To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers
Part 11: All About Guilt
What happened next was that Giles went over everything we knew about Warren— how he'd started his career as a mad villain, the things he'd done, what Diane had been able to determine about his psychology.
It was while Giles was going over the things that we'd learned since Alex's death that I had a moment of shocked realization— and cried aloud, "Oh, crap, we're stupid!"
Everyone turned to look at me, and Giles said, "What is it, Jocelyn? What did we miss?"
"I— I'm sorry," I said, blushing. "I may be wrong, but— Judas goat, I don't think so!
"Giles, earlier, when Vincent was explaining about why we should call Brian and have him check computers and phones and stuff, he said that… that 'the assassin had foreknowledge,' and that we should check things like phones and computers because of that.
"But Giles— oh, god, how did I miss it!? Giles, the vampires at the prison camp! The vampires who showed up at exactly the right moment to avoid detection, but to be there to fight us and try to prevent us from leaving the camp! Foreknowledge! Right there, right in front of us!"
"And we missed it," Daddy said, smacking himself in the forehead. "Honey-girl, you've done it again!"
"Yeah, but it took me too long," I said, disgusted with myself. "I should have—"
"Stop that!" Xander said, jabbing a finger my way. "Jocelyn Kelly Penobscot, we all knew about that, and we all missed it, might have gone on missing it for— well, forever! But you thought of it, thought of it when you're hurting too, and damn it, I'm not going to sit here and let you help when I know you hurt and then kick yourself around for being faster than any of the rest of us!"
"Xander," Buffy said, laying a hand on his arm. "Honey… ease down a little, okay? You sound… mad at her."
Xander blinked, dry-scrubbed his face, and said in a low voice, "I'm sorry, Jossie. I… didn't mean to come off all hardass like that, I just…."
"You're just doing exactly what you just yelled at me for doing," I said— and stuck my tongue out at him. He snorted a tiny little laugh, and I felt like nine quintillion dollars for getting just that little-bitty laugh. "It's okay, Xander. I won't do it again if you won't. And under the circumstances, I'll even forgive the use of that nickname. But don't milk it."
"Deal," Xander said. "Sorry, Giles. Go on, please."
"Jocelyn raises an excellent point," Giles said. "Let me fill you all in on the particulars…."
Giles talked them through it, and we all added it to the mental database. People talked a bit, Brian (who'd arrived from Japan halfway through dinner) agreed to do the computer-and-phone check anyway, and before he slept, Gunn volunteered to take over site security at the guest house and Buffy and Xander's house, since Vincent would be busy at the Millennium, Xander accepted with thanks — and Andrew arrived, just as we were preparing to split up and go home. He'd had to answer a lot of questions before catching a plane (since he warned the authorities about the other one having a bomb aboard), and that had slowed him and his group of a dozen Slayers, brought along because they were field leaders, and some of them had known and been friends with Alex, Joyce, Buffy, Xander or some combination thereof.
Daddy asked me if I wanted to stay, be there when they told him what was going on, and I accepted, though I didn't really want to be there. He deserved to have me there to question, is all. So Daddy, Buffy, Giles, Xander, Angel, Willow and I all went into the library with him and the one Slayer who refused to leave his side.
That Slayer was another of the four of us who'd been born to the power, and she'd appointed herself his bodyguard. Not surprising, because Jenny Carlotti had never known her father, her mother had been killed when the girl was just two— and Andrew had pretty much raised her, with the help of his Slayers. He was her dad in her head, I'm pretty sure, and was she his daughter in his head.
(Funny thing… everyone assumed that me and those other girls born with the Slayer power would get along just great, automatically be the best of friends. Didn't work like that. Oh, I didn't dislike any of them, but I only got along really well with Natalie Moore, a half-Black English girl who shared my love of fantasy, science fiction and the Discworld, as well as being painfully sexy, as into girls as me [more, actually, she identified as a lesbian], a hellcat of the best kind in bed, and could dance almost as well as Aunt Elaine. With Jenny Carlotti and Mira Rodriguez, I got along okay— no fights, no instant dislike, or dislike at all— but we had nothing in common but the Slayer power and our connection to it.)
