Back in the Day: Caledonia.
Title: 'Caledonia'
Written For: violetsmiles
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2,053 words
Spoilers: Midway through season one of 'Angel', very much for 'Hero'
Request: Angel and Doyle, not necessarily slash, drinking is key
###
Now I’m sitting here before the fire,
The empty room and the forest choir...
The flames that couldn’t get any higher
They’ve withered now, they've gone.
But I’m steady thinking, my way is clear,
And I know what I will do tomorrow
When the hands have shaken and the kisses flown, I will disappear...
-- Dougie MacLean, ‘Caledonia’.
*
“Finally got you to the bar, didn’t I?” Doyle smirked and raised his mug in a toast, half-mocking, half-greeting. Behind him, a chorus had broken out among the tables at the back of the room -- half a dozen men singing ‘The Tailor’s Daughter’ in ragged, uneven harmony. Angel hadn’t heard that song in years. Something about the lyrics...
Still, there were other matters at hand. “Doyle?”
“In the flesh. So to speak.” Doyle waved a hand, indicating the place next to him. “Saved you a spot of honour, didn’t I? Come on, Angel, sit down. There’s no place for stuffiness tonight. Not while I’m having my big ceilidh.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before,” Angel said, settling uneasily. Something about the whole situation was nagging at him: something was wrong. With the whole situation, the windowless bar, the chorus that had expanded by another fifteen people, all of them singing ‘She Moved Through the Faire’ in between vast gulps of beer.
“Say what?”
“Ceilidh.”
“Well, it’s my party, isn’t it? Not being pretentious and shoving fancy Gaelic words into everyday conversation if I call my party what I like, is it?” Doyle smiled, the expression wistful and wry and sad, all at once. “Just wish Cordy could’ve made it in. That would’ve been perfect. Cordelia Chase, standing on that stage,” he nodded towards the back of the bar, “belting out some horribly drunken, off-key old Irish ditty, with maybe enough beer in her to give me a kiss at the end. That would’ve been...perfect.”
“Where are we?” Angel’s uneasiness was growing with every minute that passed. He didn’t remember leaving his bedroom, coming to this strange, dark bar where the air smelled of smoke and mint and whiskey and the people smelled of nothing at all. There was a piece missing somewhere in the middle, and he didn’t like that; he didn’t like it at all.
“A place you never got to go, boyo, but they let me have a guest or two,” Doyle said, and smiled again, and sipped his beer. “Get a drink. They’ve the blood of saints on tap here.”
“What?”
“Just drink.”
Angel looked up to order, and a barmaid in a short, stereotypically ‘I am the American ideal of Irish sex’ green and white lace uniform flounced by, leaving a mug of something hot and red on the bar beside his elbow. He picked it up, frowning after her, trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. All that red hair...
“How is Cordelia, anyway? She bearing up all right?”
Angel looked back to Doyle, and frowned. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? Why isn’t she here?” there was something he was forgetting about Doyle; something that would make this all make sense, something that connected to the red-haired barmaid who was now leaning over to take orders from the table of singers, laughing at some ribald comment he only halfway-overheard. “They still use that old line about ‘kissing my Blarney Stone’?”
“Our Cordy doesn’t fit the entrance requirements. Not by half, and I’m fairly glad of that one.” Doyle raised his mug and took another drink, noting, “That’s Annabelle over there, in the frilly pants. Nice girl. Dresses that way to suit the tourists, you should say hello before the party’s over. She was mighty pleased when she heard you’d be coming to join us tonight.”
“Kiss my Blarney Stone...” Angel muttered, and took his first drink. The taste of the blood was ice and whiskey on his tongue, ancient stone and older sky, loam and loneliness and the quiet madness of the heath -- it was like tasting the home he’d left behind.
And he remembered everything.
Putting the mug slowly down, he turned towards Doyle, who was watching him with a small, almost gentle smile on his face. “You’re dead,” he said, aware that the words were almost an accusation but unsure of how else they could be given. It wasn’t like asking someone if they were moving or if they wanted to see a movie; it was a statement of fact, it was everything and more, it was the end of everything. It was the finish.
