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Epilogue
S J Smith
DISCLAIMER: I own
nothing, I'm just riding on coattails.
RATING: PGish?
A.N.: This was kinda
inspired by Yahtzee's fiction, "Lifespan" and mostly by the song
by Incubus, "Wish You Were Here." If you want to know one or the
other, I'll include links at the end.
SUMMARY: Angel.
Shanshu. Sharon Jane's first attempt at a songfic. Of sorts.
* * *
The sun slid lazily
down towards the blue ocean, tingeing both the sky and the water with reds
and oranges. Higher in the sky, the wispy clouds were stained gold, some
with ruddy halos ringing them. Not far in the distance, a kite cut through
the wind, the whistling sound of it irritating the seagulls, screeching
their indignance at the interloper into their world.
The steady sea
breeze swept away most sounds, carrying only the sound and scent of the
ocean; a sound of water, rushing endlessly towards the shore and then
rolling back out again, only to throw itself back upon the sand; a
particular scent, nothing else like it. Though the sun set, people were
still on the beach, enjoying the last official day of summer. Surfers rode
the curls, oblivious to the dangers inherent in doing so, girls in bikinis
sauntered along, garnering approving (and sometimes not so) attention, kids
chased each other down to the waves and back, shrieking.
He stood in the
powder-soft sand, staring out at it all, hands shoved deep into his
pockets. Slowly, almost as if in ritual, he leaned over, untying the laces
to his shoes and pulling them off, then his socks. He left them where he'd
removed them, walking slowly down to meet the ocean. He had to sidestep a
trio of screaming children, one of them, a little girl, nearly knocking him
over when she ran into him.
She bounced off,
landing on her backside in the packed, damp sand, glowering up at him as if
it was his fault. Without an apology, she pushed herself to her feet and
charged off after her companions. She reminded him of Cordelia, a little
bit, who would be telling him to at least roll up the sleeves of his shirt
if he didn't take it off, to get some sun on his pale skin. She always
wanted to see him with a tan. As if obeying the voice that nagged
affectionately in his head, he shoved at his sleeves, managing to push them
up his forearms and continued towards the water.
The hard sand felt
cool and smooth under his feet and he dug his toes in as he walked,
marveling to himself at the crust he dug through. He knew if he dug far
enough, he'd hit water but it wasn't an experiment for today. Today was
about watching the sunset; his first sunset since he'd destroyed the Gem of
Amara.
He reached waves and
waded out into them, letting the cool Pacific run up over his feet. The
hems of his trousers were soaked with the first splashing, easily ignored
in the beauty surrounding him. Seagulls, sandpipers and pelicans vied for
his attention. Surfers in brightly-colored wetsuits bloomed on the tops of
waves, perched there with an uncanny grace he thought he could never
understand and disappeared back into the sea whence they came. The setting
sun gilded everything rose-orange; the water folk, the birds, the crests of
the waves. Even his ivory skin benefited from the sun's dying stain.
Opening his mouth,
he let the taste of the ocean blossom in it, carried by the spray, carried
by the wind and thought, I'm happy. I am here and I am happy.
He stood in the water
for a while, watching the waves rush away from him as the tide went out.
Dusk swept along the beach, slowly chasing the remaining people from it
until he was alone and the planets, then the stars crept out of the sky to
watch him. He was more accustomed to them than the gaudy light of the sun
but wondered if the night would still accept him. Jets sailed far overhead,
their vapor trails faint etchings on the sky, their lights blinking down
like UFO's. He wondered at that image, deciding it could have only come
from Fred, maybe even Xander. Making his way back up to the softer sand, he
lay down in it, pillowing his head in his arms. The moon trailed her slow
way across the sky as he lay there, listening to the waves crash, letting
all the thoughts stream through his mind. They would wonder where he was,
his friends, his family, they would try to reach him on his phone and worry
when he didn't answer.
But the night
belonged to him this one last time and tomorrow was soon enough to go to
them and tell them it had finally happened; the prophecy was true.
He was human.
It had seemed a
dream for so long, almost a memory of a dream, that the vampire with the
soul would live to die. He could still hear Wesley's voice, reciting those
words in his mind. He had never feared death. But now, to have a chance to
live...he gently set those thoughts aside. The night was his and belonged
finally to memories.
As he lay in the
sand, he took them out and sorted through them, almost as if they were
folded pages in his head. They remained ever bright, glowing brighter even
than the sun in his mind's eye. His father and mother and little sister,
Kathy, whom he might now have a chance to see again and beg forgiveness of.
Darla and her cold beauty and the two gifts she'd given him. Drusilla;
lovely Dru, with her visions and her insanity and her love of her 'Daddy'.
Spike; William the Bloody; poet and foe, his dangerous companion. Penn and
Elizabeth and James and all the others that he had made and ran with during
the time of his demon.
That chapter
reviewed, he moved onto the next. The command of a demon working for the
powers of good to see a girl echoed in his ears. The girl herself, sunlight
encapsulated and the effect she had on him, then and still. Her friends,
for a time his, until he left them the first time to the predations of his
demon. He returned eventually, a very long time later, and slowly rebuilt
his relationships with them all...in time to break the girl's heart and
leave her.
In leaving her, he
found his own; a family of good friends, a son to raise. He'd accepted
these gifts willingly, realizing what he had to give up to keep them. If a
part of him still mourned for a day that never happened, he understood that
he couldn't survive in a memory, of a dream of that day.
The moon bathed him
in its silver light and he stared at it unblinkingly, wondering if it
remembered pledges made beneath its glory or whether he was now the only
one with those words seared into his heart, like a cross pressed against
his flesh.
He and his family
became a force of good, something to be reckoned with and their name grew
with each adventure. Still, the past sometimes had a chance to rip into his
present, the first time with the appearance of a lovely redhead, her
expressive eyes welling with tears, to tell him that his sunlight girl had
sailed away. The second was when his child was taken, vanished into a place
he couldn't follow. Though both eventually returned, the girl was never his
again and his son grown nearly to manhood and years, precious years lost
between them.
But he survived. He
endured. He went on.
And he had been
happy.
He thought he could
almost feel the world turn beneath him as he lay in the sand, the way he'd
felt time sliding by. He'd watched his friends, his family grow up; grow
old. He watched and mourned, knowing that they would someday leave him. And
slowly, then more quickly, one by one, they did.
There were
replacements; another seer, another genius, another warrior; another
villain, another demon, just one more apocalypse, and finally, finally, he
was the only one left who personally remembered two British Watchers and a
renegade; the werewolf and the witch; a seer and a genius and a street kid;
the boy who loved seer and witch and Slayer, all and the son who never
should have been born.
And the Slayer, his
sunlight girl.
He thought she would
smile to know him human, at last. And he was happy.
But he wished she
were here.
* * *
"Wish You Were
Here" Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/incubus/wishyouwerehere.html
"Lifespan"
by Yahtzee: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=83694
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