So we all went to the library, and Giles got us all seated before saying, "Andrew, I am afraid I have a bit of news that may… disturb you."
"Has someone else been killed?" Andrew asked, looking worried. "Or is—"
"No, no one else has been killed, Andrew," Giles said. He cleaned his glasses, set them back on his face, and said, "No, it's just that… well, Jocelyn, here, has figured out for us who is behind the murder of Alex Harris, and the attempts on your life, Angel and his family's lives, and the lives of Brian Keller and Nancy Carter."
"Excellent!" Andrew said. "Good job, Jocelyn!
"But… why would that be upsetting?"
"Andrew… let me explain Jocelyn's reasoning, that you may see it as plainly as she made all of us see it," Giles said. He explained slowly— and finished with, "… and the final piece, the piece which locked all of this in Jocelyn's mind firmly, was the attempt to kill you, Andrew. That, as she put it, was 'the clincher' to her deductions."
Andrew saw it— I could tell, because he turned paper white, and his eyes got big. "Oh. Oh, no. No, he's— he's—"
"He's a genius with robotics," I said softly, reaching over to squeeze his hand. "It's not the— the original Warren, Andrew, but a robot he built, and somehow put his memories and stuff into."
"God," Andrew said, looking sick. "God, that… I wish I didn't believe you."
The next words out of Andrew's mouth made my respect for him— and I did respect him, because he did the job of Watcher well, even though he wasn't the physical, go-out-and-fight type, like most of the Watchers I knew were— what he said next sent my respect for him up to about ten times what it had been a second before.
"Okay, get Diane in here, and everyone who's going to be involved in any way in planning how to stop him," Andrew said. "I'm going to tell you every little thing I can about his Sith-turning butt, everything I can remember. In fact, can Sh'rin hypnotize me, improve my recall? Or— Willow, can you do something to jack my memory up to photographic?
"And listen— maybe I can draw him out. You set a trap, I can… I can, can be, you know— the bait."
I saw his stock in the eyes of everyone there jump about two thousand percent at those words.
Well… almost everyone.
"Andrew, no!" Jenny said in her accented English, her big, dark, Italian eyes going wide in shock. "No, you cannot, I say no!"
"Hush, Jenny," Andrew said, his voice very gentle. "I have to. I… I was part of some of the awful things that Warren did, and I have to make up for it."
"Andrew," Buffy said, her eyes welling up some with tears. "Andrew, that's the bravest thing you've ever said— but Jenny, stop worrying. Andrew won't be the bait in anyone's trap.
"I don't use my friends that way."
Andrew's eyes did the welling then, and Buffy hugged him— and Jenny hugged him as soon as they parted.
"We will, however, take you up on the rest of your offer," Giles said. "Jocelyn, I think we can spare you this— you've done enough for one day, more than we could have expected or asked. Would you please go find Diane and Sh'rin, ask them to join us? I believe Andrew's suggestion of having Sh'rin hypnotize him is a very good one."
I nodded, said good night, hugged everyone— even Andrew and Jenny, they deserved it— and went to find Diane and Sh'rin and send them to the library. Then I went back to the guest house with everyone but Daddy— Daddy was pretty well rested, but Angel was clearly exhausted, so he went back with us.
Angel was exhausted, and so was Faith— but after they put Helena to bed, they came back down to the (fortunately BIG) living room to join the rest of us, and Angel put out a question that had to have been bugging him for a bit.
"Colin, you know— you'd better know!— that I'm grateful to you for saving Helena, Faith and me, but… how do you do it?" Angel asked. "How do you fly, and catch rockets, and live through the blast when they go off and… and all of it?"
"Angel, you better know you're being dumbass," Faith said, bopping him lightly on the back of the head. "Guy can't talk, remember?"
"It's okay," Ballard said. "I can tell it… if Colin doesn't mind? And Jocelyn will help?"
Colin nodded, waved at Ballard in a "go ahead" sort of gesture, and I agreed to help. Ballard told of Colin's origins, how he'd turned around things for super heroes on his own world, then looked at me.
"Now we have to skip six months or so of Colin's life, because we know very little about it," I said. "And we go to Friday the seventeenth of last month, when I started my first solo mission as a Slayer…."
