Pairing: W/A
Rating: R eventually
Summary: Willow learns in dreams that she is needed in LA to help fight evil. What she doesn't yet know is that Angel is both the person she will help and the evil she will fight.
Spoilers: BtVS: 1-3, Ats:1
Author's Note: This story takes place in the summer after the conclusion of Season 3.
Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy own all characters.
Distribution: Want. Take. Have. Just Tell Me.
Feedback: This is the first W/A fic I've posted so I'd love some feedback.
Email: soteria730@yahoo.com
*Thanks to Michelle who beta-read this*
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~Part I: The Journey~
It's dirty here and she's not at all comfortable. "But that's okay," she thinks, "because sometimes to fight evil you gotta get dirty. Not that I'm fighting evil yet. But I'm on my way to fight evil, so dirty is okay".
Willow sighs and tries to lean her head against the window of the greyhound bus. She then realizes just how many icky germs are probably on that window-pane and sits straight up in her seat. "Not that tired," she mumbles. She pulls a book out of her backpack and tries to do a little reading but her stomach gets all queasy and the words get all blurry. "Boy, do I ever need a nap".
She shuts the book and gazes down at the cover. "A Brief History of American Poetry". She had bought the text before she graduated high from school because she figured that she'd need to take some freshman introduction to literature wherever she ended up going to college. That was, of course, before she decided or, more accurately, learned in a dream that she was needed somewhere else. She, Willow Rosenberg, was needed at one of the few elsewheres in the world where there was not a nearby college that she got into. It had been then that she decided to "take a year off" before going to college. She wasn't actually planning on taking a year off, but that's what she had to tell her parents.
No, this was definitely not going to be an extended vacation. Instead, it was the scariest thing that she'd ever chosen of her own free will to do. She was going to LA., the big city, to help fight evil. "Vague much?" she laughed out loud. At first, her friends were dead set against this. They wanted Willow to stay with them in Sunnydale. They couldn't see her going off by herself to battle evil. Hell, Willow couldn't see it. She did however, know that this was what she was supposed to do. The reason that she had initially decided to stay in Sunnydale was so that she could help Buffy fight evil. The knowledge that somewhere else she was actually needed to do just that tested the strength of her conviction that she wanted to fight the good fight. She had made her decision and knew what she needed to do.
Buffy had caved first. She, of all people, knew the importance that dreams could play in one's destiny. She also didn't want to hold Willow back. Willow had been truly touched at how much faith Buffy had in her. She knew that Xander and Giles had faith in her too, but they really didn't want her to do this. Ultimately, they had no choice in what Willow did with her life and that is what she ended up telling them. They were worried, but she knew that they would always be supportive.
Besides, the end of high school usually means that friends go their separate ways. Willow had barely seen Cordelia at all since graduation. And Angel, well he had left without as much as a "good-bye" after the mayor's thwarted ascension. She couldn't really blame him for that though. She knew how difficult it must have been for him to leave Buffy. She herself had chosen to slip quietly away rather than have some big farewell. But, there were other reasons for that . . .
Oz had left with Dingoes to go on tour days after graduation. Shortly after that, she began to have the dreams that told her about where she was needed. At first, the dreams were non-specific, but after having them for a week, she suddenly understood where she needed to go. Never before had she felt a calling so strong. She was sure that were it not for the strength of this pull she felt toward LA., she could have never brought herself to leave her friends. She had been fortunate in that she hadn't had to tell Oz to his face.
He was still touring with Dingoes, so she left a letter for him in Sunnydale and decided that after she had settled into a location in LA. she would call him. She knew she was being a coward but she was so afraid of the hurt and disappointment that she would see in his eyes when she told him that she needed to leave him.
She still loved him very much and she felt extremely guilty that he had spent an extra year in high school for her and that she was now abandoning him during his first year of college. She had been afraid that he would insist on coming with her to LA and that she could not allow. It was her life and her destiny and she would not let Oz force it on himself, no matter how much he loved her.
She was sure of this, even if that meant that she would have to slip away from Sunnydale in the shadows, under the cover of night. It was with these thoughts that Willow stepped out of the bus and onto the streets of LA. She didn't know where she would end up or what exactly she would end up doing but she knew that she was going to meet her destiny.
~Part II: Now What?~
Willow was no fool. She had managed to purchase a map of LA before leaving Sunnydale. She had even studied the map but still didn't have any idea where to go when she got off of the bus. She had with her a backpack and a large purse. The backpack had a few articles of clothing and her laptop in it. The purse had in it her ATM card, the map of LA, the essential vial of holy water and pointy stake, and some basic magic supplies. She really hadn't brought much, because she knew that she would have to carry everything that she took with her.
It was a hot July night and she was wearing khaki shorts, and a pink tank top. She had a matching pink shirt tied around her waist which she had planned to keep on in the interest of modesty but her modesty had given way to the sweltering temperature after only thirty minutes on the bus.
Walking down a busy street in LA, not having the foggiest idea where she was headed, she felt neither naked nor lost, much to her surprise. She was rather mesmerized by the buildings and the lights. "We're not in Sunnydale anymore, Mr. Pointy," she whispered patting her purse. Buffy had insisted that she take Mr. Pointy for luck and she couldn't help but smile now because of it. "I have on me a stake that has been a cherished possession of not one, but two, slayers," she told herself. "No vamps better mess with me," she smirked.
