Vers Libre Noel

(Free Verse Christmas Carol)

Author: Angelbev21@aol.com
SPOILAGE: Major Season 4 Angel Spoilers!!!!!! Turn your heads and look away, all ye who enter here and know not the current season!!!!!! You've been warned.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Angel gets his own version of a Christmas Carol.
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters, but they own me.
Feedback: Of course! Oh, please! Good or bad, keep me on my toes and let me feel the waves of good and plenty, or down and dirty, I wallow in both......I didn't get good at Numfar's Dance doing nothin', honey! I just have to put the finishing touches on the The Dance of Woes, though.......




Angel stood in the red-painted darkness atop a roof. Seething. Seeing red. Beyond anger, without the help of his ever-present resident demon.

The fireballs of burning brimstone rained down around him, yet he was oblivious to the reality of a flaming vampiric death as he watched the scene play out before him in the building across the street. The window framed his pain as he watched two bodies move under the sheets, dancing the ancient dances of life. With each movement outlined under the sheet, his dead heart seethed some more. If it would beat, it would have tapped out the word 'betrayal.'

His friend, his confidante, a woman he had watched mature and grow, a woman he had trained, protected and had come to love and worried over for 3 months as he lay in his watery grave, lay underneath those sheets, orchestrating the betrayal with finesse. The recipient had his face turned away in a grimace of ecstasy, but Angel could smell him. Angel never dreamed the babe he'd loved and worshiped, that'd lain in his arms mere months before could commit such vengeance. His errant, stubborn, vengeful Connor. Holtz trained him well.

Oh, but Cordelia! She knew better....she had her memories now, she knew who they were and what they all meant to each other and still.....this. Her recent excuses for not being with him paled in comparison.

His eyes glittered brighter in the darkness the longer he watched. A fireball hit him in the shoulder and rolled off. He angrily swiped at the spot as he continued his vigil.

"Pay! You're going to pay, both of you!" He voiced his thoughts in barest of menacing whispers, ragged from the wound inflicted upon him from the new Demon on High. "Redemption be damned! Cordelia, how could you? Why?"

The demon's words echoed, drifting throughhis mind as he replayed their fight scene. 'Do you really think you can save her from him?' Then realization hit him. His resulting pain fell amongst the hissings of the falling, burning debris.

"Don't."

The word whispered his ears and buzzed his body like an electric current, shocking his attention. Was it the new demon in town? He turned, his arms flaying unconsciously out and around, his predatory senses scanning his surrounds with acute, deadly precision. The sensation made the wound in Angel's neck ache. Angel was in no mood to play.

"Don't."

Again, the word affected him, but his senses failed him. Seeing nothing, he looked back at the lovers, wondering if Cordelia somehow managed to tap into her elusive, Powers-That-Be gifts to distract him. It wouldn't be the first time.....but they carried on, oblivious to the scenes of Hell outside their window.

"Cordelia wouldn't have wanted you to turn."

"Show yourself!"

Seven feet behind him it materialized. He could feel the coolness and light on his back and it made him turn, only to back away.

The being materialized within ethereal wings of light and the demon inside Angel cringed. It knew what it was, if Angel only suspected. The rain of fire didn't touch it as it's wings unfurled into 14 feet of dazzling brilliance. When the
light dimmed enough that it's face could be discerned, Angel couldn't tell whether it was male or female. In the same thought, he knew he wasn't meant to know.

He stood up to his full height and squared his shoulders, wearing his anger and forcing his demon out for all to see. The Being of Light benevolently stared at him with a small smile playing it's lips as if it had inspired Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

"What the hell do you want? Get out of here! As usual, you people are always a bit too late."

"I'm not here for the earth, Angel. I'm here for you.....as Cordelia is here for you."

Angel stood still, shocked. How dare it? How dare it show up here, now, after all he'd gone through, not counting the last four months alone! Three months in a watery grave didn't compare to Hell, but still....

"Exactly, dear one. I helped guide Wesley to find Justine and together, they found you. We aren't meant to be involved on the earthly plane, but Cordelia refused to let her earthly ties go. Being her guide, I didn't have much choice in the matter...."

The Being of Light floated closer, making Angel take a step back and in turn, making the demon inside lash out in pain. It made Angel's demon visage withdraw, the pain dropping him to his knees. Gasping with unneeded breath, he hugged himself, trying to ease it. The light being came closer still, it's elongated hand reaching out as it spoke.

"You and the Slayer are our greatest Warriors, never forget. In this, those that surround you will be your greatest supporters, including your son. Connor will eventually come around. He'll need your precious guidance. Continue to love him, Angel. Continue to love Cordelia. They are the Harbingers."

Eventually, the Being of Light came close enough that it was inches from Angel's body as it bent down to Angels' eye level. It seemed unaware that it's nearness made Angel's pain increase, causing him to gasp. He wasn't able to form words beyond simple forms, his thoughts barely wrapped around what the angel was telling him.

"But-"

The angel smiled. "We haven't forsaken you, Angel, and neither has Cordy. It was because of you she's returned. It was because of what is about to happen, that you must trust her. In that room below us is the new manger....and between them, the 2nd Coming."

The angel stood and quickly took a few steps back. The demon in Angel released it's painful writhing within him but, between the fight and his recent injuries, he was weak and his legs completely collapsed underneath him. Unnoticed by both, the firestorm had turned the atmosphere turbulent above their heads. Thunder and lightning flashed violently.

"That's all I'm allowed to say, Angel. It's the only message I was allowed to bring. Keep the love...it will guide you well in the end." The light pulsed within the angel and it began to gather it's wings up. As Ariel began to fade, the air shimmered with energy as it passed from the earthly plane into the beyond.

"Tell Cordy that Ariel gave you the message? She'll understand. And.....Merry Christmas. Noel. Feliz Navidad......." It's voice was the last to leave and with it, the buzzing sensation left Angel's body.

For a few minutes, Angel mindlessly lay on the blackened tarmac of the roof. As lightning played across the rooftops, it finally registered in his numbed and addled brain that it was about to rain any minute.

He rolled to his side, tried to get to his feet and failed, landing against a blackened aluminum air vent which put him in direct line of sight with Cordelia's window a few feet below.

As Angel watched the lovers renew their passion, the message the being gave finally registered within him and with it, 'The Truth' wrapped his guts in renewed pain as he buried his face in his hands. His soul-wrenching sobs were lost within the rain, the lightning, and within the fire and brimstone.

Within Fate and Destiny.

Noel, indeed.

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