I told how he'd appeared, saved my life, and what we'd learned about why he couldn't talk, then Mi Kyong and I told about him helping me and Vincent rescue her from the prison camp, then I told them about Belle's vision— and how Colin hadn't hesitated, had just seen that people we cared about were in danger, and gone to take care of it.
Angel and Faith were suitably impressed, and expressed their amazement, as well as expressing their gratitude again.
I saw them looking at each other several times during the time when I was explaining what little we knew about why he couldn't speak, about the guilt that had cut him off from being able to express himself easily, and I thought I saw some "married couple telepathy" going on then. Turns out I was right.
"Colin… Faith and I can— no, I won't say we can understand what you're feeling, but we can probably come closer than anyone else here," Angel said slowly. "We both… have our own darkness we've had to deal with.
"Look… tomorrow morning, Buffy and Xander have to… to go make the funeral arrangements for Alex— delayed a little because of the autopsy— and Willow, Giles and Dawn are going with them. Nobody is going to have much to do in the morning. Could Faith and I… well, talk to you? Just the three of us? We… may be able to help."
Colin stared at Angel for a moment, then turned to look at me.
"I think it's a good idea," I said. "They're right, Colin. They might be able to help."
"Please, Colin," Mi Kyong said softly. "I am not your girlfriend, but… you are my big brother, to me. Please, try. Let them try."
Slowly, Colin turned to look back at Angel and Faith, and he nodded once, a short, curt thing that said he didn't want to do this, not really— but would. Then he pulled Mi Kyong into a hug, smiled that little smile that was all he could do then, and kissed her forehead.
"All right," Angel said. "We'll go for a drive after breakfast. I know a good place we can all go.
"Colin… thanks for letting us try to repay you like this."
Colin nodded again, less curtly, and let out a long breath. Then he stood and bowed to them— just for being willing to try.
I love that man!
We all went to bed, Colin and I snuggled lots— no sex, but much snuggling— and to sleep.
In the morning, after breakfast, Colin went with Angel and Faith off to someplace that Angel knew about where they could all talk and not be disturbed much, while I went and worked with Mom, Aunt Rose and Daddy to train up the newbies some, working in the big back yard of the guest house under the watchful eyes of a whole lot of paranoid pseudo dragons, who flew high sentry.
Interlude: Outside Mexico City, Mexico
Warren sat at his primary workbench, bent over a tiny robot, working on it with tools that he could never have used before becoming a cybernetic person— he couldn't have seen to use them, then, and his hands would never, ever have been steady enough to use something that had work surfaces as small as these. Now, though… no need for magnifying lenses, nor of working through computer controlled Waldos— his hands were as steady as rock, more dexterous than any stage magician's, and his eyes better than any microscope, because they could focus faster, didn't require him to use his hands to focus them— and they could also act as binoculars. Hell, no binoculars made had the magnifying power of his eyes— make that telescopes.
He put down a tool to switch to another, and his partner in crime said, "They know."
He didn't jump, but he did spin around quickly— she'd surprised him, he thought she'd gone to bed more than an hour ago.
"What do they know?" he asked. "And how did they find out?"
"They know that it's you," she said, sighing in frustration. "I had a vision. They know that it's you, and that you're… no longer human in the strictest sense. One of the Slayers figured it out. I don't know her, I've never seen her before, except in the vision of the prison breakout. The pretty little blond thing, kinky blond hair and violet eyes. She… she isn't restricted in her thoughts like some are, and she…." Her voice became faraway-sounding, almost singsong, and she said, "She loves the power. She wants to understand it, so she has read everything she could find. She almost worships Buffy, so has learned everything about Buffy's career by heart. Coupled with the psychiatrist's thinking, the soldier's understanding and the attempt on Andrew… she saw it, she made the connection."
"Okay, what about you?" Warren asked. "Have they figured out that you're involved?"
"No, they don't have that," she said. "They know that you have some ability to latch onto the future sometimes, but they don't know it's me."
"Okay, that's a help," Warren said. "Any idea if they know we're here?"
"I saw no indication of that," his partner said. "Or that they've figured out the rest of your little secret, either."
