I'm not supposed to be the person I was before, right now. But then again, I was never really a person, was I?
I'm supposed to be on my way to being something different, but She said I could do this one thing, go back to what I was before for a little while.
So I'm writing this out for you, Buffy, because, well, you were my big sister, and, from what she told me, you're the only person who really knew what was going on. Or you thought you did.
And isn't that how it always was? You thought you were good, you thought you were special. Buffy this, Buffy that. Slayer duty, Slayer pride, leaving Mom and me out in the cold, because we didn't have a destiny.
And you were wrong. But I guess you found that out, huh?
It hurts, of course. Finding out that what you thought was a life, what you thought was your life, made up by some...monks. Monks who didn't really know what they were keeping after all these years, didn't know what they had in their hands, what they turned into...well, me.
It's strange what a few centuries of tradition will do, huh? But I guess you knew that too.
I'm sorry, though. I'm sorry that you and Mom had to go through what you did. And I'm sorry that the monks didn't tell you the whole truth — She thinks they probably didn't know the whole truth, either, and that's something that's gone back to the Inquisition, when they took me from Him. If you had just known what I was, how crucial I was to Him, how...wrong it was that I was taken, how it was blasphemy, heresy...
...genocide.
But you never hear the other side of the story, do you? How they had meditated upon what I am, meditated upon Him, and formed what I am into the physical realm. How I was a Key, the Key, and how precious and pure and holy I was. How wonderful it was to have me, safely hidden from Man.
And how the Church stole me from them. How I was tucked away in a monastery all those centuries, until what I was — what I am — became a mystery into itself.
She wanted me back — He wanted me back. I am Earth. I am Humanity. I am the key that unlocks the door between Him and Them.
And She is my mother, She is my father, She is my sister and She is Me and we, We are Him.
She came to me that night and She smiled at me. She whispered words that I knew were true, even though I had never heard them before. She took me into her arms, and kissed me, and I knew that was right, that I was what she called me. Shekinah, the wisdom, the orchard, the communion. The key between Man and God, the key between my people and myself.
I'm sorry about what happened. I'm sorry you had to die. But I should have never been kept away from Him.
This Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer story was written by Kate Bolin. If you liked it, there's plenty more at http://www.dymphna.net/fanfic/. And you can feedback her at dymphna@dymphna.net.