Fathers And Other Not Evil, Evil Things

(Takes place after "The Prodigal")

Children believe what their parents tell them. Tell them they are good and bright, and chances are they will be good and bright.

Or at least they'll try to be.

Maybe.

My father told me I was never going to amount to anything.

He said I was a good for nothing.

Maybe, in some sort of ironic way, he was right and it was because I was too lazy, that I didn't try to prove to him that he was wrong. Instead, I lived down to his expectations of me. It's a simple thing to blame it all on him and so I did.

I've thought about him a lot since I regained my soul. In my darker moments, I wondered if maybe he really did see something evil in me. Something that was just waiting to show itself.

Was he trying to save me, or was he just the bitter, cruel man I thought he was then?

Like so many other things, I'll never know for sure.

Kate went the opposite way when it came to her father. She seems to have done everything she could to be exactly what her father wanted her to be. Or, at least what she thought he wanted her to be.

But I know she felt like she never measured up.

And I know that because that's how I felt right before I gave up trying and became a skirt-chasing, drunkard.

At least my way had its fun moments.

In the end though, we're pretty similar: our fathers are dead, and we feel like we failed them.

There is a difference however, I mean, beyond the fact that she didn't kill her father, and I did.

When I heard the last beat of my father's heart, I expected to feel joy or satisfaction. But it wasn't either of those things that I felt.

It was emptiness.

I didn't understand that until Darla mocked my "victory" over him.

She was right though.

He went to his death knowing I was everything he said I was.

I was a disappointment and so he won.

That's the difference between Kate and me: I don't think her father ever believed she was a disappointment.

I can see that because I'm on the outside looking in. She doesn't see it because she's standing in the middle of it.

I feel sad for her.

I wonder… what would an outsider have seen looking at my father and I?

I'd like to tell her what I think, what I saw, but I don't think that's possible now.

Kate is no longer in the dark about what goes on in this city.

She sees the evil things and the not evil, evil things…

Only now, she doesn't really believe in the not evil, evil things.

I don't know if what we had was actually friendship, but it worked to some degree.

The idea of her as an enemy isn't something I like thinking about.

I hope she can get over this.

For both our sakes.

Blurry Lines

(Takes place after "The Ring")

My job description seems to be pretty cut and dry: Find the evil, confront the evil, defeat the evil. Given my "special" circumstances, more often than not, that evil comes in the form of a demon of some sort that I have to kill in defense of a human.

Sometimes the job is not so clear.

I've been thinking about what happened in that arena and after.

I know it would have been easier to just play along. I kill demons almost every night without blinking an eye. There wasn't one of those demons that I couldn't have beaten.

Or I could have taken Wolfram and Hart's offer and left the others to their fates.

What's the difference?

I can still hear the human spectators in my mind.

They cheered for blood, for pain.

For death.

I saw the pleasure they took from it on their faces.

I remember that feeling.

That's the difference.

I gave up killing for my own pleasure a century ago and I'll be damned if I'll do if for anyone else.

To allow that to continue, allow those people to feed off that violence…

It was wrong.

So, yeh, I set a bunch of demons loose. Not all of them were bad but I know I'll probably be tracking down some in the future.

And if it comes to that, I'll kill them.

But I have a job to do and that job is to confront and defeat the evil in this city.

Doesn't matter if that evil has horns, or claws… or horns and claws…

Or just a lack of morals wrapped in a human skin.

Evil is evil.

Sometimes the job is very clear.

This Is Your Soul On Drugs

(Takes place after "Eternity")

I've known people who have paid good money to wake up chained to their beds.

I'm not one of those so the experience wasn't pleasant. But even less pleasant was remembering how I got there in the first place.

I nearly killed Wesley and Cordelia, not to mention Rebecca.

Of course, she's the reason I nearly killed them all so I guess it's natural that I don't feel quite as guilty about her.

But there's still plenty of guilt.

Yes, I was drugged. Cordelia and Wesley understand that. They accept that I didn't have control of myself completely. Angelus got the upper hand for a time and we all got a reminder of how dangerous being close to me can be.

The scary consequences of circumstances beyond my control.

Still, I should have seen it coming.

I'm nearly 250 years old; you'd think I'd know when I'm being seduced for God's sake!

I didn't though.

Or, maybe I did.

Unless that's just my guilt talking again.

Hell, I don't even know anymore.

Wesley and Cordelia handled themselves pretty well given the situation.

But when I think about it, I wonder if what they did was the smartest thing.

I am a danger to them. No, I didn't lose my soul this time. I was, to put it simply, a mean drunk. Honestly, I'm relieved that I wasn't staked over it.

And yet…I attacked them. I could have killed them.

I wanted to kill them.

Angelus is here, all the time. Keeping him in check isn't as straightforward as it might seem.

I need to know they can do what needs to be done if he gets out again.

And I don't know for sure that they can.

It's one more in a long, long list of things to worry about.

Good thing vampires don't get ulcers.