"Excellent," Warren said. "I'd hate to abandon this base— it's kind of… homey."
"Yes, I'm quite fond of it as well." His partner smiled, stretched, and said, "That's all I have for you. I just thought you should know immediately."
"You did right," Warren said. "No change in the danger level, not if they don't know the rest of my… trick, but it's good to be warned. Thanks."
"You're welcome," she said, and yawned. "I'm going back to bed, then. Maybe I'll have another vision, you never know."
"Here's hoping," Warren said. "Thanks again— you're definitely making things a lot easier. And I promise, we'll get your payback, too."
"Yes, well," she said, pausing in the doorway. "Any clue how that bastard stopped it? How he flies?"
"Not yet," Warren admitted. "I'm pretty sure it's not magic, and I saw no indication of technology. So… well, once I get the bugs up and running, we should have some idea."
"All right, then," she said. She pushed her California-blond hair out of her face, smiled at Warren and said, "Back to bed for me, then. See you after bit. Good luck with your microbots."
"Sleep well," he called, watching her leave— again. She knew he was watching, liked that, and added some extra sexy to the walk. "I swear, when this is all over, and Buffy and her family are all dead… I am gonna make a pass at her!"
He turned back to his work as his partner passed out of sight, humming an old Styx tune as he worked. After a moment, he began to sing.
"You're wondering who I am… machine or mannequin… with parts made in Japan… I am the modern man…!"
The work progressed very well.
Interlude: Prospect Park, the Ravine District, Brooklyn, New York
Colin looked around the little clearing at the top of a rocky gorge, surrounded by heavy forest growth, and shook his head in amazement. There was no way to tell, with the sound-muffling effect of the trees, that you were in Brooklyn, not the Adirondack mountain range.
He sat with his back against a tree, Angel and Faith both opposite him, both sitting comfortably cross-legged, and Angel spoke.
"Thanks for letting us try this, Colin," Angel said. He sighed, looked at Faith, and she nodded. "See… it's pretty obvious that you don't want to try this, that you… I don't think you're happy with the pain you're carrying, you aren't broken that way. But I do think that you've convinced yourself that you deserve it— and that, my friend, is the biggest crock of shit that you've ever thought."
Colin blinked and stared, and Faith spoke.
"Oh, yeah," Faith said. "Hey, I know from blame, big guy. I spent a lot of time dodging it, a few years accepting it too well, a few years learning to balance it— and the years since I had my little girl moving past it.
"You think you're to blame for a whole lot of people dying. Maybe you are— until you can tell us about it, we can't decide. But one thing we know? You didn't do it on purpose, you dumb ox! And whatever else you think, you better get it through your thick goddamn skull that that really, really does make a difference!
"So… me and Angel, we're gonna explain to you about guilt. I'm going first.
"I first met Buffy in October of ninety-eight, when I came to Sunnydale running from the thing that killed my Watcher…."
Faith told Colin everything. Her attitude problem, her habit of taking what she wanted, her secret jealousy over Buffy's life, her accidental killing of Deputy Mayor Allan Finch, her betrayal of the Scooby Gang by working for Mayor Wilkins, her killing of a harmless demon, a human volcanologist, her attempt to kill Angel, all on the Mayor's orders. She told of her attempt to literally steal Buffy's life some months after her final confrontation with Buffy before the Mayor's attempted Ascension, her flight to LA, her attempts to kill Angel, her torture of Wesley Wyndham-Pryce… all of it.
"So what I'm saying here," she finished, more than half an hour later, "is that yeah, okay, if you're right, and what happened is your fault, your stupid— and I ain't buying that, not without some serious proof, yo— that still ain't a reason to shut yourself off like this. It ain't nothin', Colin, next to the guy I killed on purpose, and the things I did to people who only ever tried to help me."
Colin looked at her for a long time, studied her— and Faith met his gaze, held it, didn't look away. Slowly, he nodded.
"Now it's my turn," Angel said. "Faith got her foot in the door, made you see that your guilt may be real, but it's unreasonable— so let me explain to you about guilt, and darkness and remorse. Even Faith will agree… I know more about it than she does."
