The penultimate chapter of my second BtVS/Xena crossover fic
Previous story in this series: Even Archangels Get the Blues
Previous chapters in this story, "Apocalypse, Now and Then":
1. To Send a Message
2. Waste Not, Want Not
3. War...What is it Good For?
4. Dying is Easy; Comedy is Hard
5. Apokalypsis, or Dropping the Veils
Or see Twisting the Hellmouth for both stories in their entirety.
APOCALYPSE, NOW AND THEN
Chapter Six: “Working Out Your Own Salvation”
I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.
John Milton, Comus. Line 560.
Still in Angel's corner of reality, but a few minutes earlier . . .
When he finally managed to track down Angel’s scent in the midst of the many competing and even less appealing odors of recently dead demons and burning dumpsters, Spike found his annoying grand-sire deep in conversation with the very same winged interloper that he’d half-intended to warn Angel against, when he'd left the storeroom. Now, it didn't look as though any warning would be necessary.
In fact, Spike seemed to have completely missed out on the rest of the violence, just as he'd feared, and if Angel had already started on the post-battle, 'I'm-so-noble-and-I've-got-to-talk-about-it' speech-making phase, then William the Formerly Bloody would just as soon give it a miss. Neither Angel nor the real deal in the fancy silver breastplate had looked in his direction yet, so Spike figured he might be able to toddle off, without having to exchange what passed for pleasantries between him and Angel.
Maybe he should try to find Blue, instead? If the great ponce had survived the battle, surely she had, as well, and if there was any one left to fight, anywhere, Spike knew that Illyria would be in the thick of it.
No, Illyria could wait. Gunn’s survival was still uncertain, and he’d as good as promised Charlie-boy that he’d be coming back with help. In this current state of reality, the fact that Gunn had technically been unconscious and unable to hear Spike’s promise didn’t seem to matter at all.
His word had to be made good . . . even if it meant asking that winged advertisement for “What Not to Wear” to help them get back to the human world and human medical care. Bugger! Spike’s less than flattering thoughts about the archangel didn’t stop him from stepping forward, however.
After all, it’s what she would want him to do.
And no, at this moment he wasn’t sure which ‘she’ he meant: Buffy, or that dark-haired warrior woman in the black leather, whom he somehow remembered loving with all his soul. Maybe he meant both of them?
Spike shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it of more of those disturbing memories that couldn’t possibly have been his, because they obviously belonged to that blonde with the bare midriff and the twin swords. Pity, though.
Stop it! Spike told himself. Focus on the here and now, William, wherever and whenever this is. Get help for Gunn first. Fantasize about Buffy in black leather later.
Wait? What was it the real angel was saying to the ponce? Something about going beyond your limitations for the sake of love, and how that stirs up notice in the higher realms as well as in the lower ones.
“... they go to some lengths to make the cost of courage so high that no-one will ever want to pay it twice.
“But you’ve figured that part out for yourself, haven’t you, . . . Spike? Or would you prefer to go by ‘Gabrielle’ again?”
Gabrielle. Yes, that’s who he used to be. How could he have forgotten? Somehow, that confirmation filled Spike with a sense of peace, instead of the horror or denial he’d been trying to drum up earlier.
Of course, it helped that hearing the name “Gabrielle” applied to himself seemed to have sent Angel into some kind of seizure, disgust warring with too many other emotions for his face to settle on any expression. Causing Angel to have an apoplexy just never got old - not even in this little pocket of heaven, Spike realized.
“We may have to give Ares, here, a moment to adjust,” the archangel remarked.
And suddenly Spike wasn’t too sure that his own face wouldn’t stay stuck like that, as all the rest of the pieces of his first incarnation fell into place, one after another . . . including the realization that if Angel was Ares, then the soul of Buffy Summers could have come from only one source.
Xena! She’s here, on this earth! I know where I’m supposed to be, finally. It was that simple.
Or not. After all, Gabrielle was a hero, and heroes don’t let their friends bleed to death because they got distracted. The joys of being a bloody white hat, eh?