“Took you long enough, didn’t it? And look who’s talking, might I add; you’ve been dead longer than I was alive.” Doyle leaned over to pat him comfortingly on the arm. His hand was surprisingly solid -- he didn’t feel like a ghost. He felt like a man who you’d sit with for a drink, a friend, a compatriot.
A hero.
“I saw you die,” Angel insisted, slowly. “What’s going on, Doyle? Where are we?”
“We’re at the bar for my last big party, Angel. The ceilidh before I move on. Should’ve been my mum’s old kitchen -- big enough for twenty, soup on the stove -- but this is close enough.” His smile was satisfied this time, as he drained the mug and put it aside on the bar, ready for a refill. “This is more than close enough.”
“This is your wake.”
“Finally got it. Nail on the head and everything.”
“And Cordelia...”
“Isn’t here because she isn’t dead. Right. Normally they’d not let you be here either, on account of your too, too solid flesh, but they’ve made an exception for me, seeing as how it wouldn’t have been a party without you. You weren’t a half-bad friend, you know. I wanted you to see me off.”
Angel glanced around the bar again. The singers had moved on to ‘The Trees They Do Grow High’, and Annabelle the barmaid smiled at him as he looked her way, winking. She could’ve been the very picture of the ideal of Ireland, red and green and young but with an old, old smile, if it hadn’t been for her eyes. They were gray as the stones of Tara, and she looked at him like she knew him.
“I get to leave when the party’s over, right?” Angel asked, and took another drink from his mug as he turned back to Doyle.
“Of course you do, Angel. I just wanted you to say goodbye proper, not come with me. Irish funeral, my friend, not Viking.” A fresh drink arrived, again dropped off by the barmaid with the ancient gray eyes, and she was gone again before Angel could try to catch her. “Come evening, you’ll wake sound and tight in your bed, and I’ll be gone. May flights of angels sing me to my rest, hey?”
“Better than that crowd,” Angel said, looking towards the singers. They’d launched into a song he didn’t know, although he recognized the old name for Scotland. “They can’t even get the country right.”
“That one’s a request, actually,” said Doyle, smile finally slipping enough for Angel to see the mourning behind the mirth. That was how it always was back home, wasn’t it? Joy overlain on top of sorrow like sugar over the top of a cake, sweet as anything, until you bit down deeply. “I’m going home, Angel. Whether I’m ready for it or not, I’m going home.” Then the smile was back, sharp and sweet as sugar frosting, forcing the sadness away. “But tonight’s no night for that. Tonight we sing and drink, and remember a damn good life that ended in a damn bright blaze.” He slammed down half of his mug in one long pull, and Angel looked away, giving him his moment.
“Cordelia would’ve hated this,” he said, watching the singers as they laughed, losing the melody and punching one another in the arms. “She’d have called it tacky. I don’t know why you’d want her here.”
Doyle sipped his drink, grimaced and put the mug aside. “That’s exactly why I want her here. Because she’s Cordelia. There’s a sort of beauty in anything that can be what it is quite so...firmly.”
“She’s a special one.”
“Oh, yeah. Take care of her for me, won’t you? Since she’ll be bereft without my sweet, sweet love to ease her days.”
“She never had your sweet, sweet love to begin with, Doyle.”
“No, but there was always the chance, wasn’t there? Always that potential.” Doyle looked up as Annabelle moved to stand behind him, resting her hand on his shoulder. “Hello, lovely. It’s not time, is it?”
“I’m afraid it is, love. Time enough and more.” Her voice was as iconic as the rest of her, all smooth plains and deep, rolling valleys, and not for the first time, Angel remembered that some things become cliche not because they’re intrinsically overdone, but because they’re eternal. Like Irish bars and red-haired women with old, old eyes. She looked at him, and she smiled. “Hello, Liam. It’s nice to see you. You’ve not changed a bit, have you?”
“Have we met?”
“Not recently, no, and not that you’d remember.” Her smile was sweet and sad, like everything about Ireland. Like Doyle, who was watching her with longing and fear fighting for dominance in his eyes. “I was there when you were born. When you die again, now that you’ve a soul to call your own, I’ll host your party. Because you were always an angel to me.”
