Rating: NC-17 (as this is part of an ongoing series with NC-17 chapters)
Warning: Discussion of the aftermath of rape. This is a very dark and angsty fic.
Summary: Willow changes after being raped. Angel knows.
Feedback: PLEASE!
Distribution: If you have anything of mine already, you may have this. If not, just ask my permission.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to Joss and a bunch of other people who are not now and have never been me.
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She didn't know the woman in the mirror anymore.
Willow had read that rape changed a person. But she never knew how true that was or how deep those changes could go `til the night Spike took her innocence at the factory. She'd had no idea that those changes would encompass her entire being. Not just how she felt about sex, but about everything.it had all changed.
Only one other person shared the knowledge that Willow wasn't Willow anymore. And, strictly speaking, he wasn't a person at all.
Angel had finally cornered her alone at the library one night and told her flat out that he knew. Told her he knew what Spike had done. Told her he wanted to be there for her. That he felt responsible because of his role in creating Spike and molding him into the vicious creature who had raped her. Promised that he would never tell anyone else what he knew or what she told him.
So Willow went back with him to his mansion. She had thought it would feel good to cry after all this time. To let down the barriers and just sob and scream. But it didn't. It wasn't cathartic or a release. It was hollow and empty and it made her angry. She felt like the victim of a con game. Everything she'd been told would help was obviously a lie.
That was the beginning. Or at least it was when Willow noticed it.the change. She went through the motions and acted like the same old, caring, do-everything-for-everyone, reliable Willow. But inside she was numb. When she reached for the feelings she'd always had for her friends and for Giles, they weren't there. If they were all killed by demons right in front of her, she would cry. But the tears would mean nothing.
Willow wondered now if the tears would ever have meant anything. Maybe the rape hadn't changed her. Maybe it had only stripped away illusions along with her virginity and her self- respect. Not that it mattered, evolution or revelation, this was who she was now. And that was all there was to it.
Oddly enough, she was able to confide all of this to Angel. She had thought that telling him of the cold places inside her, the echoing darkness in her heart and the venom in her thoughts, would drive him away. But it only drew him nearer.
At first she thought with scorn that he was trying to `restore' her in the misguided belief that the `old Willow' was still in her somewhere waiting to be saved. But she soon realized that he wasn't trying to rescue her at all.
For some reason, that frightened her. She wasn't sure why. But it did. She knew Angel wouldn't hurt her. Not the way Spike had. But she didn't understand what he got from her, what he felt for her, what he was looking for.
Still, she returned over and over again to the mansion, and to Angel. She needed a place to be herself, whoever that girl now was. She was a junkie, and Angel's ready acceptance was her heroin. And as long as he was there to give her her fix, Willow would keep on going to him.
The End