Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fan Fiction ❯ Choices ❯ Choices ( One-Shot )

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Joss Whedon, The WB, UPN, and FOX. Although I am emoting these characters, and playing them... I did not CREATE them.

 

Summary: Angel signs his soul away to Wolfram & Hart... but did he do it for the right reason?

 

A/N: A little something I wrote a while back for a RP community and turned it into a One-Shot. Hope you all like.

 

 

Choices

 

“People don't need an unyielding champion. They need a man who knows the value of compromise...”

 

 

Sometimes you're given a chance, one chance to make a difference in someone's life. And you're only given one small window of opportunity. In that split second, when opportunity knocks, choices are made, and as hard, and difficult as those choices may be, one way or another, those choices still need to be made. There is no gray area, no in between. You either take that opportunity or you don't. You either choose life, or you choose death. You either choose to keep fighting to make a difference, even if it's in one person's life, or you choose to do nothing and watch as the world around you changes, time after time, and watch it destroy itself. Choices... life's full of them.

As I saw the face of my son on the television screen, his eyes lost and empty- filled with cold rage, I made my choice. Didn't even have to think about it twice. Funny that. Lilah had spent the last thirty minutes trying to convince me about taking over Wolfram and Hart... trying to get me to see the 'bigger' picture and sell my soul to the devil, formerly known as the senior partners, in exchange for a big oval office with the best view in town, a penthouse with all the amenities and money to burn for as many life times as I lived. She saw it as a great 'opportunity' for me to move up in the food chain. "Just business..." I saw it as an opportunity to be part of the problem. They didn't want to help me. Since when does evil want to help the good guy by giving him the world in a silver platter? All they wanted was to get me to be the bastard that we all knew I could be... and if it had been on any other day, than the answer to that would have been simple. I would have laugh in their faces and walked out the door without a backwards glace. But this was today, and today, all it took for me to make my choice and accept all the 'terms' and 'conditions' of Wolfram and Hart was the picture of my son staring back at me on that big screen.

"This is a one-time offer only, Angel. Walk out that door, and there's no deal. Stay and the world is all yours." She paused, and stared at the screen a fucking smirk plastered on her face.

Yeah... the deal of a lifetime. My son's lifetime. These were the kind of choices you would think were the hardest to make, but as I turned my back to her, and stared at my son once more, I found that it was the one decision in my long life that I found the easiest to make. All I wanted to do now was get to him, talk to him... help him somehow. But something inside told me that he was beyond any words or any help that I could offer.

I could sit here and say, I had no choice, but the truth is I did.

I couldn't just stand there and stare at him any longer. I turned back to Lilah and stared at her, I could taste the hate, and rage, detesting everything that she stood for. "People like you— this place— that's what's wrong with the world, Lilah. I will never be a part of this." I paused and looked at the image of my son on the television screen before stepping closer to her- "Not the way you're hoping. Now let me tell you what the deal's going to be..."

And just like that, the bargain was struck, and the choice was made. My soul, for my son's life. A chance for him to live all over again, without the demons, and the memory of a hell dimension. The chance of a new life, a better life; one that I could never give him, not now, not even if I tried because, it was too late for us. The chance for a normal life, one where demons and vampires didn't exist, a real life. Interesting how sometimes prophecies are fulfilled. Interesting. But that was only part of the deal. There were also others that I had to take into consideration. I had to make sure that they would be safe from everything that was about to happen... that they would be safe from me. There was also another apocalypse brewing up the coast and I couldn't turn my back on it either. Couldn't turn my back on her, not after everything that had happened between us.

Before I could sign on the dotted line, I had to make sure that my son was okay. I left Lilah and my soon to be office behind and headed for the parking structure where the company limo was waiting for me. The limo drove me towards the shopping center were Connor had barricaded himself along with the innocent people that had been at the store and I quickly found my way in. Every second felt like an eternity and as I turned the corner and turned the knob on the door, the atmosphere of the room hit me like a ton of bricks. The smell of fear filled the room, a smell that I knew all too well. And in the distance, with his back to me, I could see him... Connor.

I looked around and saw that everyone was rigged with explosives, including him. I cautiously approached, taking calculated steps towards him. "Connor... son?" Before I could say anything else, a powerful explosion shook the rear of the store making every one scream in terror.

"You might not want to move. The people are rigged, too." I froze on the spot and looked around, as the people cowered and stared back at me. "Can't save 'em all, dad. You don't know who's going to be first. Could be any one of them." His face was a mask of pain and sadness, and I couldn't help but think that was all my fault, for not being there for him. For not trying harder. "Could be me." Then he stepped aside, revealing Cordy lying on the floor sleeping peacefully, her body laced with dynamite. "Could be her."

I looked from one to the other, then back at the terrified hostages before returning my attention back to Connor. "Son, you have to listen to me. This is about Jasmine." I said, trying to reach out... somehow. "Jasmine's gone." His voice was cold, empty and it made me sad because... because I knew just how that felt inside. "I know. We all felt it, that perfect love... and then when we had to give it up..." I continued but his rage cut through my words like a knife.

"I didn't feel anything! I can't feel anything. I guess I really am your son because I'm dead, too." I tried to hold back the tears. But his words were like razor blades. "You're not dead, Connor. You're just starting your life." I pleaded. I knew exactly what he was feeling and it cut me up inside to think that my only son, the one good thing in my life, was seeing things the way that I had once seen them. "No! You just weren't there before." And I really wasn't, was I. "I know. And I'm so—" And again, before I could finish what I wanted to say his anger and pain said what my heart already knew. "Do not say you're sorry! It doesn't fix anything."

