Rating: 12 for Language
Summary: After the events of One Day in Your Life, Willow and Angel struggle to accept the changes in their lives and Willow tries to hide the truth of what happened from the Scooby Gang.
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or any of its affiliates (except some merchandise and some lovely, lovely autographs!). That honour belongs to 20th Century Fox Film Productions (and by extension News Corporation), Warner Brothers Film Production, UPN, Kazui Enterprises, Sandollar, Lazy Dave Productions and Mutant Enemy. I make no profits from the writing of or display of this fanfic.
Moral copyright is extended to all original characters and concepts created by me, the author, within the confines of this fanfic. To the uninitiated this means you must first seek permission before you play with my toys.
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Dawn perched on the kitchen units, staring down the microwave as it nuked her popcorn and sighed. She wasn’t stupid even though Buffy liked to treat her as if she was. Something had happened to Willow. She didn’t know what though and no-one was talking to her. They were all excluding her from their conversations again. The only people who weren’t treating her like a hopeless, helpless baby were Anya, Spike and Willow on the rare occasion she was around. It had all started when she and Willow had got back from LA, Dawn moped as she drummed her heels against the kitchen unit. Ever since then she’d been totally ignored for some reason. She could understand if they were all as worried about Willow as she was but not even Xander seemed to have noticed anything was wrong with her.
Almost as soon as she and Willow had gotten back from LA Willow had locked herself in her room and now she hardly ever came out. When she did come out you totally could see that something was wrong. Whatever was wrong Willow wasn’t sharing. Everyone else thought that she was upset because Tara had left but after LA Dawn was convinced that it wasn’t that that was upsetting Willow so much. So what was?
It had all started when Angel had crept downstairs wearing Willow’s body. Buffy had refused to believe him at first and Angel had had to announce some pretty personal stuff before she was convinced. Then he’d helped her with her homework outside in the backyard while Buffy went to work at the Doublemeat Palace. She still wasn’t back by the time Angel had managed to contact Willow – who was wearing Angel’s body in LA – so he’d taken her with him which is when things had gotten really confused. Angel had a son, something Dawn was fairly sure Buffy knew nothing about.
They’d had to go collect Darcy from the morgue and everyone had pretty much ignored her and she’d been sent to bed early by Angel. When she’d woken up Angel and Willow were back in their own bodies but wouldn’t even look each other in the eye. Then she and Willow had hopped a bus back to Sunnydale and Willow hadn’t come out of her room since.
* * *
Willow flipped through a random book on her desk almost idly, already knowing that it had no useful information but needing something to do and hopeful that she’d missed something. None of the books she’d read in the past three weeks had anything that could even go a little way to explain her situation. Nothing could help her. In the beginning, she’d tried telling herself that she was going insane but the first few hours had been enough to convince her that she wasn’t just suffering from hallucinations. Somehow, Angelus was still inside her.
She hadn’t heard anything from the others so she had to assume that Angel still had Angelus inside him too. So were they sharing him? Why hadn’t he contacted her when he realised that they were sharing his demon? How had it even happened? Was it a side affect of the spell that was cast on them or a backlash from breaking the spell?
Willow felt herself flush with heat as Angelus flashed mental pictures of just how the spell had been broken through her mind. Determinedly, she wrenched her thoughts away from the oh-so-appealing memories and shoved Angelus into the furthest corner of her mind as she concentrated once more on the task at hand.
So how had she become infected with the demon? Why didn’t he contact her? Was it really side effect of the spell or was it because of the… other things… that had happened? The things that she absolutely wasn’t going to think about because then she’d cry again.
If it was the other, then how could she tell the others? How could she tell them she had a demon that wanted to kill them all inside her anyway? Never mind that it could be for a reason other than the spell! She needed to know way more about this before she told anyone anything.
Why hadn’t he called?
* * *
“It’s worse than when he used to sit and brood.” Cordelia sighed down the phone. “Now he just sits there. He doesn’t do anything. I’ve had two visions in the past week and we’ve had to take care of them ourselves because he can’t or won’t.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?” Darcy offered. “That might snap him out of it.”
Cordelia shook her head even though Darcy couldn’t see her and sighed. “We’ve tried everything. We were wondering if you could do some hocus pocus that’ll help?”
Darcy thought very carefully about what she was about to offer. Things could get very nasty very quickly if you messed up an emotional healing. It required a delicate balance. “I could probably tie his emotions to the past so that although he’d still feel it, there’s some emotional distance?” She suggested tentatively.
“That’d be great!” Cordelia said enthusiastically, pouncing on the idea.