“I’m afraid that if she says my leave is taken, it’s taking it I’ll be,” Doyle said, and sighed, and rose. “It was a good party, Angel -- all of it. Got me killed, but it was still a good party, and that’s what matters the most, isn’t it? That we had a good time before the ropes came down.” He rubbed his face with one hand. “I’ll just be off, then.”
“Doyle...”
“Yeah?”
“She misses you. Cordelia really misses you.”
Doyle blinked once, then smiled, bright as the sunrise over Limerick. “Really? I knew she couldn’t resist me.”
“Mostly because she wants to hit you for giving her the visions. But she misses you.”
“You’re a good man, Angel. A good man. Now hold fast through what’s coming; you’ve miles to go before I come to see you here again.” Doyle leaned over and hugged him before he could react, then turned, walking to the table of singers. They broke off their tune mid-verse, laughing, and rose, and led him to the door.
“He was thrilled that we could get you here. It’s a wee bit of against the rules, but you only die once. At least most folks only die once.” Annabelle’s voice was soft, and amused.
Angel looked back to her, frowning. “What are you?”
She shrugged. “Hostess? Barmaid, barkeeper, friend, confidante...whatever you need me to be, while you’re here. It’s my job to see the heroes safely home. A specialized calling, even among my kind, but no less honourable for all of that.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I don’t have to, technically, but you’ve been away long enough that I’ll forgive you for forgetting.” She smiled at him, shaking her head, and said, “Banshee. Of a specialized sort, but a psychopomp all the same.”
“That’s how you brought me here.”
“At a dead man’s last request, yes. Don’t question too hard, Liam. Doyle got his last drink and you got your farewell -- we’ll keep his grave in the shroud of the foggy dew, even a thousand miles and more from home and only dust beside.” Annabelle touched his cheek, fingers gentle and cool, then moved away. “The sun will be down soon, and you can go.
“Thank you for coming.”
She stepped away from him and she moved through the bar; he watched her go, and picked up his drink, and sipped, waiting.
From outside, the sound of singing drifted back, and then was silent.
*
Let me tell you that I love you
And I think about you all the time;
Caledonia, you’re calling me, and now I’m going home.
But if I should become a stranger
You know that it would make me more than sad.
Caledonia’s been everything I’ve ever had.
Written For: violetsmiles
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2,053 words
Spoilers: Midway through season one of 'Angel', very much for 'Hero'
Request: Angel and Doyle, not necessarily slash, drinking is key
###
Now I’m sitting here before the fire,
The empty room and the forest choir...
The flames that couldn’t get any higher
They’ve withered now, they've gone.
But I’m steady thinking, my way is clear,
And I know what I will do tomorrow
When the hands have shaken and the kisses flown, I will disappear...
-- Dougie MacLean, ‘Caledonia’.
*
“Finally got you to the bar, didn’t I?” Doyle smirked and raised his mug in a toast, half-mocking, half-greeting. Behind him, a chorus had broken out among the tables at the back of the room -- half a dozen men singing ‘The Tailor’s Daughter’ in ragged, uneven harmony. Angel hadn’t heard that song in years. Something about the lyrics...
Still, there were other matters at hand. “Doyle?”
“In the flesh. So to speak.” Doyle waved a hand, indicating the place next to him. “Saved you a spot of honour, didn’t I? Come on, Angel, sit down. There’s no place for stuffiness tonight. Not while I’m having my big ceilidh.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before,” Angel said, settling uneasily. Something about the whole situation was nagging at him: something was wrong. With the whole situation, the windowless bar, the chorus that had expanded by another fifteen people, all of them singing ‘She Moved Through the Faire’ in between vast gulps of beer.
“Say what?”
“Ceilidh.”
“Well, it’s my party, isn’t it? Not being pretentious and shoving fancy Gaelic words into everyday conversation if I call my party what I like, is it?” Doyle smiled, the expression wistful and wry and sad, all at once. “Just wish Cordy could’ve made it in. That would’ve been perfect. Cordelia Chase, standing on that stage,” he nodded towards the back of the bar, “belting out some horribly drunken, off-key old Irish ditty, with maybe enough beer in her to give me a kiss at the end. That would’ve been...perfect.”