She wondered aimlessly for over an hour before she noticed that she could no longer walk in a straight line. "Oh, yeah! I'm tired!" She was now in a seedier part of LA than she had been in when she'd gotten off of the bus and she saw a cheap looking motel that she supposed would due for the night.
"Hmm. It sure is a good thing that I don't mind dirty," she thought as she surveyed the motel room. She reasoned that this room was probably a good deal in terms of cash. Although, having never spent the night in a cheap motel before, she really had no frame of reference. She dropped her bags and passed out on the bed. She'd clean up and explore her options tomorrow. As her head hit the pillow, she felt a pang of frustration pulse through her. Her options. There were almost too many. You'd think The Powers That Be would be a little more specific when they sent someone to her fate.
She sighed and felt herself drift off into dreams.
It's a beautiful day and Willow sits by a tree outside of the high school. She's waiting for Buffy again.
"Hi, Buffy!"
"What's up Wills?"
"Not much. How was the Bronze last night? Did you see Angel?"
"Yeah, I saw him," Buffy said in a decidedly disappointed tone.
"I take it that the hills weren't alive?"
Buffy sighs, "Nope. Definitely music-less hills. Grave danger. Big Bad. World in peril."
"Hmm. I can see how that could put a damper on things."
Buffy shrugged in response and began to check her eyeliner in the mirror of her compact. "Oh, he also said that he'd like to torture me and snap my neck."
Willow jumps up in terror. "Buffy! Oh my God!"
"Don't worry Wills. I'm fine. I told him he could have you instead."
Buffy continues to apply eyeliner. Willow freezes. She's done this before. She knows he's behind her. She doesn't want to turn but she has to. There stands Angel with a whip. "But it's daylight," Willow says. She doesn't want to say it because she knows what comes next. That smirk. That look in his eyes- vicious, evil, soulless.
He laughs. "I know that you're not supposed to look a gift pony in the mouth, but did you really think I could ride this thing".
"I don't understand," she lies.
"Hope you kept the receipt." He raises the whip and lashes her hard across the face. Willow falls and Buffy (now filing her nails) observes, "Some good Mr. Pointy will do you now". He raises the whip again but before he can strike her Willow is in an alley. There are crates on one side and garbage cans on the other. She slowly walks down the alley. Turning the corner, two men silently fight. One is Angel, the other is Angelus. They are beating each other brutally, yet Willow hears only the sound of her breathing. Suddenly, Angel is dust and the victor looks directly into her wide and terrified eyes and says only, "Welcome to LA.".
Willow bolted straight up in bed. Her body was dripping sweat and she trembled like a leaf. The moment she got her barrings and remembered where she was and what she was doing there, the reality of her situation hit her like a bus. She was entirely floored by how incredibly lost and alone she was at that very moment and all she could feel was filth. The uncleanliness of the motel room and the grime of her journey made her feel like the most wretched of creatures on the earth.
She stumbled to the shower and turned on the water as she ripped off her clothes. At first, she used only warm water but then she realized just how unclean this shower was and she turned the hot water nozzle as far is it would go. She laid a towel on the floor of the shower and sat on it as the burning water scalded her body, drenching her and the towel that was meant to protect her skin from the grime of the shower stall. She sat there, curled into a tight, wet. naked ball of trembling flesh.
Still in the shower stall, with warm, cool, then cold water coming down on her, she felt her body relax and sleep reclaim her. She tried to maintain consciousness, but her dreams would not be denied. Only now, she did not believe that she was dreaming. For she dreamt that she was lying down in the shower when strange, yet familiar hands took hold of her wrist. They were gentle but insistent hands and they belonged to a woman.
She heard her visitor's voice and desperately wanted to raise her head. She wanted to open her eyes and look upon the face of the teacher, the mentor, who she had lost but, in the losing, somehow gained so much from. Her lids stayed shut. But Jenny Calendar continued to talk. "These insights are no curse, Willow. They are a gift. Take them, use them. The Powers provide you with the answers. You have to know what to see."
Willow opened her eyes and found herself alone in the motel's shower stall. Cold water cascaded over her body and she was using for a blanket the drenched towel that had been serving as a mat. She shivered violently but she could stand. Turning off the water, she slowly dried her body and made her way back to the bed. She sat there, wrapped only in a towel and gathered her thoughts.
She had never had dreams like that before. The dreams through which she understood that she was needed in LA. did not specifically involve any of the people in her life in Sunnydale. She was surprised that Angel was the featured guest in tonight's installment. She hadn't the foggiest idea where he was. "Hell, Angel could be in Budapest or something!" she thought. "No, he must be nearby. I can feel him. I feel his conflict, his struggle." Then the image of the dark alley flashed before her and Willow knew at once where she needed to be.
The pull on her was so urgent and so demanding that she was barely able to force herself to throw on some clothes and grab her purse as she ran out the door. She needed no map this time though. Her body could only move in one direction. She could only have one destination. Purpose and need swelled in her and she ran faster than she ever dreamt she could.