I could feel the tears falling now, and I could feel the pain that swallowed me up inside as I saw him in so much pain. "Then let me say this. I love you, son." I said softly, my voice breaking almost. "It's a lie." He is crying too. "It's not." I countered. But he was fading away, his eyes... they were almost vacant. "It's always a lie. My dead mother couldn't even love me." For a second, my thoughts take me back to that cold and rainy night when he was born. And I am reminded again of the promise I made to Darla... the promise that I failed to keep. "It's always a lie. My dead mother couldn't even love me." I shook my head lightly and tried to get closer to him. "You're wrong. She did." And she had loved him too; he had been the only thing that she had ever loved. "No. She knew she couldn't." He said. But I knew she did. "She sacrificed herself because she loved you." The one sacrifice she had ever made in her life.

"You tried to love me... at least I think you did." He said softly, his eyes distant. I had wanted to show him how much I loved him. I always tried, but one way or another, things always seemed to go sour. Nothing worked out the way I had planned it. "I still do." All I ever wanted for him was a normal life, a chance for him to be the man I had never been. "But not enough to hang on, dad. You let him take me away. You let him get me. You let him get me..." He was right. I hadn't done enough. I could have tried harder, done things differently. And this was my only chance at different. "Cordy, you swore you loved me. Where are you now?" He said looking down at her. "Connor, you have to believe that there are people who love you." I offered, but still, he was too far gone to even realize that. "Jasmine believed you when you said you loved her but it was all a lie." I frowned as I tried to understand his logic. "Jasmine was the lie." I simply said.

"No! She knew if you found out whom she really was, that you'd turn against her. And she was right. That's just what happened. People like you..." He turned to look at the hostages and I realized that I had truly lost my son. "People like this. None of you deserved what she could give you. She wanted to give you everything." There was nothing that I could say that would make him see things differently, but still I tried. "I know how that feels because I want to give you everything. I want to take back the mistakes, help you start over." And that's what I was going to do. I was going to help him start over. "You can't start over." That's right... we couldn't just walk out of here and start over. "We can. I mean, we can change things." We'd have to start from the beginning to start over from here. "There's only one thing that ever changes anything and that's death. Everything else is just a lie. You can't be saved by a lie... you can't be saved at all." I swallowed hard, his tears giving me the power I needed to do what I was about to do. He had been right again about one thing. There was only one thing that ever changed anything... death. But a lie... a lie could save you. It would save him. And that's what I was going to give him. A lie, a lie that would change his life forever.

He reached down for the wires to complete the circuit and in that split second, I made my move. I leaped across the room and tackled him, hurling him across the room, and then focused my attention in ripping the explosives and wires off the hostages. After a moment, the hostages started freeing themselves, and make run for the front door where the police was waiting outside. As I tried to help others, Connor knocked me away and crawled back towards the batteries. I looked around, trying to find a weapon. Something that I could throw at him to slow him down, and found some knives in display. I broke the glass and pulled out from the enclosure one of the knives and whip it across the room where it slammed into my son's thigh. He cried out in pain, but it didn't stop me. If I stopped to think for one second, I would be too late. I leap across the room and yanked the knife from his thigh. I pulled him up by his shirt as he stared at me, wide-eyed, and pinned him to the floor.

"I really do love you, Connor." If I had a beating heart, it would be beating a thousand miles per second right about now. "So what are you going to do about it?" He asked as I raised the knife, ready to deliver the killing blow. Maybe he knew what was coming; maybe it was what he had been waiting for all along. I would never know. I looked down at him, with sadness and a world of regret. "Prove it." I said in a low voice. And as the knife descended towards its target, it felt like a whole lifetime. All my hopes and dreams were spilled as the knife sliced his throat. Wes had been right all along. The prophecy was true. The father would... and had killed the son.

What I did for my son was one of the easiest and hardest things I ever had to do. And in the blink of an eye his life had changed... for the better. All my hopes and dreams would now lie in him, and I knew that no matter what happened to me from now on, as long as he was alive, as long as he was okay, then I would be okay too.

That same night, I headed towards Sunnydale, and as I drove down the familiar roads, I tried not to think about all that had happened and would happen after I signed on the dotted line. Still, I had no regrets. Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Lorne, they all knew what my decision was, they knew that I had taken Wolfram and Hart's offer- my soul, in exchange for the life of my only son, and in exchange for the last piece of the puzzle that Sunnydale needed to end their own apocalypse. I didn't know what their decision would be, but they could either be on board, and make sure that Angelus stayed in check from within the belly of the beast or work from the outside in. It was their choice, I had already made my own deal with the devil. But I trusted them to do what was right... for their sakes and the sake of the world.

I made it to Sunnydale in record time. It was easier to see her this time around. Easy to talk to her, easy to see her kick ass the way she always did... but it was not so easy to say goodbye. I wanted to stay and help, I really did, but it seemed that she had all the help she needed. Not that Spike was ever any help to anyone, more like an annoyance if you asked me. But she wasn't asking. Her mind was already made up, and there was nothing I could do about that. I gave her the amulet and we said our goodbyes. She didn't need to know what I had done or was about to do the moment I returned to L.A... what I was going to become... we were both in very different worlds now- we had been for a very long time. It was all for the greater good, right? Right.

It was late when I returned to L.A and I walked across that lobby making my way towards the office where Lilah and I had first discussed the terms of their offer. It did feel strange to be inside the belly of the beast, but I guess in a few moments I wasn't going to care much one way or another where I was. Before I opened the door I took one last look around and saw Lorne walk out of one of the conference rooms, followed by Wesley, Gunn and then Fred. 'Hell is empty... all the devils are here' I thought. There was nothing more to say to them, I had already said it all... so I simply smiled and walked inside, where I signed my soul away in blood- along the dotted line.