Rating: PG
Content: Some not G language
Spoilers: Through Hero
Summary: Angels not dealing well with Doyles death. All sorts of angsty.
Disclaimer: Joss giveth and Joss taketh away. I am but a lowly fanfic
writer wishing it never happened.
by: Cedar
"Forgive the hero, you who would have died gladly, with all you knew."
--Richard Purdy Wilbur
I was ready. It was almost welcome. After this much time and this much pain,
there was a clear ending. Besides, it's my job. Yet another deed in the name
of atonement, a nice large one to end the day with.
If it wasn't enough, and I went to Hell… well, I had done it before.
It meant leaving Buffy, but God knows I had done that more than once. It
should have been for forever the first time. This time it would have been.
So I was ready. And I stood there and you knew what I was going to do. And
I knew I could trust you to take care of things afterwards. You would get
the boat on its way, watch out for Cordelia, notify…everyone who needed
to know. I hoped you'd keep the office, keep up the Investigations, find
your own atonement. I was just waiting long enough to thank you, Doyle. I
was ready, and I trusted you.
Then you hit me. Bastard. Decked me so hard you knocked me off the platform.
I was falling, and idiotically, I was only thinking, "Brakken demons are
that strong?" But why you'd done it hit me at the same time as the floor
of the boat did. And I roared at you to stop and you didn't listen, damn
it. It was my job and I was ready.
I looked up in time to see you kiss Cordelia. And I was thinking, when Doyle
plays hero, he does it in style. But you weren't playing. I knew, even as
I raced back up to the balcony, that I was going to be too late. You weren't
going to let me do my job.
So instead I had watch you jump. Watch you die as you pulled that plug, die
in determination and in screaming angony. The only man on this earth to who
counted me as his friend. Immolated in front of me. It would have been so
much, much easier to have done it myself. I was ready.
You took my chance to die, to end it. Damn it, why does everyone keep stealing
that chance from me? And you left me here to pick up the pieces. You took
over thing I'm best at and left me with the thing I'm worst at.
It's all part of the plan, isn't it Doyle? It's not enough that I save people,
I have to comfort them too. You ran off with the job I was ready for and
left me here. With Cordelia. A woman with the guts to tell off a vampire,
now standing there, shuddering. She was crying, but far worse, she had that
empty look. The look that people get when their mind is afraid to process
a situation, because they don't know how deep their pain will go, and they
don't want to find out. Damn it, Doyle. You could have done something for
her. Hell, you would have enjoyed it. I just held on to her, helplessly,
uselessly.
You left me with the boat. The boat of half-demons who thanked me for bringing
them their Promised One. You could have told that boy that I was ready. That
I was glad to die to save him. All I could do was nod at them, tell the captain
to leave the moment Cordelia and I were off the boat. I turned back to the
leader and the boy before we left. It was a moment for an Irish blessing,
one with both sorrow and hope. But I'm silent brooding guy, remember? I don't
do rhetoric. I said, "He gave you chance. Use it." What I wanted to say was,
"It should have been me."
Cordelia hasn't spoken since you kissed her. Congratulations, Doyle. You
found a way to shut her up: put her into shock. I brought her back to the
office. I didn't think she should be alone. I didn't think I should be alone.
So we sat there in the office. In silence. Alone together.
You realized there was more to her than looks, didn't you? Realized it right
away. I knew her three years before I got it. She's brave, and she's honest,
and she's nobody's fool. Shock is easy. Your body lies to you, tells you
there's no pain, as long as you don't process it. Cordelia allowed herself
half an hour of that kind of peace. That's it.
Then she dragged me to the couch, put the tape in her high-8 player, and
put you back in front of our eyes. We watched it through, in silence. And
she still had that empty look. So she rewound your commercial, and we watched
it again. And again. And around the fifth time, she broke. She refused to
kid herself with numbness, and she figured out how to kick her brain back
into gear, and she pushed herself until she crumbled.
And now I'm sitting here watching her cry. She's sobbing just like she did
when the ghost woman got to her and I'm just as ineffectual as I was that
time. I just pat her back, helplessly, uselessly.
But she'll make it. Anyone strong enough to punch their way out of shock
like that will make it. She'll pull herself together and say something nasty
and she'll get back to living. Because she likes being alive and she deserves
a chance to be happy.
Just like you liked being alive and you deserved a chance to be happy.
But I'm already dead. And happiness is the one thing I can never, ever afford.
Doyle, that was my job there on that boat. And damn it, I was ready.
The End