~Part III: Some Things Never Change~
He was in a dark place. This was nothing new. Vampires were never in places that weren't dark unless, of course, they were dust. Still, he was in a place darker than night and more poignantly piercing than the brightest rays of day. This had nothing to do with his physical location though. He was in an alley, but he would have been equally as shadowed were he in a florescent-lit amusement park. He was a man who took his darkness with him. This, as was already mentioned, was nothing new. For over a hundred years, he had been an isolated creature of darkness. Lately though, he felt that this isolation was more consuming than ever. He knew that were he to stay still long enough, he'd simply drown in it.
He paced and punctured other vampires hearts. They turned to dust and he paced on. He new that Buffy would call it a patrol, but he also knew that she would have been wrong. He was not walking the streets of LA. for the sake of it's inhabitants but for his own sake. And there was the twist of the knife. It was bad enough that he had exiled himself from the love of his undead life and that he could expect no more from the remainder of his days than guilty brooding, but now there was also the resonantly painful fact that, although he saved countless lives with every vampire he dusted, he did this for his own sake, for his own sanity, and not out of penance for all of the lives he had destroyed.
This was his secret. He had no one to tell it to so he assumed that it would remain a secret until he went mad or worse. Now more than ever, he could feel the demon within him fighting to be free, to give into the ease that he had not known since before his soul plagued him. And the fearful terror that shook his conflicted body was, that in the midst of this struggle, his demon could feel his soul's sympathy. He was tired and he could feel the ages that he'd lived creeping through his still veins. Yes, he was so very tired. He had an old soul. A soul which wanted what it could never seem to find: rest. He also had a demon which wanted freedom. And for once the soul and the demon were in sync. They both wanted out. He could feel the stirrings of something not far from surrender in his pulseless heart.
That was when he saw her. Nothing registered. She was a vampire. He could sense it, but he didn't care. She growled. She recognized him. She knew who he was and that he killed her kind. He made no movement. He was still. He sensed the others closing in around him but on his face there was an expression of hope- hope for impending peace. As the yellow-eyed demons closed on him, Angel considered letting them overtake him. But he couldn't do this. His sense of righteousness had drifted out of his body when he saw the first vampire. When he then saw the others, he felt the need to destroy them for the sake of puppies and Christmas flee his body as well. All of this purpose left him and, for a moment, he was alone in the alley with his end. He began to wonder what followed dust. That thought stayed with him only for a moment though.
In the void left by the dissipation of his noble crusade, the distinctly familiar sensation of self-preservation arose with fury. He could feel a blinding rage burning in his body. For a moment, he was certain that his blood would boil. So, he began to kill, mutilate, and destroy. He was not simply saving himself, he was enjoying the blaze of brilliant satisfaction that surged inside of him with every bit of suffering he inflicted on the stunned and skilless vampires. It was unmistakably a display of killing for pleasure. He was calculating every blow to maximize the screams of the vampires that were now his victims.
When he was down to the final vampire, who had been the first one that he had seen, he delivered blow after blow, straddling her stomach and all but forcing his fist through her face. As it was, she was so damaged that she could no longer scream. He felt disappointment at the lack of anguished cries and then became aware of an oddly familiar presence. He looked up with a primal growl and found himself lost in the most tranquilizing green sea. He stilled and finally realized that he was not floating in a crystal clear aqua ocean. He was looking into two beautiful green eyes - the eyes of an equally transfixed Willow Rosenberg.
When Willow looked in his eyes, she knew something that she couldn't possibly know. She knew of Angel's inner struggle. She now understood the place of the beast that she had caged in Angel's body under the curse of a soul. She saw the brutality of a malicious monster. She saw the confused hostility of a frightened child. Then, his eyes slowly softened and what Willow witnessed was most troubling: In their gradual transition from amber to blue-gray, from monster to man, Willow saw undeniable shades of hopelessness. And she began to cry.
~Part IV: Meet Me In A Dark Alley~
Willow fell to her knees at the other end of the alley. Angel had no idea what to do. Part of him wanted to run away from her as fast as his legs could carry him. She had seen him. She'd seen what he had been doing. He looked down at the vampire lying limp beneath his body. He'd forgotten about her and his punishing blows the moment he'd seen Willow. He was mortified that she'd witnessed this. What was Willow doing in LA anyway? Shouldn't she be in Sunnydale? And how the hell did she just happen to find him in this one dark alley in Los Angeles? What is she doing alone in a dark alley? And was that some spell she worked on him with her eyes a few moments ago? Why was she crying? Stupid question. She'd just watched him disfigure a vampire.
The whole time he'd been running through this list of questions in his mind, Angel's eyes remained on the face of the female vampire that he'd pulverized. Willow quickly got herself together and approached him. Angel's pain had been jarring but if she was going to act, it would be now or never. Suddenly, in Angel's field of vision, there was thrust a stake. Angel looked up and once again found himself lost in Willow's eyes. "Take it," she said. Angel remembered the stake. She was holding it in her hand. "Oh God, does she want me to stake myself? Am I that horrific to her?" Willow saw the stunned look in his eyes and gestured to the bashed vampire that Angel still straddled. "Don't you think it's about time to dust her?"