“Where are we?” Angel’s uneasiness was growing with every minute that passed. He didn’t remember leaving his bedroom, coming to this strange, dark bar where the air smelled of smoke and mint and whiskey and the people smelled of nothing at all. There was a piece missing somewhere in the middle, and he didn’t like that; he didn’t like it at all.
“A place you never got to go, boyo, but they let me have a guest or two,” Doyle said, and smiled again, and sipped his beer. “Get a drink. They’ve the blood of saints on tap here.”
“What?”
“Just drink.”
Angel looked up to order, and a barmaid in a short, stereotypically ‘I am the American ideal of Irish sex’ green and white lace uniform flounced by, leaving a mug of something hot and red on the bar beside his elbow. He picked it up, frowning after her, trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. All that red hair...
“How is Cordelia, anyway? She bearing up all right?”
Angel looked back to Doyle, and frowned. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? Why isn’t she here?” there was something he was forgetting about Doyle; something that would make this all make sense, something that connected to the red-haired barmaid who was now leaning over to take orders from the table of singers, laughing at some ribald comment he only halfway-overheard. “They still use that old line about ‘kissing my Blarney Stone’?”
“Our Cordy doesn’t fit the entrance requirements. Not by half, and I’m fairly glad of that one.” Doyle raised his mug and took another drink, noting, “That’s Annabelle over there, in the frilly pants. Nice girl. Dresses that way to suit the tourists, you should say hello before the party’s over. She was mighty pleased when she heard you’d be coming to join us tonight.”
“Kiss my Blarney Stone...” Angel muttered, and took his first drink. The taste of the blood was ice and whiskey on his tongue, ancient stone and older sky, loam and loneliness and the quiet madness of the heath -- it was like tasting the home he’d left behind.
And he remembered everything.
Putting the mug slowly down, he turned towards Doyle, who was watching him with a small, almost gentle smile on his face. “You’re dead,” he said, aware that the words were almost an accusation but unsure of how else they could be given. It wasn’t like asking someone if they were moving or if they wanted to see a movie; it was a statement of fact, it was everything and more, it was the end of everything. It was the finish.
“Took you long enough, didn’t it? And look who’s talking, might I add; you’ve been dead longer than I was alive.” Doyle leaned over to pat him comfortingly on the arm. His hand was surprisingly solid -- he didn’t feel like a ghost. He felt like a man who you’d sit with for a drink, a friend, a compatriot.
A hero.
“I saw you die,” Angel insisted, slowly. “What’s going on, Doyle? Where are we?”
“We’re at the bar for my last big party, Angel. The ceilidh before I move on. Should’ve been my mum’s old kitchen -- big enough for twenty, soup on the stove -- but this is close enough.” His smile was satisfied this time, as he drained the mug and put it aside on the bar, ready for a refill. “This is more than close enough.”
“This is your wake.”
“Finally got it. Nail on the head and everything.”
“And Cordelia...”
“Isn’t here because she isn’t dead. Right. Normally they’d not let you be here either, on account of your too, too solid flesh, but they’ve made an exception for me, seeing as how it wouldn’t have been a party without you. You weren’t a half-bad friend, you know. I wanted you to see me off.”
Angel glanced around the bar again. The singers had moved on to ‘The Trees They Do Grow High’, and Annabelle the barmaid smiled at him as he looked her way, winking. She could’ve been the very picture of the ideal of Ireland, red and green and young but with an old, old smile, if it hadn’t been for her eyes. They were gray as the stones of Tara, and she looked at him like she knew him.
“I get to leave when the party’s over, right?” Angel asked, and took another drink from his mug as he turned back to Doyle.
“Of course you do, Angel. I just wanted you to say goodbye proper, not come with me. Irish funeral, my friend, not Viking.” A fresh drink arrived, again dropped off by the barmaid with the ancient gray eyes, and she was gone again before Angel could try to catch her. “Come evening, you’ll wake sound and tight in your bed, and I’ll be gone. May flights of angels sing me to my rest, hey?”
“Better than that crowd,” Angel said, looking towards the singers. They’d launched into a song he didn’t know, although he recognized the old name for Scotland. “They can’t even get the country right.”