“Fun as this little trip down ‘Memory Lane, B.C.’ might be,” Spike said with a sidelong glance at Angel, whose face was slowly regaining its natural lack of color, “Gunn is in urgent need of a hospital. I don’t suppose you could help us with that, could you, Michael? Like, now? Unless you’d like to break out a little miracle, and just heal him, ‘cause that would also work for me.”
“You always were pretty single-minded in defense of your friends,” Michael observed. “But no miracle should be necessary, this time around: no restored soul, no escape from hell, no impossible birth - not even a snowfall in Southern California. My colleagues and I will be returning home, now, and as soon as we depart this pocket of reality will return to normal. The ambulances have already been dispatched, and they should be able to get Gunn to the help he needs.”
Michael turned to exchange a private word with Angel, but then couldn’t resist adding, “Don’t worry - given all the strange sights in this part of L.A. right now, I don’t think the medical personnel will even blink at that wound dressing you made from Fyarl mucus.”
Spike/Gabrielle shrugged and headed back to Gunn, intent on flagging down help as soon as it arrived. In any incarnation, he/she found Michael’s sense of humor somewhat obscure on the rare occasions when it showed.
I guess that’s Angels for you, Spike reflected. Even the real ones probably wouldn’t recognize ‘funny’ if it hit them over the head, much less former war gods turned sick-o vampires turned brooding menaces who happened to share the name.
-----------------------------------
Meanwhile, back on Angel's side of the alley . . .
“You know, I think Gabrielle can be a little obnoxious in this incarnation,” Michael told Angel, who managed to refrain from replying, “Duh!” only through what he thought of as a Herculean act of self-restraint.
Oh, right: ‘Herculean’. Ha-ha. Speaking of obnoxious family members . . . . No, don’t go there, Angel/Ares told himself. This night’s already been disturbing enough.
“I’ll take my leave now, Angel,” Michael said with a smile that struck Angel as slightly unsettling, under the circumstances. “Don’t forget your friend Cordelia’s, uh, ‘words of wisdom’ once I’m gone. The conscious memories of your past incarnations will fade away pretty quickly, after you return to normal space-time, but you should be able to remember everything else, including most of our conversation about redemptive acts of courage and love.”
Angel was tempted to protest the loss of his Ares memories (they were part of him, after all, and what right did the Powers have to take them away again?), but quickly thought better of it. As Angel, he didn’t need any more bloodbaths to brood over.
Maybe it was time to let a lot of his past go, come to think of it. Not that he would forget all those lives he’d destroyed as Angelus, but perhaps after this he’d try to spend more time and effort helping his surviving friends re-build their lives, and less of it obsessing over things he couldn’t change.
“I’ll . . . think about it,” he told the archangel.
Michael’s smile became even wider. “You might be qualified to brood for Ireland in the next Olympic games, Angel, but at least you do think - something you rarely did as Ares, if that’s any comfort.”
“Not really, but thanks . . . I guess,” Angel replied.
Almost before the last word was out of his mouth, Michael disappeared from his sight as suddenly as the archangel and his friends had first appeared. Looking around, Angel realized that all the other armed representatives of the heavenly host had also departed at some point. Then his sensitive vampire hearing picked up the sound of traffic from nearby streets, something that had been absent while the battle was being fought.
Things were back to normal. Well, normal for L.A., that is.
Angel had the feeling that there was something he really needed to remember - maybe something the archangel had said to Spike just a few minutes ago? No, what would an archangel have to say to that bleached thorn in his side and part-time idiot? Oh, well. It would come back to him in time, whatever it was.
In the meantime, he had friends to find, people to take care of. That was the most important thing, after all.
Angel didn’t know exactly why, but somehow his soul felt lighter than it had done at any time in the past century. No danger of perfect happiness, of course - especially not with Spike anywhere in the same hemisphere - but he did feel almost . . . hopeful.
Huh.