"Yes, of course, " Angel responded, divided between relief that Willow didn't want him to kill himself and disappointment that she hadn't just offered him an out from his tormentuous existence. Taking the stake from Willow, Angel took mercy on the unconscious vampire and plunged the stake through her heart. Just dust. "God," Angel thought, "I hope I don't go that way. I'd at least want to be awake at the end." Willow rolled her eyes and Angel realized that he'd just said that last thought out loud. "So, let me get this straight," Willow questioned, exhibiting more brazenness that Angel had ever before seen in her, "You feel guilty if you don't stake vampires. You feel guilty if you do stake vampires. You feel worse when you beat them to bloody pulps. You feel even worse when you remember that you are one. Wow, you must really hit rock bottom when you remember that you're in love with a slayer!"
Angel kept his gaze on the pile of dust before him. He didn't want to get caught in her eyes again and there really wasn't any way he could respond to those remarks when they came from Willow. Heck, there wasn't anything he could say in response to those remarks coming from anyone, but especially not coming from Willow. The way he felt now, anything that came from her mouth would be right and anything he thought would be wrong. She was Willow of Sunnydale- good, innocent, lovable Willow. The school-girl who restored his soul. A gift he was certain that he didn't deserve. A gift he wished he'd never even received.
"Angel," Willow broke into his reverie, "what are we going to do?" In her voice there was desperation and concern. Angel looked up at her, his eyes wide with wonder. What did she mean? Why was she concerned for him? Was it just because she was good Willow Rosenberg, Buffy's bestest bud? Angel willed himself not to get sucked into her eyes again, but it was so hard. He didn't want to keep avoiding her gaze. Among other things, it was, well, rude. "I don't know what you mean, Willow," he replied lamely but truthfully.
Willow kneeled before him and lifted his gaze to hers. "It's okay, Angel," she explained, "I know. I know about what is going on inside of you and I can help. I don't know how, but I know that I can. You just need to trust me. That and keep your fists to yourself." Angel nodded but the truth is that he wasn't listening. He was too busy trying to force his eyes to untangle from her gaze. What was this spell? Why was it so hard to look away from her? And why was he punishing himself by even trying to? Was it wrong to swim around in a woman's eyes- in Willow's eyes?
When he again broke out of her gaze, he absorbed what she had just said. "She wants to help me? Is there help that can be given for what I am?" This worried him. He was one of a kind- a vampire with a soul who loses said soul when he gets real happy. He was an anomaly. They don't make twelve-step programs for anomalies. "Wait a minute," he thought, as Willow's words caught up with him, "She told me to keep my fists to myself. She's afraid I'll hurt her."
"Willow," Angel began, fixing his eyes on her chin so as not to get dragged into the eye-lock again, "you have to believe me, I'd never hurt you. Never. What you saw now . . . It was something that happened because . . . because she was a demon."
"No, Angel," Willow interrupted, "What happened just now happened because you are a demon."
"Ouch. Truth hurts," Angel thought.
"But you're also a person with a human soul," Willow continued, "You're two unmixy things that are being forced to mix. But don't worry, we'll work this out. I know we will."
Her words were soothing, just as her eyes were, and Angel found himself swimming in the sound. "But first," she added, "mind if we get inside, the sun will be up before you know it and that would be bad, 'cause then I wouldn't know a single vampire in LA."
Angel offered a weak smile and stood up. Willow was pleased that she'd been able to get a reaction out of him, so she pressed on: "Just think how traumatic that would be for me. It sounds like an after school special- 'Vampire-less in LA: What's a Teenage Girl To Do?'"
They didn't discuss where they were going, Willow just followed Angel. He smiled at her ramblings and felt bad about it. Why should he smile at Willow. She deserved better than his smiling. "Hmm," he thought, "I'm a self-deprecating brooder and even I know that last thought was messed up."
Angel smiled inwardly and his still heart felt all wonky. "What is this!?!" Angel screamed in his head, "What the hell is she doing to me!?!" He eyed Willow suspiciously. She was smiling and going on about how upset Xander had been that time they'd pre-empted Oprah to show the after school special on teenage pregnancy. Yeah, that Willow Rosenberg, she's real suspicious!
But then he made the mistake of passing his eyes over her excitedly dilated pupils. He felt that overwhelming pull again and fought to maintain control over his mind. As they neared Angel's apartment building, he was beyond exasperation. "Yeah," he thought, "This is great. Would it be too much if I asked her to wear a blindfold?"
~Part V: Questions~
"Yikes, Angel, this place is nice," Willow commented, taken back by the luxurious apartment that Angel appeared to live in. It was shiny and new and, well, black. Surprise, surprise. The living room was huge, but from the way Angel had it set up, quite obviously intended to be lived in by only one person. There was a desk in the far corner, lots of books, art on the walls, and only one place to sit in the entire gigantic room- the sofa. Still, the apartment was lovely and immense, especially considering that this was LA. "How can you afford this place?" Willow asked. She knew that question was kinda rude, but her curiosity got the best of her.
"Uh, it's complicated," he replied, hoping that she'd drop it. She didn't.
"How so?"
"Well, there are lots of demons and vampires in LA and many of them make a real nuisance of themselves," he explained as he walked into the kitchen. "Want water?" her asked. "Sure," Willow responded, plopping down on the remarkably comfortable black plush sofa. Ooh! It actually reclined and had a foot rest. "Great sofa!" she thought. "Hmm. Great, expensive sofa," she amended suspiciously. "And you were saying," Willow reminded Angel.
