Title: Amends
Fandom: BtVS
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Angel
Rating: PG
Word Count: 300
Spoilers: Amends.
Summary: Angel’s past sins are tormenting him, but he knows apologising to those he’s harmed won’t help.
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 393: Amnesty 65, using Challenge 31: Apology.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.




Angel would willingly apologise to Buffy and her friends for everything he did when he… wasn’t himself. To Buffy for the torments he put her through, to Willow for killing her fish and threatening to kill her, to all of them for the fear and trauma he inflicted, but most of all to Giles, both for torturing him and for killing Jenny Calendar.

Yes, he’d apologise, if he thought it would make the slightest difference, but he knows it wouldn’t. There’s nothing he can say or do that would make them feel any better about what he did while his soul was absent. Trying to apologise would only rub salt into already raw wounds, and he won’t add to the pain he’s already caused. He can’t undo any of the harm Angelus inflicted on them and their loved ones, and he knows he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, so what would be the point of saying he’s sorry, even though he is?

Now that the memories have become clear in his mind, he regrets every evil act he committed after losing his soul, as well as everything from before it was restored the first time. No one can absolve him of his sins, they’re too many and too great. What he suffered during his endless time in the Hell dimension doesn’t even begin to make up for the least significant of his crimes.

He should still be in Hell, suffering agonies for eternity, but somehow he’s not, and he doesn’t understand why. The memories haunt him, filling his head, awake or asleep; he can’t escape them, and probably shouldn’t try. The guilt he feels is overwhelming, there’s so much he needs to atone for, but where to begin? How can he ever make amends?

The world would be better off without him.


The End