Gargoyles are the property of Disney. No copyright 
infringement is intended.

 This takes place during the second season of Gargoyles, 
after the Avalon tour.


All My Children



Goliath didn’t look up from his book as the sounds of 
an argument came through the wall. Lexington and Brooklyn 
were arguing about something or another. Again. How those 
two could be such close friends when they spent so much time 
at each other’s throats was beyond him.

Before, he would have gone out there, broken it up 
and sent them off on their own to calm down. But now he 
resisted the urge to intervene. Whatever it was this time, they 
could handle it themselves. His children were no longer 
children.  

Unfortunately.

It was nice, Goliath admitted, that they were grown
 - well, mostly grown. They were still young, even compared to 
humans. But these three had seen more and lived through more 
than he would have believed possible a thousand years ago. 
They were more experienced in the ways of the world than any 
warrior of Castle Wyvern had been. And he had no doubt that 
had they been anyone else, they would not have made it as far 
as they had. There had been trouble, certainly, but they had 
risen above it every time.

But young was young and children were children. He 
would give anything to turn back time, make things the way 
they had been and allow them to be normal teenagers, growing 
up with their Clan. He still remembered them as children. Well, 
the boys at least. He never would have imagined that any three 
children could cause so much trouble. Brooklyn especially had 
been - *rambunctious* - in his youth. He had been a 
member of a group of, well, bullies, Goliath supposed was the 
best word, who had gotten in trouble practically on a nightly 
basis. The main targets of their teasing had been Lexington, 
because of his small size and Broadway, for the exact opposite 
reason. But the two boys had teamed up against them. 
Lexington’s sarcasm and quick wit, combined with Broadway’s 
imposing bulk had kept them on par with the bullies. Often 
Goliath would come across the two groups, trading insults 
back and forth. He was never certain what changed or why, 
but one night everything was normal, the next Fatso was a 
social outcast among the children and Brooklyn, Lexington and 
Broadway were practically inseparable. He wasn’t complaining. 
He’d never liked Fatso. And Brooklyn had never struck him 
as the type to be happy as a bully. Long before he’d had any 
reason to consider such a course of action, he’d noticed that 
Brooklyn had the potential to one day be Clan leader. If he’d 
ever learn to control his temper.

Which he had. And now he was shaping up to be an 
admirable second-in-command.

Broadway and Lexington had changed as well. They 
were not so easily trusting now as they had been, especially 
Lexington. It was a necessary change, but one Goliath 
regretted. Innocence was a precious commodity.

Which simply brought him to Angela. 

His daughter was not a child; she was of acceptable 
age to mate and have a daughter of her own, if she wished it;
yet in many ways she was still young. On Avalon she had been 
surrounded by her rookery siblings and the humans who had 
raised them. She had never had a reason not to trust anyone 
and she had been sheltered from much of the worst that the 
world had to offer. Sure she had been told the story of what 
happened to her Clan, what the outside world was like, but 
that was hardly the same as experiencing it firsthand. He 
feared that Angela had some hard lessons ahead of her.

It was odd, in a way, to think of Angela as his daughter.
According to the gargoyle way there was no parent, child or 
sibling. One generation raised the next. And every member of 
a generation were brothers and sisters. Had things gone as they 
should have, Angela would be a child to him the same way the 
boys had been. 

But things hadn’t gone as they should have. They had 
been betrayed, the Clan slaughtered, the castle destroyed. The 
few survivors had been betrayed yet again when they rescued 
the human survivors from the Vikings and the Magus blamed 
them for Princess Katherine’ death. Only she hadn’t died, 
Goliath had saved her. So even more of his Clan had ‘died’ 
needlessly, trapped in stone until the castle rose above the 
clouds. And he had been the only one left.

And now, there were even fewer. One thing he had 
managed to learn about his people since coming to this time 
was that the slaughter at Wyvern had not been the first, nor 
had it been the last. And far too often it had not been caused by 
marauding Vikings, but by the people the gargoyle clan protected.

Perhaps that was why he was willing to admit the bond 
between himself and Angela was different than that of the one he 
shared with Lexington, Brooklyn and Broadway. There were 
more of his kind than he had previously thought, the Avalon 
trip had taught him that, but the population was nowhere near 
what it had once been. Clans were no longer twenty, thirty, 
more in number. They were five, seven, ten, twelve. Things 
had changed too much to pretend they hadn’t.

Didn’t mean he had to like it. He often found himself
longing for the simplicity of the past.

To this day he couldn’t explain why he had chosen to 
join Hudson and the Trio in eternal stone sleep instead of 
staying with the eggs in the rookery, helping to raise them 
when they hatched. He had a fairly good idea though. His oldest 
friend and three of his children may one day be awakened from 
the curse that bound them. How could he not join them? How 
could he not be there for them that day in the future when they 
may finally awaken? He had let them down once. He would not 
do so again. And Princess Katherine, for all her bluster and 
shouting, had promised to treat the eggs as her own children. 
She would do so, if for no other reason than to preserve her own 
honor. After all, she had given him her word.

So here he was. A thousand and one years in the future.
Chased out of his ancestral home, living in a clock tower of all 
places, reunited with his daughter and Clan and learning to 
know them as he never would have in the old days, when he 
was responsible for many. And of course, here he had Elisa. 
*That* was something else he would have lost if he had 
stayed with the eggs. He would have lived, grown old and died 
without ever knowing the woman who brought so much light 
into his heart. Of course, he never would have learned of 
Demona’s betrayal, either... But maybe it was for the best that 
he had. He would not spend his life mourning the death of a 
woman who had not died and his Clan would not face her hatred
on their own. Had he not been there it is very likely that Xanatos’ 
plan would have succeeded and his Clan would be Demona’s.

The thought repulsed him more than he’d thought it
could.

Where did that leave them?

Alone. 

But not totally. Elisa, Matt and a few others supported
them. Someday, more would. And maybe, one day, before his 
time was over, he’d see the children of his Clan leading *their* 
children to peace with humankind.

Outside, he heard Angela and Hudson trying to break 
up the argument, and Broadway, joking in the background. He 
wondered again what they were quarreling about this time.

He shook his head and returned to his book. No, he
would never regret his decision. After all, his children needed 
him.