Author: Lucinda

rating: pg

main character(s): Doyle

disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to any characters that you recognize.

distribution: TNL, Paula, anyone else ask.

note: for Jinni's Poetry Quote Challenge #1.

"Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality. "
-- Emily Dickinson - Because I could not stop for Death

by Lucinda

Really, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about this. Being dead an' all, that is. I should have known it would happen sooner or later. I mean, honestly, there's the drinking, and there has been a lot of drinking since I found out... well, about my father. There's the attempts at heroics, which
isn't my specialty - there's a reason why Angel's the fighter and I'm the guy with the visions. And there's the simple fact that LA's not a safe place. All of it adds up to the fact that a guy can't expect to live forever.

Doesn't make me feel any better about it, though. Even the fact that I'm not quite sure how I'm still... well, feeling or thinking much of anything doesn't quite help. There was the Scourge's bomb, and then everything seemed to just... vanish into this bright white light.

I know that I am dead.

But what happens next? I'm just... well, there's all this white, and time to think, or at least, it feels like there's time to think. Am I here? Is there a here? Is this it, for the rest of eternity? Aww, please God, don't let this be it for the rest of eternity.

Maybe a few moments to think, to sort it all out will be good for me. To think about my life, about what I did, what I didn't do, what I wanted to do... Cordelia. Now there's something I can think about for a while. Gorgeous, smart, sharp tongue on the girl, but there's something about her...

I guess it doesn't matter anymore what I wanted to do. It's over. Everything's over - for me at least. No more Allan Francis Doyle.

It was something though, my life. Maybe not perfect, but I know that I lived. I lived so much that Death had to come drag me down in such a big display... Not with a whimper, but with a bang. Or at least a flash.

Maybe that's enough?

End: Stopped for Me.