposed to take the visions and give them to the one who was expected to sacrifice himself.
He was the messenger, the guide.
He wasn't supposed to die.
He wasn't supposed to be the hero.
But, he was.
Closed Door, Open Window(After "Parting Gifts")
Doyle is gone.
I went to The Oracles... asked them to change that. What the hell, I figured it couldn't hurt, right?
But it did.
I told them that Doyle was my friend and it hurt when I realized that that was the first time I'd said it out loud.
In the end, they didn't take back what happened because Doyle made his choice.
And now, Cordelia is my guide.
It's been a rough transition but honestly she's taken it better than I would have thought. She has a deep streak of compassion in her that I know she thinks I don't notice. But how else can I explain the fact that she's allowing Wesley to hang around?
Speaking of which, I have admit he was helpful in saving Cordy. I don't know if I'd want him around all the time but I'm thinking I may not have a choice.
Rogue Demon Hunter... Yeh, that fits him about as much as private investigator fits me, or actress fits Cordelia.
L.A. is a big city, and yet here we all are, Sunnydale refugees, thrown together. I can't help but think it means something.
Like we are supposed to do this together.
Or maybe they are just some of what I have to put up with as part of my atonement.
I watched Cordy put her vision sketch in a frame and tried to say my final goodbyes to Doyle in my mind.
That door is closed.
Doyle is gone.
Cordy is here.
And it's my responsibility to keep her here.
Reality Bites(After "Somnambulist")
Everyone has something in their past they hope will never come back to haunt them. Fortunately, hardly anyone has a past as long and as haunted as mine.
Penn wasn't the first of those I've sired to show up in my current life. I doubt he'll be the last. And every time it's harder and harder to deal with.
Everyone makes mistakes, but mine grow... they multiply.
As Angelus I killed, literally, thousands of people with my own hands. But that is nothing compared to the amount of damage I've done through my "children".
I was serious when I told Wesley and Cordelia that I had killed those people- because I am responsible for everything that Penn has done... And what Drusilla has done.... And what Spike has done... and countless others that I've turned.
I've had my soul for over 100 years, but the death I set in motion before that continues. I've stopped killing, but they haven't.
And they've turned others as well, as Dru did to Spike, and so I'm responsible for that too.
I'm the beginning of a long line of destruction and I'm starting to realize that there might not be an end to it.
And I'm beginning to realize that atonement isn't something I will ever achieve, not really.
To take a life is to take whatever potential that life had. I can't replace that potential, that life, by saving another life, or saving a thousand lives. That life is unique.
There is no "making up" for all that I've done...All that those I've turned have done.
So that's then, and them. And then there's still now and me.
Those dreams I had about Penn killing, only it was me?
They were terrible and horrifying... and I liked them.
I liked them a lot.
I surprised myself by admitting that to Cordelia and Wesley. I think I was warning them. Or maybe on that deep, scary level where Angelus lives, I was trying to scare them. I wanted to scare them.
I've lived with this soul, felt all the pain I've caused. Been wracked with guilt... and yet, I felt none of that in those dreams. They were all about the rush and pleasure of the kill, and I was happy to be in the thick of it.
That's what gets me where I live: I know I would find joy in the kill, even now.
Even with a soul, I am a vampire.
Sometimes I get to put that in the back of my mind. And sometimes it comes to the fore and forces me to confront what I am. To the point that in my darkest hour, like tonight, I wonder why I don't just stake myself and be done with it.
Maybe it's that sort of fatalistic thinking that led me to let Wesley chain me. On some level, maybe I was hoping he would stake me.
It's almost enough to make me want to give up.
But not quite.
I'll never make up for what I did. I will never replace the lives I took.
So, instead, I'll take care of my past when it comes up, like I did with Penn, and I will save those lives that I can.
Not because of some cosmic balance sheet...
But because it's the right thing to do.
Cordy has faith that I can do that and I want to prove to her that she's right.
With Kate...it's going to be a harder sell. I think she'll be ok, once she "adjusts" to the idea of what is really out there.
I know our relationship will never be the same but she didn't stake me when she had the chance.
That's something.