"Yeah, you do," Faith said. "One of the few things I really don't want to get all competitive about, you know?"
"That's probably a good thing," Angel said, and squeezed his wife's hand. He looked up at Colin and said, "Okay… Colin, I was born in the year 1727 in the town of Galway, Ireland. For twenty-six years, I accomplished nothing but causing my family grief and spending my father's money on booze and women. In 1753, he threw me out of the house— and I met Darla later that same night. Darla… who made me a vampire."
Colin's nodded, mimed reading a book, then tapped the imaginary page and pointed at Angel.
"You read Rose's book, good," Angel said, leaning back and turning his face to the sun. "So you know that I got cured in December of 2003, during the Battle of Bloomington. I'm human, now— I offer Helena as proof.
"Anyway… Colin, in 1898, I killed a girl… a Gypsy girl, the favorite daughter of the Kalderash clan. In retaliation, they cursed me… with my human soul. They gave me back the ability to feel guilt, to feel remorse, to feel bad about all I'd done… and in the intervening hundred and forty-five years I'd killed somewhere around a hundred… thousand… people!"
Colin went pale, a sickly, dead-white pale, as he stared in horror at Angel.
"Yeah," Angel said, his voice leaden and bitter, tears starting to run down his face. "A minimum of one a day for food, and there were times when I killed dozens at a time, Colin, dozens! The night I woke up after being sired, I killed every person in Galway— and I saved my own family for last! I killed my little sister, Colin, my eight year-old sister— and I reveled in it!
"So let me tell you the truth about guilt, about remorse, about hating yourself— because you're nothing but a rank goddamned amateur!"
Colin Goddard jerked at those last few words, jerked like he'd been slapped— and Angel Kilpatrick, once Liam Kilpatrick, started hammering at the younger man, hitting him with all the guilt and pain of all the horror and death he'd caused and delighted in, and never letting up—
— until Colin broke.
Jocelyn:
We had lunch about noon, joined by Uncle Ballard and his family— even Aunt Dawn. Aunt Rose told us that the Harris family had returned, and most of them were napping off the hurt of what they'd spent the morning doing.
"Xander, Buffy, Willow and Lydia are all asleep in Xander and Buffy's bed," Aunt Dawn said, sniffling, but smiling a little. "Nothing sexy there— Buffy's too straight, and they're all to monogamous— but it would be really cute if not for why it happened."
I was trying not to stress the long absence of Colin, Angel and Faith, they'd said they could be gone a while, and Royal heard from Angel's pseudo dragon pal, Jet, a few times, and Faith's friend Scythe once. He didn't hear from Nightfall, but I didn't get bothered by that— baby pseudo dragons can't send for anything like the range of an adult.
After lunch had settled, Aunt Dawn managed to tell us the particulars of Alex's visitation and funeral. My friend's visitation would be the next night, Wednesday, at the largest funeral parlor in New York, because Willow would be setting up magical gates with the help of various wizards and Guardians so that as many of the Slayers as wanted to (damn near all of them) and could make it (most of those who wanted to) could come and pay their respects to the son of the lady that most of them had never stopped thinking of as their leader.
Alex would be buried Thursday afternoon in the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn (a national landmark since 2006), after a ceremony at the funeral home. No member of the Harris family attended any church, so the speakers would be people who knew him, not preachers or priests. There would be three speakers, she said— and stopped there.
"Um, who is going to… to speak?" I asked after a second.
"Giles is going to say something to open it," Aunt Dawn said, her voice ragged and weepy. "Buffy… she's going to finish it."
"Who's speaking between them?" I asked.
"That would be me," said a soft, sad, faintly southern-accented voice from behind me, a voice I knew and loved.
I leaped to my feet, turned around and threw myself into the arms of United States Army Colonel Graham Miller of START (Supernatural Threat Active Response Teams), a Joint Operational Force that often worked with the Watchers, Slayers and Guardians to stop supernatural threats in the United States.
Graham caught me, hugged me, let me cry on him some. He'd been my buddy as long as I could remember— he'd come running to protect me the night I was born, when the rest of the Bloomington-Normal chapter of Team Slayer had been forced to go and kill some ice demons, and he'd been a frequent visitor to Scooby Mansion ever since, and to Buffy and Xander since they moved out here to New York. I love him like I love Uncle Ballard— they're my uncles, and never mind the blood in our veins.