"Oh, yeah. Well, there are some important businesses and business people who pay good money to have demon and vampire nuisances eliminated," he explained nervously.
"Eliminated. So, you're like a demon assassin?" Angel had been hoping that she wouldn't put it that way. "Guess so," he responded. Willow processed this information. "I guess that's cool. I mean, basically, you do what the slayer does. You just get paid for it." Angel flinched. She had this way of saying innocently truthful things that hurt like hell. "Guess so," Angel responded for the second time, handing Willow a glass of water. His succinct responses were reminding Willow of aggravating conversations that she'd had with Oz.
He sat down on the other end of the sofa and Willow smiled politely at him. "Good," Angel thought, "look at her mouth, not her eyes." Angel had never really studied Willow's mouth before. I mean, why would he? One only really pays attention to lips when kissing and he and Willow had obviously never kissed. She did have pretty pink lips though. They were kind of pouty and she kept doing this adorable thing where she nibbled on her bottom lip. It was sweet and well, Angel admitted to himself, sexy. Then her tongue slipped out of her mouth and she moistened that bottom lip.
"Woah!" Angel mentally chastised himself, "those are not the thoughts to be having about Willow." Hmm. Maybe looking at her lips wasn't the best idea. "Angel," Willow began, but he jumped right in. "We need to talk," he said, surprising Willow. There was no way that he could continue to sit in the same room with her without addressing the issue of whatever her eyes were doing to him.
"You took the words right out of my mouth," Willow said, relieved that he wasn't trying to avoid speaking to her, though he certainly seemed to be trying to avoid looking her in the eye.
"What about your mouth?" Angel exclaimed. The only words in her last statement that he'd understood were 'you', 'my', and 'mouth' and they could be arranged any number of ways in a sentence, with any number of other words. Some of those possibilities began to form as images in his head. Angel gulped. Could she read his mind? Did she know what he'd been thinking about her mouth?
"I agree. We need to talk," Willow explained. Angel guessed that she hadn't been able to read his mind because, even though he suggested it, talking really hadn't been his foremost thought. "Get a grip," Angel told himself, "it's not like I've never seen a girl before. I see plenty of girls. LA is chock full of girls." The thought, "But only one Willow" began to buzz in the beehive that was Angel's brain, but he squashed it, not even letting his mind wander down that particular path. "Back to business," Angel told himself.
"Yes . . . well, Wilow," he began, "do you know . . . I mean, are you aware . . . what I'm trying to say is . . . are you doing it on purpose!?" he finally blurted out. Willow was shocked. "What are you talking about?" she questioned. Angel continued to look down at the carpet. There was no way he could look at Willow and avoid both her eyes and her mouth, not unless he looked farther down, and that might be a bad idea too.
"That thing with your eyes . . . and my eyes," he tried to explain. When he got no response from her, he continued, "When I look into your eyes, I feel like I'm being swept away be some kind of current and I have to try very hard just to make myself look away." Willow was still silent. "God, this is awkward," Angel thought, "she doesn't even know what she's doing to me and for some reason it's really embarrassing to talk about." Hmm, his thoughts about her mouth probably hadn't done anything to decrease his current state of embarrassment and agitation.
"It's not that I don't believe you Angel, but I'm not doing anything, magical or otherwise, at least not on purpose." Willow put two and two together and realized that this was why he'd been avoiding her gaze. She had been doing something to him. This was very weird. "I don't know what to say, Angel. Does it hurt when you look in my eyes?" Willow asked, suddenly feeling upset and frustrated by the situation. How could she even begin to help Angel when it hurt him to look at her.
"It doesn't hurt exactly," Angel tried to explain, "It just feels strange . . . soothing . . . and . . . and very personal."
"Oh," Willow said, "What does it feel like when you try to look away?"
"It feels like there is a magnet pulling me back into you and that it's the most unnatural thing in the world for me to turn my eyes anywhere else." At this point, Angel was looking at her sandals. It felt weird to have such a personal conversation with someone while staring at the carpet. Staring at feet wasn't much of an improvement. Though, Angel noted, Willow had very cute toes.
"If it feels unnatural," Willow began, her voice reminding Angel of why he was staring at her toes in the first place, "then why do you try to look away? I mean, if looking in my eyes doesn't feel wrong and looking everywhere else does, why not just look in my eyes, if it's not a bad thing?"
Angel didn't have a good answer to that question, so he thought about it and he tried to explain, "When I look into your eyes, it's like I get calm inside, almost like I'm being disconnected from my body, like I'm losing control, and I'm letting someone else have it."
"Your letting me have it?" Willow questioned.
"Yes, I think so," Angel sighed.
"Don't you trust me?" Willow asked.
"Yes, I do. But that's not the point."
"What is the point?" Willow said, exasperated and a little bit hurt. It sounded to her like Angel trusted her in theory, but not enough to act on that theoretical trust.
"I'm not used to sharing myself; to letting someone take me over. I've lived a solitary existence Willow. Before Buffy, it was a century of isolation. I don't know if I can just open my mind up to you."
