"Immortal Past..."

A shortie

PG-13

Spoilers for Angel to "The Girl in Question..."

Disclaimer: Everything but the 'Soames Walthrop' and I don't use it here is Joss' and ME's

Summary: Ok, so I'm slipping another in under the new title...But it does deal with slightly different issues and is more purely a Cicely tale...Follows "Not Fade Away..." on Angel...

Archived at the Cicelyverse page of the Buffy Rebecca verse, www.geocities.com/buffyrebecca/Cicelypg.html

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Next Tuesday evening...About eight...

"So...You love me, Buffy...As you did so long ago...Are you truly ready to prove it to me?..."

Yes...Oh, darling...

"Then you know...You must become worthy of me as you once did...Before we were parted..."

"Tell me..." she stared from her chair in the Grand Hall of the famed Immortal's castle-chateau in Austria...At the handsome features of the Immortal..."What can I do to prove myself?...I..."

"You already know...If you truly remember your past...Our past..."

I..she hesitated...A minion, of medium height and build...A scholarly air belied only by his green, ragged-skinned face, beside the Immortal looked at him...Sir?...The Immortal waved a hand...

"You must fully remember the past, Buffy...Become strong and worthy again...If you love me...Here..." he took a large two-handled cup from the minion... "Take more...And become free once again..." he passed it to her...Watching her carefully...She took the cup but stared at it, blinking...

"It is freedom from that which keeps us apart, Buffy...Will you refuse it and deny me?...Betray our love?..." he morphed suddenly into William... "Still refusing to let yourself love me, Slayer?...Letting me die all over again?...Cicely..."

No...She stared at him... "If you want me, drink..." the false William told her...

"If you love me...If you want me to be all that you loved in him..."

She took a strong pull...The minion behind smiling coldly...More than enough...More than she even took centuries ago when He took her...

Bit disappointing He had to use that fool's form...It being the Immortal surely should have been enough for her...

"You feel your last inhibitions slipping away?...Your link to our past reopening?..." the Immortal eyed her...Her face composed and rather blank now...Yes...she nodded...

"I love the drink...It frees me of my inhibitions, restore me my past..." Buffy murmured... "Make me worthy of you, once again...As I once became...So long ago..."

"When I chose you, Slayer...And you became my worthy one...You remember?..."

Yes, she nodded...

"And as you did then, so you will now...Prove yourself?..."

"I will..." she nodded... "Ask anything of me...William..."

A dark look on the Immortal's features...Hmmn...Using that worthless, hopefully-now-deceased-for-good Walthrop's form to push her at several critical moments was perhaps necessary but not exactly good for his Immortal ego...

After all, she really had once been mine...he grimly thought...My Slayer...My loving slave...and, finally, as she will be again...My mate in Darkness...

Cheatin' tramp, he fumed within...Though of course her love for me had been no more voluntary a choice on her part then than now... As opposed to that for his...Hopefully...More dead than usual...Nemesis...

The damned little poet...And even damning hadn't been enough...

Still, as she remembered their glorious past...William would fade...The confusion about them would clear...And only He would be in her mind and heart...

Surely...

Even if the little nobody did have the advantage of winning her love in her past as Cicely the Vampire Slayer...Surely..Their own past...The older memories of their own glorious love and equally glorious career of murder and near-world conquest would win out...

In the end...

However, for now...One must use all tools at hand...Even the form of one's miserable, pathetic rival...And once she resumed her old place at his side...Joined him, still human, in murder, crime, and the most unholy acts...

She'd be fine...

And this time, he'd be patient...Let her pile her human sins for decades, her mind and soul degrading, to where even the drugs would be unnecessary and she would accept herself as one like him, accept the Evil...And only then...With no damned friends or followers left as had ruined their love over five hundred years ago...He would take her...

No screw-ups with her soul escaping to be reborn and win love...Again...

"Well, love..." he reluctantly resumed William's form...

"You know what you must do to prove yourself...You feel it in your heart, you know it in your soul..."

"They must all die..." she nodded... "They must be not be allowed to separate us...I hate them for separating us, William..."

And you will start with that whining little...? he asked hopefully, resuming his true form...

"Yes...Dawn will be first...Then the others...All those once close to me..." she nodded again... "Proof that I love you, darling..."

That I want to be worthy as I was...Centuries ago...When you took me...she smiled at him...

Hmmn...Now that's more like it, he beamed...

"When you made me your adoring partner in Evil...And transformed me...But kept my soul there, slipping into damnation with my demon...And would have kept me by your side...Forever..."

Good, good...he turned to the minion...Stuff is really working now...Indeed, the minion beamed...Never fails...

"Except for one fool..." she dreamily smiled at him... "Once close to me, though I loved him too late that time...Who destroyed me...Snatching me from your arms..."

And won my heart again when we both were reborn again...Including in 1880...and when I returned in 1981 to save him...

What?...The Immortal stared...

"Lucky you not to have been involved in that one with Drusilla..." she noted quietly...Eyeing him coolly...

Hmmn...The minion frowned a bit...Sir...I think...

"And who's once again forgiven me for being a little late..." she grinned now, losing the blank stare... "Though you and Harmony keeping our calls and letters from getting through had a lot to do with that..."

Ummn...The Immortal eyed his minion as Buffy rose from her chair...Perhaps we should be...

"Why don't we talk later, my love..." he began carefully backing away... "Of course you realize I was only seeking to keep William away and revive the past in you...Out of love..."

And the friends-and-family-killing thing was only a test...he noted, as she slowly moved forward... "I never really intended for you..."

"That's fine..." she nodded... "I could let that pass...For love...But the enslavement, back then...I'm afraid Morgana the Vampire Slayer, can't quite forgive..."

Pity for you my soul had a chance to build up resistance to that stuff over the centuries...she waved at the cup...

The door of the Immortal's Grand Hall opened violently...William in replacement duster...

"Everything in hand, love?..."

"Hey, honey!..." Buffy called... "Right on time..."

"Just give me a minute to clean up some mess from our past..." she coldly eyed the Immortal...

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