------------------------------
On to the Epilogue: A Little Apocalypse, Now and Then (or Story Teller, Revisited)
Previous chapters in this story, "Apocalypse, Now and Then":
1. To Send a Message
2. Waste Not, Want Not
3. War...What is it Good For?
4. Dying is Easy; Comedy is Hard
5. Apokalypsis, or Dropping the Veils
Or see Twisting the Hellmouth for both stories in their entirety.
APOCALYPSE, NOW AND THEN
Chapter Six: “Working Out Your Own Salvation”
I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.
John Milton, Comus. Line 560.
Still in Angel's corner of reality, but a few minutes earlier . . .
When he finally managed to track down Angel’s scent in the midst of the many competing and even less appealing odors of recently dead demons and burning dumpsters, Spike found his annoying grand-sire deep in conversation with the very same winged interloper that he’d half-intended to warn Angel against, when he'd left the storeroom. Now, it didn't look as though any warning would be necessary.
In fact, Spike seemed to have completely missed out on the rest of the violence, just as he'd feared, and if Angel had already started on the post-battle, 'I'm-so-noble-and-I've-got-to-talk-about-it' speech-making phase, then William the Formerly Bloody would just as soon give it a miss. Neither Angel nor the real deal in the fancy silver breastplate had looked in his direction yet, so Spike figured he might be able to toddle off, without having to exchange what passed for pleasantries between him and Angel.
Maybe he should try to find Blue, instead? If the great ponce had survived the battle, surely she had, as well, and if there was any one left to fight, anywhere, Spike knew that Illyria would be in the thick of it.
No, Illyria could wait. Gunn’s survival was still uncertain, and he’d as good as promised Charlie-boy that he’d be coming back with help. In this current state of reality, the fact that Gunn had technically been unconscious and unable to hear Spike’s promise didn’t seem to matter at all.
His word had to be made good . . . even if it meant asking that winged advertisement for “What Not to Wear” to help them get back to the human world and human medical care. Bugger! Spike’s less than flattering thoughts about the archangel didn’t stop him from stepping forward, however.
After all, it’s what she would want him to do.
And no, at this moment he wasn’t sure which ‘she’ he meant: Buffy, or that dark-haired warrior woman in the black leather, whom he somehow remembered loving with all his soul. Maybe he meant both of them?
Spike shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it of more of those disturbing memories that couldn’t possibly have been his, because they obviously belonged to that blonde with the bare midriff and the twin swords. Pity, though.
Stop it! Spike told himself. Focus on the here and now, William, wherever and whenever this is. Get help for Gunn first. Fantasize about Buffy in black leather later.
Wait? What was it the real angel was saying to the ponce? Something about going beyond your limitations for the sake of love, and how that stirs up notice in the higher realms as well as in the lower ones.
“... they go to some lengths to make the cost of courage so high that no-one will ever want to pay it twice.
“But you’ve figured that part out for yourself, haven’t you, . . . Spike? Or would you prefer to go by ‘Gabrielle’ again?”
Gabrielle. Yes, that’s who he used to be. How could he have forgotten? Somehow, that confirmation filled Spike with a sense of peace, instead of the horror or denial he’d been trying to drum up earlier.
Of course, it helped that hearing the name “Gabrielle” applied to himself seemed to have sent Angel into some kind of seizure, disgust warring with too many other emotions for his face to settle on any expression. Causing Angel to have an apoplexy just never got old - not even in this little pocket of heaven, Spike realized.
“We may have to give Ares, here, a moment to adjust,” the archangel remarked.
And suddenly Spike wasn’t too sure that his own face wouldn’t stay stuck like that, as all the rest of the pieces of his first incarnation fell into place, one after another . . . including the realization that if Angel was Ares, then the soul of Buffy Summers could have come from only one source.
Xena! She’s here, on this earth! I know where I’m supposed to be, finally. It was that simple.
Or not. After all, Gabrielle was a hero, and heroes don’t let their friends bleed to death because they got distracted. The joys of being a bloody white hat, eh?
