Author Restive Nature
Disclaimers: I do not own any of the characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel the Series. They belong to the almighty Joss and I just play with them for my own amusement before putting them away neatly.
Spoilers: Buffy Season Three "Amends"
Summary: A teenage girl with mysterious ties to Angel helps him with his Christmas Amends.
Chapter Twenty-two- Pumpkin Patch
Angel squeezed his eyes shut as soon as she said those fateful words. It was one of the more disgusting things that he’d ever done as Angelus. She knew exactly what she was referring to and now he wondered, if she had dreamt of it as the victim, which had she been? He glanced at her, the unspoken question in his eyes.
"I was the little girl," she answered softly. She was tense. She wondered if he would be able to handle reliving this, as she knew he was doing.
"How long?" he choked out.
"Not that long," she assured him. "It was quicker than one would have expected."
*****
London, 1892
Angelus wasn’t in a very good mood. He was on his way back to the lair he shared with the others. And of course, the carriage he was riding in just had to break the wheel axle. He’d drained the driver in a fit of frustration. And of course the damn horse had spooked and run off, falling into a ditch when it couldn’t handle the unbalanced carriage it was attached to. So he didn’t even have a horse to try and ride. So a very irate Angelus was forced to walk.
But to his glee, he soon spotted an isolated farm. Surely someone there would b willing to help the poor lost traveler, who’d narrowly escaped certain death when his horse had bolted. With ease, Angelus carried the dead driver to the spot where the horse had run off the road and with barely a pause, tossed the body in after it. And then, with his human mask firmly in place, he approached the farmstead. He’d affected a limp when he was closer to the building, in case anyone was watching. He always enjoyed adding in the little touches. It made these silly humans trust him that much more.
With a disturbingly sad look on his face, he knocked at the door. It was answered quickly enough. A heavy man opened the door, peering out into the darkness. Angelus leaned against the frame. "Yes?" the man asked when he caught sight of his visitor.
"I’m so very sorry for disturbing you," Angelus nearly purred. "But my carriage overturned in a ditch about half a mile back."
"Oh," the florid faced man didn’t seem inclined to care, so Angelus laid it on a bit thicker.
"My driver," he sighed, "a good man," a slight pause, sad look, "died. His neck was snapped from the fall." Just a little lie. "I was wondering…" And he was invited in. The heavyset man grudgingly helped him limp to a chair. He barked out some orders to his wife, who hurriedly moved to do as bid. Angelus glanced around. A young, teenaged boy sat at the table, unnaturally quiet. A little girl was peeking out from behind a large chair near the stove. Angelus smiled at her, his face not betraying his sudden hunger. But she only ducked further behind the chair. "You have a lovely family," he complimented the woman. She smiled briefly, then glanced at her husband and swiftly finished what he’d ordered done. "In fact," he grinned ferally; "you all look good enough to eat."
He loved the look of puzzlement that crossed all their faces. And before they could react, he’d grabbed the father, let his demon emerge and sank his fangs into the man’s jugular. His hand shot out and caught the boy as he tried to run past. He heard the mother shouting at her children to run. The little girl managed to scamper out the back door, but he wasn’t worried. He dropped the man, and stared at the woman. He relished the begging pleas she made. And as they all did, she offered herself up in exchange for her son’s life. Angelus smiled and nodded. And as she came closer to make the trade, he grabbed her as well. Two warm meals in the hand were better than one, he thought as he drained first her, then the struggling boy.
The blood was thrumming as he surveyed the damage. Now, on to the little girl. She was a bad girl for running away. She should be punished. Made to learn the error of her ways. And with that in mind, Angelus gathered up the boy and carried him to what he presumed was the bedroom. He laid the boy out on the bed, then turned and went to find the girl. He was sure she couldn’t have gotten too far, and he was right. He tracked her down to the vegetable garden, not far from the house. She was cowering among the pumpkins growing there, holding her ankle, tears streaming down her face.
"Well now," he grinned at her, squatting before her. "You’ve been a bad girl, haven’t you?" He was surprised when she nodded, but it didn’t really matter. His hand shot out and pulled her close to him. She couldn’t have been more than four or five. He stood, holding her high in his arms. He carried her back to the house, and stopped before the bodies of her parents. "Look what happened now because you ran away," he gestured to the bodies. He relished the little whimper that came out of her mouth. "Families should always stay together," he took on a lecturing tone. She whimpered again. He then carried her into the bedroom. "And look at your poor brother. Maybe if you hadn’t run away, I wouldn’t have had to kill him." She was openly crying now.
