Fic info.
Any Other Way
Traditionally, Christmas is not my favorite holiday, at least lately, nor my most stable. Last year, I tried to kill myself by the light of the morning sun, so that leaves me with the question of how to top myself this year.

Cordelia has decorated the office in the traditional garland and decorations of the holiday and even Doyle's getting into it by hanging mistletoe and trying to grab a kiss from Cordelia under it. He's received a few light slaps to his face for the effort and not much more, alas.

I was sure they had big plans for the holiday, but mine included a cup of tea and maybe "A Christmas Carol." I haven't read it in a while, and 'tis the season after all. I just don't want to spend it thinking about last year's holiday and about what I almost did because I thought that it would be best for her. I've come a long way and I'm not so suicidal anymore, so I don't want to think on it or dwell in the past.

So, tea, a good Dickens' classic; that's how I planned to spend my Christmas.

It's not so bad....

I've had worse.

Christmas Eve came to Los Angeles, and of course there was no snow on the ground or any other indication that it was winter time except for a few tree lots that sold dead and dying trees at inflated prices. It seemed so far removed from home where there was usually snow on the ground, or at least a chill in the air, during the holiday season. That's what made the gathering of family in a warm home all the better.

But I have no family to gather with and I haven't for a long time so the thoughts of such things are quickly banished in favor of the simple truth that I'm alone for the holidays. That's okay. I don't mind...not really. I've spent plenty alone in the course of two hundred and forty four years. What's one more?

Okay...I'm lonely tonight.

I admit it.

It's Christmas, and maybe no one should be alone, but I am. I'm alone in my dark apartment in my dark building in my dark city. In the corner of said dark apartment is a table, on which are a few wrapped gifts for Cordelia and Doyle that I bought some time ago and I planned to give to them the next time I saw them, which I figured would be the 26th. Still, those gifts were the only indication in the apartment that it was Christmas and not just another day in Los Angeles.

It was about eight at night when I made my cup of tea and brought it to the living room. There, I turned on my television set just in time to see the end of "It's A Wonderful Life." Truthfully, I never liked this movie. Everything ends too neatly. I need a story I can believe, and I can't believe anything where everyone lives happily ever after anymore.

I changed the channel and came to "A Christmas Story." That's more like it...you get what you want and you end up shooting your eye out. God, that sounded really depressing. I'm sorry...but I told you this wasn't my favorite holiday so I hope you'll forget the sheer disheartening nature of my story.

I actually used to love this holiday above all others. My family used to go to Mass and we always had a Christmas tree decorated in elegant glass ornaments. Some of my happiest childhood memories were of this holiday...but they're now overshadowed by other memories of this day. I try not to think of it, but I really cannot help it.

It's not even that I set out to brood over past memories...it just happens that way. Something always reminds me, always makes me remember a thing in the past I'd be better off to forget. A sight, a smell, a touch, a feeling, it can trigger a brooding spell in me in a heartbeat. Actually, my New Years resolution is to try to cut down on the brooding...but I still have seven days before that takes effect so I may as well make the most of it.

It's always hard to be alone on the holidays, and plenty of people get depressed around them. I know I'm not the only one, and there's a strange, perverse comfort to be taken in that.

So, I turned the television off and turned to the first page of the novel to a passage I probably knew by heart.

"Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon `Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail."

I stopped there. And I thought...if the past had just stayed dead and buried, there would be no story here. There would be no redemption for Scrooge in the end; he would continue on his path of coldness and sin and would end up carrying his heavy chains for eternity. I suppose in that respect, the past has its place and its purpose for some people but I have no spirits to show me the way or how to properly right my wrongs.

I had the malicious ghosts of the past, brought by the First, to try to push me toward the unthinkable, but no spirits of Christmas past, present or future. I have oracles that take away the happiest moments from the woman I love with all my dead heart, but no spirits.

Buffy....

I wonder if she's happy tonight. She deserves to be and I hope she's not dwelling too much on last year like I am. I pray that she's doing everything a normal mortal girl would on Christmas. I actually hope she's not thinking of me. That may sound strange, but I know that to think of me on this night would only cause her more pain, and that's the last thing in the world she needs from me.

With thoughts of her having invaded my head, I knew that to try to continue reading or continue attempting to block out memories would both be pointless so I tossed the book aside and resigned myself to my given fate of spending the evening brooding. We all knew I'd eventually end up doing it, so it should come as no surprise to anyone.

I had just settled in, gotten comfortable, and was prepared for a full-out brooding the likes of which I hadn't done since Buffy's visit, when I heard the elevator moving. I found this odd, so I did what anyone would do; I grabbed a stake from a drawer and waited for my uninvited visitor. When I caught sight of the two intruders, I tossed the stake aside. "Jumpy, ain't ya?" Doyle asked.

I eyed the two, both of which were carrying bags, and replied, "I like to think of it as being prepared. What are you doing here? I thought you both had plans."

"Nah." Doyle shrugged.

"I have no life, it's painfully obvious." Cordelia rolled her eyes. She then reached into her bag and pulled out a wrapped gift and handed it to me. "Merry Christmas, Angel." she then paused, "You do celebrate Christmas, right? I never asked you...you're not Jewish or anything, are you?"

"No." I smiled.

"Angel's a good ol' Irish Catholic boy, my guess." Doyle grinned before foisting another gift on me. I suppose they must have seen the look of sheer shock in my eyes, "What? You were expectin' a lump of coal?"