"That's where the trust part comes in." Willow wasn't trying to be sarcastic. She understood that it was a huge thing to ask someone like Angel to open himself up to you, but she couldn't help him unless he did. And now more than ever, Willow felt certain that Angel was the reason she came to LA. He had drawn her here, just as something inside of her was trying to draw him in.
Angel understood that Willow was only trying to help him, but part of him earnestly believed that it would be better not to be helped than to let Willow in. He knew that the part of him that was apprehensive felt that way, not because of who Willow was, but because of who he was.
Who was Willow though? Willow Rosenberg was a girl from Sunnydale. She had risked her life countless times for Buffy, that much he knew. She had been the best best-friend imaginable, he was also sure of that . He knew that when he'd lost his soul, Buffy's friendship with Willow was one of the few things that kept Buffy together on a daily basis. He also knew that Willow had been the one to restore his soul. She had been the first of the gang to forgive him after he returned from hell. After all he'd done to her and those she cared about, she'd forgiven him. And she'd always been kind to him.
"So Angel, do you trust me?" Willow asked.
In that moment, there was no other answer. "Yes," Angel said. He looked up from the carpet and at Willow's face. Their eyes met . . . and nothing was ever the same.
~Part VI: From Behind the Eyes of an Angel~
They laid limply, still in the same places that they had been in when their eyes had met. Angel was at one end of the sofa and Willow was at the other. But now, both sets of eyes were closed. "No Secrets, not anymore." That was the first thing that entered Willow's mind when she came to. She knew everything, *everything* about Angel and he about her. It was almost too much, too heavy a reality to bare. She wasn't immediately sure what bothered her most- that she had mentally endured over 200 years of a vampire's memories and emotions or that he had been privy to the memories and emotions of her 18 years.
She opened her eyes and the room blurred and skewed. Light came crashing down on her from so many angles. There were shapes and textures everywhere. She couldn't stand it. Willow closed her eyes. It occurred to her that this must be what it felt like for a baby, when his eyes first opened and took in the overwhelming splendor of this world. But right now, that splendor was simply too much for Willow, so she kept her eyes closed and tried to process what she had learned.
Sometimes, when doing her homework in high school, she used to try to picture Angel in different eras, just to make her history text a bit more interesting. Okay, maybe she had a little crush on him but hey, hot eternally youthful guy, teenage girl - it was sort of a no-brainer. When Willow had previously thought of Angel's life in the many years before Sunnydale and Buffy, she always pictured him as someone in the background of a historical painting. Angel in old clothing, longer hair, and without indoor plumbing. But Willow now realized that Angel's life was no more a history text than hers was.
To be a master vampire, to have an unquenchable thirst for blood, sex, and violence, and to know that you would have an eternity to play with those urges- well, that was something that couldn't very well fit into any background. It wasn't like Angelus really cared about the gradual changes that went on around him which over time, would be called history. No, his life was a graphic blur of the urges that drove his demon. And more than ever, Willow was aware that he was just that- a demon. There had been no complications coursing through his head when he killed someone. There was simply pain and pleasure- the pain that he was inflicting and the pleasure that he derived from inflicting it.
One might guess that having to look through Angelus' eyes at all of the pleading, brutalized faces of his victims would have been nauseating and repulsive, but it wasn't. Those sights of terror that Willow witnessed through the eyes of a killer were not unbearable because she was seeing them through his eyes. She saw what Angelus saw. When he murdered, he viewed the robbing of life as a delicate art and took great pride in his work. He took in the bleeding and begging of his victims with eyes of a predator, and was immensely satisfied with what he saw.
He knew that he was one of the best of his kind. Everyday he proved it to himself with his cruelty. Not only did he derive pleasure from the carnal sins, he derived sustenance. They were his life force. Seeing, feeling, experiencing all of this, and reflecting on what that experience had been, the one word that formed in Willow's mind was "beautiful." And he was. He was as much a work of art, though admittedly of the dark arts, as the corpses that he painstakingly posed. This is what he had been- a creature of darkness with no doubts, only instincts made more diabolical by his ability to think, contemplate, and plan.
Willow now understood that for Angel, it had been quite a first hundred years. Then there was the curse. "Soul"- the word suddenly had a decidedly bitter taste as it swirled in Willow's mind. She knew now that dubbing the curse as a "Restoration" was entirely a misnomer. You could not restore something to someone if he hadn't had it to begin with. True, Liam had a soul, but as a vampire, the demon that was Angelus never had a soul. He wasn't meant to. Souls were contrary to the nature of vampires. It was maddening to possess all of a predator's drive for the kill and yet be plagued with a human conscience. The two were incongruent and, just as Willow had breathlessly experienced every single one of Angelus' kills through his eyes, she also relived those memories through the eyes of the souled vampire.
She knew what Angel felt and saw every time he remembered his past, every time he turned his thoughts to the days before his soul. When Angel reflected on the deaths he had caused and the destruction he had wrought, of course he felt guilt. That was the uncomplicated aspect of who he was. What was more complex was that he also lusted over those memories, he longed for the violence and the bloodshed. In his eyes, there was still such beauty there. The soul did nothing to make that beauty dissipate, it only caused him to feel guilty about his own instincts and urges. He was a vampire and nothing could ever erase the dark desires that he harbored, not until his body reverted to the dust from which it was derived.
