In t he Face of Memories
Anya walked to the door and faced the confused brunette vampire. “Your memories have been temporarily tampered with. We should be able to reverse the spell as soon as we know what it is.”
“Who are you?” Angel asked, still trying to get a handle on things.
“I’m Anya, but that doesn’t matter, since you don’t know me even with your memories. There is something you can do while we wait,” she offered. Anya wanted any and all threats to William gone and she wasn’t above a little manipulation of her own to get what she wanted. She didn’t feel the least bit guilty using his loss of memory against him. “You were about to release Buffy from the claim your demon put on her. Why don’t you do that while we wait?”
“I would never have claimed Buffy!” Angel was shocked at the thought. He knew his demon hated her, there was no way it would bond itself to a slayer.
“It’s a controlling claim, Angel. I’ve put a protection shield around her so you won’t be able to order her around,” Anya replied as Buffy walked up to join her at the door.
Moving her collar slightly, Buffy showed Angel his bite marks. He could not deny his own mark.
“Break the claim, Angel.” Buffy was in no mood to argue. She had other matters of far more importance to deal with.
“Ego solvo vos,” Angel spoke the words solemnly.
“I release you,” Anya translated. Letting the vampire know that she at least knew exactly what he was doing.
“Reus ut mihi haud magis.”
“Bound to me no more.”
“Vos es vacuus meus dominion.”
“You are free from my domination.”
“Haud vindicatum operor ego.”
“No claim do I have.” Anya nodded her head at the vampire, acknowledging her acceptance of his ritual.
Buffy felt a slow burning tingle in her bite marks, a sharp pain caused her to gasp in surprise. Relief followed. She actually felt the connection between her and Angel break. Everything that she had felt for him seemed to lessen, as if the pedestal she had placed him on was shrinking before her eyes. She felt like she was seeing him for the first time, and she didn’t particularly like what it was. She still cared for him, but the all encompassing love she had felt seemed to be fading away. She definitely had to talk to Anya about that later.
Turning her gaze to the vampire that had been such a big part of her life, Buffy thanked him then walked back to the couch and William. She felt free for the first time in a long while and suddenly what lay ahead didn’t seem so hard at all.
Sad brown eyes followed her progress, noting the other human in the room for the first time. There was something about the man that seemed familiar, but it was difficult to tell from the doorway. The man had yet to turn and face him. Surreptitiously sniffing to see if he could recognise the scent, Angel was assaulted by a plethora of emotions and forgotten memories. “William,” Angel whispered huskily.
Turning his head slowly, William faced his hated tormentor. His expression held disdain, but his shaking hands belied his calm demeanour. Buffy reached over to take his shaking hand in hers, lending him her silent support.
“You’re human?” Angel asked that what his senses were telling him be confirmed. Another realisation hit him, and without waiting for a reply to his question, he continued. “No, not quite. You still have your demon, but he’s ill. I can smell the sickness on you. What’s happened? Tell me, boy, so I can fix it. Let me take care of you.” Angel was jumping with joy inside. He couldn’t have Buffy, but he could have his boy back. His boy had a soul. There would be nothing to keep them apart now. He hated the fact that he’d obviously never been given an invitation into the watcher’s home. He was desperate to get to William’s side.
William stiffened at Angel’s caring voice. His inner demon raged. He couldn’t believe that this monster seemed to have conveniently forgotten that he had used, abused, and tortured William into hiding. He couldn’t speak, he felt frozen. Terror at being under the ‘caring’ hands of Angelus made him mute.
Anya’s voice broke through William’s internal panic attack.
“We know how you care for others, Angel.”
“He’s mine,” Angel growled at the insolent girl that seemed to be questioning his right to care for his own family.
“Actually, Angel, he’s mine,” Giles announced coldly as he ushered a very frightened Willow into his apartment. Ignoring the spluttering vampire, Giles placed the books and notes he was carrying on the dining room table and turned to the memory impaired witch. “Willow, please show Anya the pages that were open when you woke.”
Willow nodded shyly at the girl she didn’t remember and quickly moved to comply with Giles’ direction.
As Anya joined Willow at the table, she informed the watcher that the claim had been successfully broken.
Ripper turned back to the vampire at his door.
“William Arthur Pratt was my great great uncle, the younger brother to my great grandmother. He was a part of my family and was stolen by yours. You have no claim on him. He is human again, he is my family, and I will destroy you if you even look at him the wrong way. Are we clear?”
Angel’s eyes widened in surprise, it might end up being a little harder than he had originally thought to get to his boy.
“How did you know?” William asked, shocked. He had endeavoured to ensure that his human family never had to face the stigma of being associated with his deeds as a demon.
Smiling at the trembling young man, Giles gently addressed his question. “The family has always known, William.”
“Shouldn’t you be calling him ‘uncle’?” Buffy joked, in an attempt to bring some levity to the conversation.
“When I arrange his paper work, he’ll be calling me ‘Da’,” Giles quipped back smugly; grinning at their shocked expressions.
“I found it, Giles,” Anya quietly informed the joking watcher. She hated interrupting the fun they seemed to be having, but this was far more serious that she had anticipated.
Anya’s concern was evident in her voice, Giles reacted immediately. Moving to her side, he asked her to tell him what she had found.
