E-MAIL: Ciderbreak@aol.com
SERIES: Path Less Traveled #15 Epilogue.
DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon and the WB own all BTVS characters. No infringement implied.
DISTRIBUTION: Charity's Site, Fever of Fate, my website.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you to all who sent feedback to me during the duration of this series. It is my favorite work to date and I was elated to hear your comments and praise throughout. Words cannot express the depth of my thanks to everyone on this list!
Angel spent the
wee hours of one Saturday night doing his favorite activity: watching Willow
sleep. Her long red hair, now with a few black chunks dyed throughout,
fanned out over the pillow in wisps and waves. He followed one such wave
with his index finger, loving the cool cornsilk feeling beneath his fingertip.
Then he followed the curl down the smooth column of her neck, where she
wore a thin silver chain with a pendant of the Parthenon, a special souvenir
from their recent trip to Greece. The silver reflected the soft light Angel
had turned on so he could study her. In the middle of the night, in the
peaceful quiet part of his day, he liked to watch her and recall what she'd
said to him that day, what she'd accomplished in her pursuit of a medical
degree, what she looked like in the throes of ecstasy as he emptied his
seed into her in another attempt to recreate the child they'd so cruelly
lost at the hands of evil.
Summer and winter of three years passed without so much as a hint of Willow being fertile. She wanted a baby as much as Angel, and it was certainly not for lack of trying, Angel smiled wryly, remembering their prolonged love making session earlier. What Willow had said to Amanda James so long ago about physical intimacy getting better over time proved true. Proved very true, Angel reflected, smiling wider now and dropping a kiss on her sleeping mouth.
He was startled by Willow suddenly capturing his roving hand in hers.
"You drive me crazy when you do that," she accused him with a smile.
"Do what?"
"Watch me."
"I like to watch," he said unnecessarily. She knew his habits from years of observing and loving him. He hardly needed to tell her.
Willow spooned herself against him and nuzzled his neck with her mouth.
"Think you can find another use for those wandering hands of yours?" she teased, moving her own hands down the length of him, shivering as usual when he quickly responded to her touch. Sometimes it still amazed her that he found her so alluring. Despite her earlier comment, Willow loved waking in the middle of the night to make love with her husband. He was less guarded in the quiet of the night. More vulnerable, more apt to lose control with her, trusting her explicitly. Time moved differently in her head now and her most treasured times in the almost four years since she'd first moved in with him were the simple ones like this. Just hands touching, mouths kissing, losing herself in the pleasure and feel of what it was like to be loved by Angel.
Angel flipped her over onto her back and braced himself over her, staring deeply into her blue-green eyes, pleased with the love he found staring out of the depths of her.
"I love you," he said in his head. Willow smiled and echoed the sentiment.
And then she decided that this would be a perfect time to announce her news.
"By the way," she said aloud, off-handedly. "I'm pregnant."
"WHAT?!" Angel shouted, sitting up and tugging the sheets down to her knees, placing one hand over her flat stomach. He half expected to see her swollen with his child, even though he knew logically that wouldn't happen for a while. Months. How many again? He knew this one…nine. Damn, he couldn't think straight. Willow was pregnant? With his child. A vampire, about to be a father. They were about to make supernatural history. Giles would freak out.
"I take it speechlessness is a good thing?" Willow jested lightly.
"When? How?"
Willow raised one eyebrow.
"I mean, how long? You don't look any different. Do you feel sick? Want me to call your doctor?"
Willow reached up and cupped the side of his face in her hand, sighing when he turned and kissed her palm. This was the reaction she wanted. All flustered and excited and beside himself. In two hundred and fifty years, this was the one thing Angel had never experienced.
"I saw my doctor this morning, Angel. I'm in perfect health and the baby is fine. I'm almost three months along with the baby we conceived in Greece. I wanted to be absolutely sure everything was okay before I told you. Silly, I know, but I had to be sure."
"No, you did what you had to do," Angel said supportively. "So, this means you'll have the baby when?"
"Our child is due in September. Grad school will have to be put off for a little bit, but it's not as though I'm in a time crunch."
Our child. Our baby. Angel blinked back tears and leaned down to kiss her abdomen. First thing in the morning he would haul himself to the library and check out every book on childbirth and pregnancy that ever existed and spend the next nine months reading. He knew nothing about children, absolutely nothing except how to conceive them.
Willow sighed happily and stretched her arms over her head, pressing her fingers against the headboard. Angel had a thousand questions whizzing through his mind, she could hear them all. Yes, a trip to the library was definitely in the cards. They'd have to do a lot of the work themselves, vampire progeny being previously limited to the draining and drinking of blood. This child would be special. So special.
"When do we know if it's a boy or a girl?" Angel wanted to know. He drew her into his arms and snuggled her close against him.
"Don't you want to be surprised?"
"The sooner I know, the sooner I can start dreaming about what it's going to be like," Angel explained. "I've lived for two hundred and fifty years, the last thing I want now is to be unprepared. I know, I know, the experience will change my entire life, I've seen the commercials on TV. But, Willow… you changed my life more than I could ever imagine and it's been the best thing to ever happen to me. I can't wait to start loving this baby."
"Start now," Willow suggested. No doubt Angel would make an incredible father.
"Okay," he agreed. "How?"
"By making love to the baby's mother," Willow suggested, sinuously moving against him. He needed to know he wasn't going to break her.
Angel hesitated for a split second, until she wrapped her arms around his neck and began to kiss him with an ardor that would not be denied. As he began to lose himself in her, Angel silently thanked the Powers That Be for meddling in his life so long ago. He never could have guessed that this incredible woman would grow up to be his soul mate for eternity, but he could honestly say now that there was no better choice.
Here was redemption.
The End