Visits From Dead People
Angel sat alone in the darkened hotel room, a bottle of whisky in his hand. If Spike could see me now. he thought. The laugh that escaped his lips was tinged with bitterness. Perhaps Spike's philosophy on life was right. There was no point in doing the right thing, you only ended up hurting the wrong people anyway.
He'd driven away Kate and now Wesley and Cordelia as well. Still, Angel knew, it was for their own good.
Better to lose them now than later, when they turned up dead. Dead like so many others in his life. Like his family, like... Doyle.
While Angel had deliberately killed many people as Angelus, Doyle's death was one those he felt particularly guilty about, after all Doyle had died in his place. If only Angel had understood the importance of the mission to Doyle. If he'd only understood and gotten their sooner.. Still, some small part of Angel wondered if any of that would've really helped. What if it really didn't matter what he said or did? What if Doyle's death was simply a case of The Powers That Be twisting things, using him as a pawn in their own twisted game. What if everything was in life was orchestrated by some Gods with a disgusting sense of humour. Whether due to the whisky or his train of thought, Angel suddenly felt ill.
"All the world's a stage," Angel mumbled.
"Is that so?" asked a voice.
"What? Who's there?" growled Angel, jumping from his seat.
" Forgotten me already?' said the voice. Somewhere in Angel's alcohol mussed brain, he recognized that voice.
He turned around to look behind him, but the voice, seemingly calling from where he had been, cried "Over here!"
If Angel were human his heart would've stopped. When he turned around, standing in front of him, was Doyle.
Angel tried valiantly to stop his knees from buckling under he may have been a vampire, but he was not immune to shock. "Doyle?" He asked softly, his voice trembling.
"Got it in one, sexy." came the retort.
"But, how?" asked Angel bewildered. His eyes narrowed. "This must be a trick!"
"Is that what you think of me? I'm some trick? For goodness sake old boy, maybe you need more help than we thought!"
"We? Who's we?"Angel half-heartedly growled .
"The Powers of course." Doyle affirmed with a nod of his head. "Did you really think they'd given up on you?"
"I don't need or want to hear about the Powers." Angel replied, in a threatening tone.
"Whoa, take it easy there, Angel." Doyle said, taking a few steps back and waving his hands in front of his face as a sign of surrender. "The Powers sent me here to help!"
"I told you I don't need any help!" yelled Angel.
Losing his patience, Doyle clenched his fists. "Now listen! Do you really think that all your hard work was for nothing? That my sacrifice was for nothing? We don't fight because it's easy or a chance to rase a bit of hell, we fight because it's the right thing to do! It's who we are Angel, you of all people should know that."
Feeling instantly contrite at the mention of Doyle's death, Angel couldn't stop himself from shaking. "I'm sorry." he whispered.
Suddenly, Angel wanted to tell Doyle exactly how sorry he was, he wanted to tell him that of course his death meant something to Angel, it always had and most of all, Angel wanted to do something he never would've dared do when Doyle was alive.
Temporarily abandoning his beverage, Angel rushed towards Doyle, who looked slightly panicked at first, but then smiled.
Closing the gap between them, Angel moved to kiss Doyle but was surprised to find the other man had vanished.
Looking around wildly but to no avail, Angel came to a conclusion. Doyle was gone. But had he really ever been there at all?
Letting out an enraged roar, Angel grabbed the bottle of whiskey and smashed it against the hotel floor.