After a couple of minutes, I calmed down some, and I managed to introduce Graham to the people he didn't know— the newbies, mostly, ending with Mi Kyong, whom I introduced as "Mi Kyong Takeda, Slayer-in-training, and the best non-blood sister a girl could ask for."
"Yeah, I heard about you folks having to rescue her," Graham said. He shook Mi Kyong's hand, grinned at her and said, "Quite a family you've found for yourself, Miss Takeda."
"Mi Kyong, please," she replied. She smiled at me, and added, "I know I am lucky, sir— and I am twice lucky for the man helped her save me, who is… I never had an older brother before, but he is that to me, now."
"Graham, not sir," Graham said. "Yeah, I've heard a little bit of impossible about Jocelyn's boyfriend. Where is he, anyway?"
"He's off getting lectured by Faith and Angel," I said. "They're… trying to help him get past something that… well, he's mute. From emotional trauma, not physical damage. They think… they think they can help, and since he sort of saved their lives—"
" 'Sort of saved their lives,' are you nuts?" Graham said "Jocelyn, I get briefings on anything inexplicable inside US boundaries, as well as anything that includes the name of anyone associated with Team Slayer. So when Angel, Faith and Helena are on a plane that its pilots both swear was saved by 'a flying man who was wrestling a rocket,' I get the briefing. Add in that Giles told me, when I called to ask if I needed to be looking into it, that the guy saved your life and helped you get Mi Kyong out of North Korea, and he's got super powers right out of a comic book? Yeah, I'm burning up to meet him!"
"Okay, but I'm not sharing him yet," I said, grinning at him (Graham's gay). "And before you get any ideas about swiping him, I'm pretty sure he's hetero."
"Yeah, well, I'm still monogamous myself," Graham said. "And Thomas should be here soon— he was coming in from Arizona, his niece got married yesterday."
"Good," I said. "I want all my friends around that I can get, right now."
"No blame there," Graham said, looking pained. "But… well, I have something for you, honey— maybe it'll cheer you up a little."
He twisted around and grabbed his duffel bag, opened it, and took out a package, a little bulky and wrapped in plain brown paper, handed it to me. I tore the paper off— and found a dark green jacket, military issue, with a removable liner that would let it work as either a jacket or a full-on coat. On the left chest was my last name, on the right, a round, black patch about four inches across, with a red pentagram almost filling it, and a black M-22-B rifle and silver sword crossed over the pentagram. The words "Supernatural Threat Active Response Teams" ran around the whole thing, and below it was a rectangular tag that read "Civilian Attaché: Combat/Intelligence."
I sat and I gawped at that wonderful jacket— you didn't get one of these until you'd earned it!— until Graham nudged me and handed me a second, smaller package. I opened my mouth to thank him, and he said, "Not yet— open this one, first."
I tore open the second one, found an official START cap, decorated with the unit patch and the words "Civilian Attaché: Combat/Intelligence"— and a laminated ID with my picture, name, vital statistics, and, next to the word "Rank" was the classification "Civilian Attaché, CA-5."
"See ay five!?" I gasped. "But… but that makes me like— like a lieutenant!"
"Yes, it does," Graham said, his voice soft and serious. "You see, Giles also had me put out an alert on one Warren Mears, robotic child-murdering bastard— and he told me who figured out that it was him we need to be looking for.
"You earned that rank, Attaché Penobscot, as well as the classification of 'combat-slash-intelligence'— and you'll by-god not argue about it, or you'll find out that you aren't so tough that I can't still give you a spanking!"
I didn't argue— I just hugged him really hard and for a long moment.
Then, warm weather and all, I put that jacket on, delighted to find that it fit perfectly. I put on the hat, too, and it fit just as well. Then Mom and Dad were there, hugging me, and then Mi Kyong, then pretty much everybody else.