“She’s really messed it up, Giles. She’s changed the original spell and she’s done it badly. She hasn’t offered even a word of thanks to the Goddess that she invoked, and as a consequence every person she named in the spell would have been affected. By the look of things, she wanted to protect her memories, but Cynatra, the Goddess of Mind that she called, didn’t allow it. The people she named she just bunched together by saying the original scoobies. So that’s why Angel was included. I would guess that the others have been too. We need to get this reversed before anyone is hurt.”
“Can you reverse it?” Giles asked.
“Yes, but I’ll need Buffy as an anchor,” she answered calmly.
“What’s that?” Buffy asked in confusion.
Anya faced the slayer as she answered her, “You’re protected by the crystal, so it will ground you. I need to perform a general reversal spell with a special benediction to Cynatra. By using you to protect me, I can break the spell on the others through Angel and Willow, but you have to be aware of one thing.”
“What?” Buffy asked with a great deal of trepidation.
“You need to be in physical contact with both of them, which means there might be a backlash effect.”
“Backlash? Why am I not liking the sound of that?”
“You might see their memories,” Anya explained.
“That’s it? Just a little reality TV in my head?” Buffy thought that the backlash didn’t sound that bad at all.
Anya and Giles shared a look; both silently agreeing that perhaps a little trip into the memories of the scoobies would bring Buffy out of the land of denial once and for all.
Placing two chairs by the front door, Anya suggested that Angel might want to grab one of the chairs from the patio.
“I’ll be fine, thank you,” Angel assured the girl. He wasn’t concerned by what Buffy might see in his memories. He was positive that he would have done nothing to upset her. If he cooperated with them now, he might be able to find a way to convince them all that William would be best left in his capable hands.
Anya wasn’t surprised to find that she was of the opinion that the vampire was an idiot. She was certain she would enjoy the look on his face when he landed on his ass.
After making sure her preparations were perfect, Anya asked Willow and Buffy to take a seat, then asked Buffy to take Willow’s and Angel’s hands.
Buffy felt suspended in time. Pictures from the past seem to flicker all around her. Oz's memories zipped past her consciousness. She smiled as she realized how much she missed the stoic werewolf. Cordelia’s memories seemed to prance past her eyes much like the girl herself used to do.
Willow appeared as the shy young girl that Buffy had first met, Buffy smiled in remembrance. She saw Willow struggling to feel a part of the group, her discontent at what she saw as her inability to offer any real help, she clearly didn’t realise that the emotional support she offered Buffy was far more important to the Slayer than physical help.
Buffy watched as Xander tried to hide his growing obsession with her, she was horrified to see that he daydreamed regularly about the time he had almost raped her. She watched as his jealousy of Angel grew and poisoned him.
Angel’s memories intertwined with Willow’s and Xander’s, surprisingly his memories seemed to slightly mirror Xander’s. His obsession, his watching her when she was unaware, when she slept. All of the knowledge he had kept from the group when Spike and Drusilla came to town and his callous treatment of a terrified Xander when they met Spike at the school. His meetings with Drusilla, his treatment of Spike; it all gave her a new insight into his character and it was totally freaking her out.
Memories were blending. She saw the same events from each of their different perspectives. She saw things from Angelus’ perspective and was shocked that the behaviour of the vampire she hated above all others was not so very different from the vampire she thought she had known and loved.
She saw Xander’s glee at being able to say ‘I told you so’ with punishing regularity. She saw him use Jenny’s death to his own advantage, pushing to have Angelus dusted rather than re-souled. She watched, horrified, as Willow asked Xander to pass on a message to ‘stall’ and then as Xander changed the message to ‘Willow said – kick his ass’.
She saw Angel’s memories of hell, and Willow’s and Xander’s summer while she was in L.A. She saw their anger at her for leaving, but saw no sign of sympathy for what she had been through.
Xander’s obsessive nature became even more obvious when his jealousy of Willow’s attachment to Oz and his loss of the central position in her life led him to pursue Willow.
Willow’s reliance on magic showed itself when she resorted to magic and lying about it to try and ‘solve’ the attraction she had to Xander.
Buffy watched as Willow and Xander were taken by Spike. She could see that the image each of them held of the event was different. It was as if their memories were coloured by their own perceptions of the blonde vampire. She could see how their ideas differed from each other as well as what she knew of the vampire herself. She filtered the images and saw that the most damage done that day was that which Willow and Xander had created by their lack of self control and not by Spike at all.
She watched as Angel came back from hell, his mind twisted by his obsession with her. She saw him watching and stalking and judging. She saw his conversations with the First, the Mayor, and her mother. She watched him give up every time things got difficult. She watched him walk away and then immediately move on to a blond police officer in L.A.
She watched Spike having Angel tortured for the gem that she’d sent him. She saw Spike as he attempted to comfort Willow over Oz’s departure and Willow’s repayment for his attempted kindness.
She watched Willow cast spells.
She saw Xander’s mental abuse of Anya.
She learned about the day that Angel had the Powers take back.
Buffy blinked her eyes as the living room came back into focus. With tears streaming down her face she stood, walked back to the couch, and into the comforting arms of her watcher.
She cried for them all.