He set her on the bed beside the boy. "Well, we’ll just have to teach you a lesson then, won’t we?" He grinned cruelly. He glanced about the room. "A very important lesson little one. You should always protect your family. But you ran away and your mother couldn’t protect him without you." He paused and knelt beside the bed. "Do you love your brother?" he taunted. She nodded. "Then you should stay with him." She nodded again. He grinned. This was absurdly easy. "Well, I don’t quite trust you not to run away again. I’ll just have to find some way of keeping you here." And he pulled the dagger he kept secreted in his inner coat pocket He let the girl admire it for a moment before reaching over her to slice her brother’s abdomen open. There was a muffled shriek, but he didn’t let it distract him.
It wasn’t as good as rope, he decided after he was done. But infinitely more appealing from an artistic point of view. And he did so love art. The picture the girl made tied to her brother through blood and entrails was exquisite. "There," he smiled. "Now you’ll never be apart." And shutting out the pitiful noises she was making, made his way out of the house. Now to find a way back to the lair. Surely the old man had some sort of transportation he could use.
*****
"God," he sighed, trying to shake the memory out of his head, "what I did to her…"
"You saved her," Dylan interrupted quietly. He stared at her, gaping in his shock. He made to protest, but she was swifter. "You did, in the long run. Did you never wonder why they were so easily cowed? Why she agreed with you when you called her a bad girl?" He nodded mute. He had wondered briefly at the time. "It was because she’d already heard it from her father so many times that she believed it."
"He was abusive?"
"Yes," she confirmed. "Physically… and sexually."
"You dreamed that?" he demanded.
"Not to her," she clarified. "To her brother." His face went even paler than normal. "Angel listen. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but their death was better than their lives. If you hadn’t killed them, imagine what they would have turned out to be."
"No," he disagreed immediately. "That woman, those children didn’t deserve death, or torture." He sighed. "Their father, maybe. If I had just killed him…"
"Then those children would still have miserable lives," she countered. "That boy was already seriously messed up. He’d been abused for too long to let go. We know now that that kind of abuse creates a viscious cycle. He would have been an abuser most likely when he grew up because he knew nothing else. And that woman, how would she have provided for her children? By whoring herself out? And that little girl? I said it didn’t take long for her to die. Because she was already malnourished and had taken some pretty nasty knocks from her father before you arrived that night. She was bleeding internally and probably would have died that night anyway. All you did was put her together with the one person she did love."
He was aghast at hearing the details that she lived with. "Okay," he conceded, "that’s one time, but the rest…"
"The rest all have stories of their own," Dylan shrugged. "Sometimes the victims didn’t deserve it, sometimes they did. It’s not really for you or me to say. But I know, if I had the choice, I’d rather be dead and in Heaven than miserable and alone on this Earth."
"You think they went to Heaven?" he smiled sadly. Heaven didn’t exist to him.
"I think they went somewhere warm and safe, where they could be truly happy," Dylan breathed deeply. "And you were the one that got them there."
"That’s a nice thought," he mused, "but I don’t know that I believe it."
"Maybe Heaven is just a state of mind," Dylan continued. "Or maybe it’s a real place that we go to when we’re done down here. There are a lot of possibilities. I know I’d do anything to achieve some sort of peace. If we can get a little taste of it while we’re down here, why not grab it with both hands?" Angel stared at her. This was what she’d been trying to convey the whole time. Horrible things had happened, but she had learned to make peace with them, for the sake of her own sanity. Didn’t he need to do the same thing?
"You’ve given me a lot to think about," he mused. She nodded. He rose to his feet. "Maybe I should get going and let you get some sleep."
"I’d agree," Dylan grinned, "except for one thing." He looked at her, puzzled. "You never did say exactly why you came over here." He thought back to what had brought him over.
"Oh, the painting," he recalled.
"What about it?" Dylan smiled.
"It was wonderful," he complimented her. "I had no idea you were so talented."
"Recent development," she joked. "You mentioned a favor?"
"That’s right," he nodded. "I was just wondering if I could get a copy of it for Buffy." He saw her face tighten up. "I could pay you for your time. That wouldn’t be a problem."
"No," she denied, waving the offer away. "It’s not that. I just don’t think she’d wanted to be reminded of that time."
"What time is that?" he sank back down to the sofa. Perhaps now the little mystery of the pose they’d been in would be solved.
"Right after Acathla," Dylan explained. "You see, after you were gone, my dreams didn’t stop. But some of them, I think, were her dreams. I don’t know how that happened, but it did. Maybe because you guys were so closely connected." They both pondered that for a moment. "Any way, she had these dreams of you, but they always had to end. And I’m sure I’ll never know, but I can imagine how hard that time was for her." Angel nodded. He could only imagine her pain as well. "But, you think about it. If you think Buffy can handle it and would like a copy of that portrait, I’ll sure do it."
He smiled broadly. They stood again and moved to the door. "Dylan," he spoke softly, his voice thick with emotion. He stared down at this young woman before him; so much stronger than he would ever believed a normal human could be. "Thank you," he whispered, "for everything."
"You’re welcome," she smiled up at him. And then slid her arms around his waist for a quick squeeze. He hugged her back and with one last smile, slipped out into the night.
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