People babbled congratulations and such for a minute, and I didn't hear the back door open— but I did notice the wave of silence that came a second or two after it did. I was craning my neck, trying to see what had caused it, and the crowd parted in front of me, letting me see Angel, Faith and Colin walking towards us. Angel and Faith had their arms around each other's waists, and Angel was limping some. Faith had a swollen lip, and there was blood on Angel's upper lip, like he'd had a bloody nose that hadn't been totally cleaned up after.
Colin had the beginnings of a black eye, a big bruise along his jaw, was walking a little stiffly— and his eyes were red and puffy, like he'd been crying.
"Oh my god, what happened!?" I cried, running towards Colin with Mi Kyong and the rest of my family on my heels.
We both hugged him, held on, found him trembling a little.
"Well, we three talked for a while, and things got… a little tense," Angel said. "Then things got a lot heated… then we sort of stopped talking and started hitting each other."
"Are you nu—" I started— but Colin put a finger on my lips, shushing me.
He took my hand and smiled, very slowly— and much more fully than I'd ever seen. He kissed me, very long and very gently, then pulled Mi Kyong over and hugged her tightly.
Then took both of my hands in his— and I got a miracle.
"Jocelyn," Colin said, his voice a little higher than I would have expected, and raspy from disuse, "I love you. God, I love you so much!"
He tried to say more, but couldn't— I was trying to kiss him and everyone else was trying to hug him all at once, and that made it pretty much impossible.
(Even if he could have, I'd never have heard him of the shouts and cheers of our family and friends!)
When I could stop myself from kissing him and the cheering had died down, I said, "How?"
"Faith and Angel," Colin said, his voice low and still raspy. "They… they backed me into a corner, made me see that… that what h-happened to me wasn't… wasn't much compared to things they've been through. I tried to make Angel stop after a while, tried to make him leave me alone, but… he wouldn't. And I…." Colin looked very ashamed for a moment, but told us what had happened anyway. "I hit him. And then they both attacked me, and Angel kept telling me the things… the things he has to feel bad about, and how I was being a spoiled brat by shutting myself off, playing the martyred little boy, and he wouldn't shut up, and finally I just yelled 'shut up and leave me be!'
"He did— and they both backed off, stopped fighting me… and I realized what they'd done, what they'd done for me, and… and here we are."
I managed to make myself let go of Colin— and I hit Faith and Angel in a double-hug a half a second later.
I couldn't say anything, I was too busy crying in relief— but they got it, they understood.
"It's cool, Jocelyn," Faith said. "Colin, he just needed a little 'tough love,' and hey, there ain't many better at that than Angel. I learned from him usin' it on me, so… well, we do kind of owe your guy. Still. Don't argue, Colin— you may be tough, but I'm scary."
"I say we're even," Colin said, coming over and shaking Angel's extended hand. "You may think you owe me, but you can't make me collect."
"This kind of argument, nobody wins," Daddy said. "So table it— but Angel, Faith, I'm buying you dinner, soon."
Everyone thanked Angel and Faith and congratulated Colin, and most people hugged Colin, some Angel, a few Faith (who wasn't so big on hugs as most of everyone else). After fifteen minutes or so, I managed to get Colin kind-of-alone, and I put the question he obviously knew was coming.
"Can you tell us yet?" I asked softly. "Can you tell us… what happened?"
"I could," Colin said. "If you… insist, then I w-will. But I'd like to wait, Jocelyn. Just… until after Alex's f-funeral, maybe a day past it.
"I need to— to g-get it out, I know, b-but… I've dealt with it this long and B-Buffy and Xander, they… they should be who people are thinking about, right now."
"God, I love you," I said. "Okay, I'll wait until after. Thank you for thinking about them."
"That's… easy," Colin said. "They… they've been so damned good to me, all of your family has, and… I don't want to— to take the focus off of k-keeping them sane.
"Jocelyn. I love you. I… I hope you don't get tired of hearing that."
"I may," I said, smiling at him. "But not for at least… oh, maybe ninety years."
"Thank you," Colin said. He looked me up and down, reached out and tapped the bill of my START cap. "What's this? And the jacket?"
We sat in the shade of a tree and I told him about START, and about Graham giving me the jacket, and I promised to introduce him to Graham— later.
For right then, we relaxed in the shade and each others' arms… and told each other we loved each other.
Over and over again.