Willow had followed this journey through Angel's eyes. She saw him being driven slowly mad by the conflict that swelled within him. She saw the rats that he drained in New York city and felt the repulsion that he had for his pathetic state. She saw a man named Whistler who took Angel to LA, where he first laid eyes on Buffy. This was the point at which Angel's memories became very personal to experience, for Willow at least. She saw the Buffy that Angel saw. He had at first idealized her beyond belief. She was an angel. She was holy to his unclean.
Willow felt the confusion that Buffy generated within Angel. He was revolted that he was acting as an aid to the slayer and, at the same time, he felt unworthy of having her look upon him, speak to him, even acknowledge his presence. Through his eyes, Willow saw a gradually different Buffy, no longer the ideal, but still no less loved, just loved differently. Then there was that night. He was so hungry for her, and this hunger would later be the source of his greatest guilt. For later, he would understand that part of him knew- part of him knew that when he tasted her that way, when he gave in to all of those sexual desires, that the conflict inside of him would end.
If hindsight is 20/20, than Angel's endless brooding brought his vision to unimaginable clarity - unimaginable that is, to everyone but Willow. Very few people who were not around before Angel was cursed could have understood how, despite his love for artistic death-bringing, the Angelus that plagued Buffy in the twentieth century was so very different from that same vampire a hundred years earlier. Being free from the conflict brought on by the soul was, in and of itself, blissful. Yet, for Angelus, there was an ever-present maddening fear that this freedom was only temporary.
He had been imprisoned once and he knew that he could be imprisoned again. It was this sense that he was running out of time that prompted Angel to try to end the world. He did not want to again endure such debilitating inner conflict, yet he felt that it was somewhat inevitable. So, why not make the whole world suffer as he had, if all of his freedom was going to end anyway? It had made such sense at the time. Plus, there was the sadistic pleasure of the knowledge that he would be inflicting so much pain on so many. Yeah, there was definitely an up side to being the perpetrator of an apocalypse.
Of course, it didn't work and he was sent to hell by the one whose body he most wanted to suck dry: Buffy. Hell. Good God, it felt like he'd lived an eternity in hell alone. For him, the worst part about being in hell wasn't that his soul had been restored (which was a huge relief to Willow), is was that the implementors of his torture were far less original and artful with their torment than he had been when he had tortured people. The beasts of hell that endlessly inflicted pain on Angel, made the entire concept of pain something that was mundane, uncreative and well . . . boring.
As a soulless predator, he had regarded the concept of endless torment with a song in his heart. Yet, he went to hell, and his torturers made pain, Angel's greatest media of artistic creation, seem one dimensional. To be the demon that he had been and to find torture boring was indeed unbearable. It was crisis material. So, Angel endured ages of unoriginal torment at the hands of amateurs who possessed not an ounce of creativity. Willow thought that it would be the equivalent of listening to the most boring lecture ever, in her favorite subject, over and over again for an eternity.
Then Angel was cast out of hell and you know the rest. Well, most of it. Except, perhaps, for the part that really shocked Willow. Angel left Buffy and came to LA as much because he hated her as because he loved her. In his one body, there had never before been such divided emotions. Part of him wanted to tenderly, repentantly love her and another part of him wanted to repeatedly impale her with her own stake. Before losing his soul, he'd had conflicted feelings about Buffy, but now his emotions were polar opposites and Angel both feared and lusted over his hatred for her. These were his secrets and now Willow knew them all. But Angel knew her secrets too.
~Part VII: Willow's World~
At the other end of the sofa, Angel was conscious, but he remained perfectly still and dared not open his eyes. Maybe if he never opened his eyes, he could stay hidden behind Willow's fluttering lids. He knew that in exchange for feeling her eighteen years, he had given her his hundreds. This should have left him indignant, angry, embarrassed, or at least distressed. But how could he be distressed that she had seen his world, when he was still basking in the bliss of having experienced hers.
"Willow"- the word sung sweetly in his ears and tasted like strawberries teasing the tip of his tongue. What most disturbed Angel about the knowledge Willow garnered from seeing his life, was that she would know how infrequently he had previously thought of her; how in his past, he had so underestimated her. She had been Buffy's innocent little friend. Every now and then he had noticed things about her- mostly her innocence and apparent vulnerability. When he had lost his soul, he had craved the destruction of that purity. Later, after his soul was restored, when he had seen her Doppelganger, it had been impossible not to compare that awesome, lethal demon with sweet little Willow. Everyone had been quick to notice the differences between Willow and her vampire version, but what Angel was only now beginning to fathom were the similarities.
Yes, Willow was innocent. She was kind and good, and so empathetic. There had been a time, as a ten year old, when she'd forced herself to overcome her terrifying fear of frogs to nurse an injured toad back to health. Well, the toad did die, but that was besides the point. She'd been so afraid of that toad that she'd cried herself to sleep several nights, yet she never blamed the toad for being green and hoppy, and, when he finally passed on, she'd wept for him, no longer out of fear, but out of empathy. Xander had given her a stuffed frog in memory of Mr. Ribbit and she would cradle the soft critter as she cried over her loss. As Angel watched this entire saga unfold from behind the eyes of a little girl, he found himself feeling the tremors that accompanied frog-fear and the sorrow that marked the departure of a helpless living creature. He, Angelus, Scourge of Europe, had felt both fear of frogs and loss due to the death of an amphibian. His demon should have been outraged, but there was no outrage to be had, for it was both soul and monster who were subjected to experiencing the flux of Willow's emotions and the shading of the world through little girls' eyes.