“Fun as this little trip down ‘Memory Lane, B.C.’ might be,” Spike said with a sidelong glance at Angel, whose face was slowly regaining its natural lack of color, “Gunn is in urgent need of a hospital. I don’t suppose you could help us with that, could you, Michael? Like, now? Unless you’d like to break out a little miracle, and just heal him, ‘cause that would also work for me.”
“You always were pretty single-minded in defense of your friends,” Michael observed. “But no miracle should be necessary, this time around: no restored soul, no escape from hell, no impossible birth - not even a snowfall in Southern California. My colleagues and I will be returning home, now, and as soon as we depart this pocket of reality will return to normal. The ambulances have already been dispatched, and they should be able to get Gunn to the help he needs.”
Michael turned to exchange a private word with Angel, but then couldn’t resist adding, “Don’t worry - given all the strange sights in this part of L.A. right now, I don’t think the medical personnel will even blink at that wound dressing you made from Fyarl mucus.”
Spike/Gabrielle shrugged and headed back to Gunn, intent on flagging down help as soon as it arrived. In any incarnation, he/she found Michael’s sense of humor somewhat obscure on the rare occasions when it showed.
I guess that’s Angels for you, Spike reflected. Even the real ones probably wouldn’t recognize ‘funny’ if it hit them over the head, much less former war gods turned sick-o vampires turned brooding menaces who happened to share the name.
-----------------------------------
Meanwhile, back on Angel's side of the alley . . .
“You know, I think Gabrielle can be a little obnoxious in this incarnation,” Michael told Angel, who managed to refrain from replying, “Duh!” only through what he thought of as a Herculean act of self-restraint.
Oh, right: ‘Herculean’. Ha-ha. Speaking of obnoxious family members . . . . No, don’t go there, Angel/Ares told himself. This night’s already been disturbing enough.
“I’ll take my leave now, Angel,” Michael said with a smile that struck Angel as slightly unsettling, under the circumstances. “Don’t forget your friend Cordelia’s, uh, ‘words of wisdom’ once I’m gone. The conscious memories of your past incarnations will fade away pretty quickly, after you return to normal space-time, but you should be able to remember everything else, including most of our conversation about redemptive acts of courage and love.”
Angel was tempted to protest the loss of his Ares memories (they were part of him, after all, and what right did the Powers have to take them away again?), but quickly thought better of it. As Angel, he didn’t need any more bloodbaths to brood over.
Maybe it was time to let a lot of his past go, come to think of it. Not that he would forget all those lives he’d destroyed as Angelus, but perhaps after this he’d try to spend more time and effort helping his surviving friends re-build their lives, and less of it obsessing over things he couldn’t change.
“I’ll . . . think about it,” he told the archangel.
Michael’s smile became even wider. “You might be qualified to brood for Ireland in the next Olympic games, Angel, but at least you do think - something you rarely did as Ares, if that’s any comfort.”
“Not really, but thanks . . . I guess,” Angel replied.
Almost before the last word was out of his mouth, Michael disappeared from his sight as suddenly as the archangel and his friends had first appeared. Looking around, Angel realized that all the other armed representatives of the heavenly host had also departed at some point. Then his sensitive vampire hearing picked up the sound of traffic from nearby streets, something that had been absent while the battle was being fought.
Things were back to normal. Well, normal for L.A., that is.
Angel had the feeling that there was something he really needed to remember - maybe something the archangel had said to Spike just a few minutes ago? No, what would an archangel have to say to that bleached thorn in his side and part-time idiot? Oh, well. It would come back to him in time, whatever it was.
In the meantime, he had friends to find, people to take care of. That was the most important thing, after all.
Angel didn’t know exactly why, but somehow his soul felt lighter than it had done at any time in the past century. No danger of perfect happiness, of course - especially not with Spike anywhere in the same hemisphere - but he did feel almost . . . hopeful.
Huh.
------------------------------
On to the Epilogue: A Little Apocalypse, Now and Then (or Story Teller, Revisited)