"Possibly." I answered, "The...um...your...." I stopped and just motioned to the table that held their gifts. Cordelia ran to the table first and picked up the boxes and brought them to the couch where she sat. Doyle took a seat beside her and together we watched as she ripped the paper from the box.

Opening it, her eyes lit up and my fears that my fashion sense would be offensive to her were put to rest. "It's Gucci!" she squealed, holding up the skirt that I'd purchased for her at one of the many expensive stores in town.

"Clothes...just what she needs." Doyle smirked, and he automatically got a swat in the leg from Cordelia. Doyle feigned a bit of pain before pulling out a box and handing it to me. I lifted my eyes to him, to which he exclaimed, "It's not coal...I promise."

I opened the wrapping and the box and looked inside and found a pewter candleholder in a strange Celtic design. Irish, probably about 1800 or so. "I picked it up at a pawn shop...thought it'd look good in this dungeon you call an apartment." Doyle shrugged with a small smile on his lips.

"Yeah. It's great...thank you." I was still a bit dazed by everything. I hadn't expected anything but my own company tonight, and yet here they were.

Because of the sheer shock of it I was mostly silent as I watched Doyle open his gift from Cordelia, which turned out to be a book about things men should know about women as well as a number of scratch lottery tickets and a lucky rabbit's foot which seemed a perfect gift for the gambling half-demon. In return, he gave her a silver necklace, also Celtic in design. She seemed a little taken aback by it, as she didn't expect anything so expensive from the generally broke Doyle, and she gave him a kiss on the cheek for it. I could tell by the look on his face that the kiss was the best Christmas present she could have given him.

Her gift to me was, along with a new black shirt, a self-help book she explained she'd used until we'd become reacquainted here in LA. She said that she didn't need it anymore, and that maybe I could use it. It was thoughtful in more ways than one, because not only could someone like me probably use such a book, but it also served as a reminder that I'd helped her and that she was glad for my company and friendship.

My gift to Doyle was, as well as a very well aged bottle of cognac, an old samurai katana sword that I said was a perfect home protection device, should the need arise again. It was also worth a bit, so he could sell it if he was really in debt ever. But he told me he wouldn't sell it, and then he thanked me for it, saying that not everyone would give him weapons and booze on Christmas.

When the gift giving was done, I realized that the atmosphere of the apartment was completely different. Gone was a dark, cold brooding atmosphere. Now, it was warm and we were together, almost like a family. "Did you really intend to spend the entire evenin' broodin'?" Doyle asked once all was said and done.

"I had nothing else to do. I was just going to read and..." I was cut off as Cordelia reached for my book.

"'A Christmas Carol.'" she read the title. "Didn't they make a Muppet movie of this?"

"That they did, Princess." Doyle explained with a slight laugh at Cordelia's vast knowledge of pop culture that seems to rear its head every so often. "I haven't heard it in an age, though. During Christmas, during our annual gathering, my family'd always read it aloud." His eyes distanced with an old memory, but it seemed a happy one. "Why don't you read it, man? Seems like a good way to spend a Christmas Eve." The two both looked at me and without a word, I rose to retrieve the book that Cordelia held. With it, I went back to my chair and opened to the first page. "Wait a second...we don't have the atmosphere." Doyle exclaimed.

"Atmosphere?" Cordelia questioned with an arched eyebrow. "Angel's pit of an apartment isn't atmosphere enough for you...no offense Angel." I glanced at her, a 'none taken' expression on my face.

Doyle dimmed the lights immediately and lit a few of the candles I had strewn about to give the apartment a dark, almost 19th or 18th century feel to it and then he and Cordelia sat together across from me on the couch. Once again, I opened to the first page and began the story with that famous paragraph, the one I probably knew by heart by now. This time, I didn't stop at the first few sentences and brood over them. I just continued with the story.

I read page after page of the story, word after word, and it felt so good. It was like being with a family, as real a one as I can have, and it was enough to have this. I didn't have a lot in my life, really, but that night, I couldn't have asked for more. I forgot my brooding and the darkness in my soul. I traded the loneliness in my heart for the contentment of their company.

I finished the story with the final line, "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One" and I think for the first time, I really understood it, or maybe for the first time, felt it. I wasn't alone, I wasn't lonely, and that was a blessing the likes of which I can't describe.

My reading had cast a hazy spell over the room so that when I finished the story there was still silence from my two listeners for a good measure of time. Finally, it was Doyle that spoke. And in typical Doyle fashion, he broke the silence with a somewhat humorous line, "Good story, Man, but now I'm itchin' for some eggnog. Who's with me?"

"Any excuse...." Cordelia sighed, and with that, the two of them went to search my kitchen for it, even though I'm sure they both knew there was none to be found. Somehow, one of their normal arguments erupted and as they playfully bickered and argued in their typical fashion, I was left on the couch, just watching and smiling. I couldn't help it.

They make me smile, and that's what I love most about the human and the half-demon that have worked their ways into my life.

To put it simply, they're my friends.

Is that strange? Well, a mortal, a vampire and a half-demon fit that description pretty well. Are we really dysfunctional? For all their bickering and my brooding, that also sums it up pretty well. But strange, dysfunctional, odd, whatever other adjectives you wish to use to describe us, they are my friends and the closest thing to family that I have. Maybe in their petty fighting and their constant feuding they weren't the traditional family, and this certainly wasn't the traditional Christmas; this was made painfully obvious when Doyle found my bottle of whiskey and decided that that's what the celebration really needed to get swinging.

But that's how we are and the truth is I wouldn't have had it any other way.