Angel had experienced first-hand Willow's loneliness as a child and teenager, her friendship and devastating crush on Xander Harris, and her fast and powerful love for all things to be learned. Even as a child, she read volumes. As soon as she had a computer, she became obsessed with learning technology as one might another language. Soon she spoke technical languages better than she did English. Angel felt her excitement and comfort when she laid her fingers on a keyboard. He understood how the world on her computer became more of a home than the one she had with her parents. It was like a secret hideaway. The attic that Willow had always wished she'd had to run and play in. It was an escape.
Angel experienced the events that triggered Willow's need to escape. He was picked on by the Cordettes at school, ignored by her oblivious parents, taken for granted by her teachers, and perceived as just a buddy by her best friend/the boy she loved. Angel felt her pain at these almost daily twists of the knife that was Willow's loneliness. He felt her well-buried ire at those who ignored her and Angel felt himself growling as her pain and concealed fury festered.
He enjoyed the satisfaction that Willow felt as her friendship with Buffy blossomed and endured the new fears that plagued her when she learned about the dark world of vampires and demons. He felt admiration for her bravery as she dealt with these new dangers on a daily basis. That one time that Willow had snapped at he and Giles in the library, after they found out that Buffy had gone to that frat party, Angel had always wondered what meek little Willow had been thinking at the moment that she released her anger and frustration. He now knew.
Despite how frequently she was perceived as helpless, Willow would rather throw herself to the lions than stand by and watch another being in pain. Whether it be a toad or her best friend, the vampire slayer, Willow was the champion of those in silent pain. It was a pain that she knew well. And, as Angel lived through Willow's eyes, he realized just how infrequently anyone had been Willow's champion. Sure, he and Buffy had saved her life quite a few times, but Willow was not a damsel in distress. She did not need to be saved. She needed to be embraced- spoken up for and to. She needed a companion who could comprehend who she really was. All of this evolved with clarity from the images of Willow-life that Angel witnessed.
Angel experienced the nervous anxiety that Willow frequently felt in his presence, which could not entirely be attributed to shyness. Sometimes, she felt tingly when she saw him. Although it was unspeakably odd to feel tingly when seeing yourself, it pleased Angel to feel it from Willow's perspective. Angel witnessed the evolution of Willow's relationship with Oz and all of the events that transpired in her life up until Willow stepped on that bus to come to LA.
Not much of this sounds particularly extraordinary, especially considering the lives that Angel had led, but there was a mysterious something about seeing Willow's world that made the experience intoxicating and prompted Angel to keep his eyes tightly closed when he came to, vainly attempting to wish his way back behind Willow's eyes. This something had nothing to do with the events that Angel perceived through Willow's eyes, but it had everything to do with the perspective those eyes created. Some people see the world through rose-colored glasses. Angel had just seen the world through Willow-colored glasses, and they certainly weren't a rose-tainted hue, unless the rose in question was blood red variegated with black. Yes, that's exactly what the lenses through which one saw Willow's world were. They were a deep, enticing red that bathed all sights in exquisite warmth and comfort, but were streaked with ominous, educated areas of black.
Willow was trusting and open by nature. This was why, amidst her awkwardness, she often managed to put others at ease. Yet, her remarkable intelligence, a trait which she frequently tried to downplay, never allowed her to forget or ignore the dark layers of humiliation, betrayal, and disappointment that could lurk behind every corner she encountered in her life. Willow saw the world as a place that was breathtakingly beautiful, yet overwhelming and brutally harsh. There were no padded corners in Willow's world. Everything was edges. No wonder she so loved cyberspace - there, at least the edges were virtual and less likely to leave bruises. Willow witnessed beauty along side tragedy and wickedness, and she took them in equally, without betraying any bias. Just as she could not condemn the toad she feared simply for being an amphibian, she could not condemn the darkness she encountered simply for lacking light. This perspective made her world markedly different from any Angel had previously encountered. Yet there was something familiar in Willow's world that was, at first, very hard to place.
That's when he began to understand the similarities between his Willow and her vampire Doppelganger who had so effectively caught his attention. They both saw a macabre beauty in the darkness. It was a trait difficult to come by. Angel knew this because, for over two hundred years, he had felt mostly alone in his appreciation for the perfect placement of a corpse or the music of agonized screams that pierced the night. Not even in the vampire companions he had over the centuries had Angel found someone who had been able to understand or fathom the beauty that he saw, not just in blood, but in bleeding. Not Darla, not Drusilla, not Spike: None of the master vampires Angel had encountered, with or without his soul, had been able to grasp that aspect of his darkness. But, lying on the sofa in the shadows of his overwhelmingly swarthy apartment, Angel opened his eyes, for he realized that he had found a being that could both parallel and counter his love for black beauty. He had found his "dark princess" and she was a teenage girl named Willow.
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