“That one’s a request, actually,” said Doyle, smile finally slipping enough for Angel to see the mourning behind the mirth. That was how it always was back home, wasn’t it? Joy overlain on top of sorrow like sugar over the top of a cake, sweet as anything, until you bit down deeply. “I’m going home, Angel. Whether I’m ready for it or not, I’m going home.” Then the smile was back, sharp and sweet as sugar frosting, forcing the sadness away. “But tonight’s no night for that. Tonight we sing and drink, and remember a damn good life that ended in a damn bright blaze.” He slammed down half of his mug in one long pull, and Angel looked away, giving him his moment.
“Cordelia would’ve hated this,” he said, watching the singers as they laughed, losing the melody and punching one another in the arms. “She’d have called it tacky. I don’t know why you’d want her here.”
Doyle sipped his drink, grimaced and put the mug aside. “That’s exactly why I want her here. Because she’s Cordelia. There’s a sort of beauty in anything that can be what it is quite so...firmly.”
“She’s a special one.”
“Oh, yeah. Take care of her for me, won’t you? Since she’ll be bereft without my sweet, sweet love to ease her days.”
“She never had your sweet, sweet love to begin with, Doyle.”
“No, but there was always the chance, wasn’t there? Always that potential.” Doyle looked up as Annabelle moved to stand behind him, resting her hand on his shoulder. “Hello, lovely. It’s not time, is it?”
“I’m afraid it is, love. Time enough and more.” Her voice was as iconic as the rest of her, all smooth plains and deep, rolling valleys, and not for the first time, Angel remembered that some things become cliche not because they’re intrinsically overdone, but because they’re eternal. Like Irish bars and red-haired women with old, old eyes. She looked at him, and she smiled. “Hello, Liam. It’s nice to see you. You’ve not changed a bit, have you?”
“Have we met?”
“Not recently, no, and not that you’d remember.” Her smile was sweet and sad, like everything about Ireland. Like Doyle, who was watching her with longing and fear fighting for dominance in his eyes. “I was there when you were born. When you die again, now that you’ve a soul to call your own, I’ll host your party. Because you were always an angel to me.”
“I’m afraid that if she says my leave is taken, it’s taking it I’ll be,” Doyle said, and sighed, and rose. “It was a good party, Angel -- all of it. Got me killed, but it was still a good party, and that’s what matters the most, isn’t it? That we had a good time before the ropes came down.” He rubbed his face with one hand. “I’ll just be off, then.”
“Doyle...”
“Yeah?”
“She misses you. Cordelia really misses you.”
Doyle blinked once, then smiled, bright as the sunrise over Limerick. “Really? I knew she couldn’t resist me.”
“Mostly because she wants to hit you for giving her the visions. But she misses you.”
“You’re a good man, Angel. A good man. Now hold fast through what’s coming; you’ve miles to go before I come to see you here again.” Doyle leaned over and hugged him before he could react, then turned, walking to the table of singers. They broke off their tune mid-verse, laughing, and rose, and led him to the door.
“He was thrilled that we could get you here. It’s a wee bit of against the rules, but you only die once. At least most folks only die once.” Annabelle’s voice was soft, and amused.
Angel looked back to her, frowning. “What are you?”
She shrugged. “Hostess? Barmaid, barkeeper, friend, confidante...whatever you need me to be, while you’re here. It’s my job to see the heroes safely home. A specialized calling, even among my kind, but no less honourable for all of that.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I don’t have to, technically, but you’ve been away long enough that I’ll forgive you for forgetting.” She smiled at him, shaking her head, and said, “Banshee. Of a specialized sort, but a psychopomp all the same.”
“That’s how you brought me here.”
“At a dead man’s last request, yes. Don’t question too hard, Liam. Doyle got his last drink and you got your farewell -- we’ll keep his grave in the shroud of the foggy dew, even a thousand miles and more from home and only dust beside.” Annabelle touched his cheek, fingers gentle and cool, then moved away. “The sun will be down soon, and you can go.
“Thank you for coming.”
She stepped away from him and she moved through the bar; he watched her go, and picked up his drink, and sipped, waiting.
From outside, the sound of singing drifted back, and then was silent.
*
Let me tell you that I love you
And I think about you all the time;
Caledonia, you’re calling me, and now I’m going home.
But if I should become a stranger
You know that it would make me more than sad.
Caledonia’s been everything I’ve ever had.