“What about Willow? How’s she holding up?”
“We haven’t had any phone calls from Sunnydale so I think she’s coping alright.”
“Okay, I’ll be round sometime tomorrow to do it. Let me know if you hear from Sunnydale.”
Cordelia walked into the reception of the Hyperion Hotel with a huge
grin on her face. “She’ll do it.” She announced to the group
assembled there.
There were sighs and smiles of relief from every person except one.
“I still think we should just get him drunk.” Gunn said peevishly. “After all, I was right about Vegas.”
* * *
Lilah was back down in Files and Records, trying once more not to choke on the smell.
“I want you to postulate a hypothetical theory on the information I give you.” She said as casually as possible.
“Yes Miss Morgan.” Files and Records responded.
“A vampire is cursed with a soul. A few years later the same vampire is cursed with the Voluntas Neco spell. The person who restored his soul is still alive. What happens to the vampire?”
Files and Records processed the information. “There is a 67% chance that the souls would switch places, depending on the strength of the bond between them and the strength of the spell.”
“Could they break the spell?”
“There is only one way. True Love breaks all spells.”
“What would happen if the spell was cast, backfired and was then broken?”
“The souls would return to their original bodies.”
“Thank you.” Lilah walked away, trying her hardest to present a calm and collected face to the world at least until she was back in her own office. How the hell was she gonna get out of this one? The Senior Partners would crucify her for sure.
Lilah swallowed nervously. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought. All she really had was a hypothesis at the moment. How was she gonna get out of this?
* * *
Cordelia watched Darcy working her mojo, bored out of her skull. She sighed and walked out of the room, leaving the small girl sitting cross-legged in the middle of the reception area with only her inept guardian dog standing watch over her. Darcy’d said that Angel would be hungry when she was done and the brooding lump of a vampire hadn’t bothered to eat in days. How come she always had to serve the blood? No matter what she tried to do to make it nicer for Angel he still turned up his nose. And who could blame him?
Cordy made a face as she gingerly cut open the sealed packet of blood, making sure that it all went in the beaker and not on her. It was always a nightmare trying to get bloodstains out. Not to mention the general ickiness. How could Angel bear to drink this stuff? It was just so…. Ick!
* * *
Angel sat watching the door dance around the room. What was the
point? Willow would never return and neither would his son.
They’d both been taken from him. Why? He’d thought he’d found
his redemption in Willow’s arms and instead it had been stolen from him.
Willow had left him because she was ashamed of what they’d done.
Why shouldn’t she be? He could never give her what she deserved in
life. He couldn’t even protect his own son. What could he ever
offer her? A life of darkness, a life in constant danger, a life
of growing old whilst he stayed young – if she lived to see her old age.
And it wouldn’t even be the old age she deserved, one surrounded by her
children and grandchildren. No, she’d be living with him. Alone,
like him. It was better that she’d gone. He’d never have been
able to give her the life she deserved and if she’d stayed any longer he
doubted he’d have been able to give her up. Who would want to give
her up? A woman as loving, generous, beautiful and talented as-
Angel blinked. Something in his head had just shifted.
What was it? What had he been thinking about? He scowled at
the pirouetting door. He’d been thinking about someone. His
True Love. Buffy? No, someone who wasn’t Buffy but who was
also from Sunnydale. Someone who was his True Love.
The door gracefully slid back into it’s usual position on the wall and someone knocked. Before Angel had time to tell whoever it was to go away Cordelia entered with a steaming mug of blood in her hand.
Surely it couldn’t be Cordelia? But Cordelia was from Sunnydale and while he knew that he’d found his True Love here in LA he also knew that she was originally from Sunnydale and that he’d met her through Buffy. But Cordelia? He blinked again.
“Okay, enough brooding!” Cordelia told him firmly. “You haven’t eaten in three days and the room stinks. Time to rejoin the world of the living.” With those sentiments off her chest she pushed the mug of blood firmly into Angel’s hands and turned her head away as he drank. Because she wasn’t looking she didn’t notice the way that Angel’s eyes never left her face.
Why couldn’t he remember his True Love? Surely he wasn’t that drunk. It had to be Cordelia, Angel decided. She was the only person from Sunnydale he still had regular contact with.
* * *
Darcy was packing her stuff up when Gunn bounced down the stairs and into the reception area.
“Hey,” she greeted him. “What’s up?”
Gunn shrugged. “Not much. What’re you doing here?”
“Sorting Angel out.” Darcy said, gathering the last of her stuff together. “I gotta run. See you around.”
“Yeah.” Gunn agreed, watching as she whirled out of the hotel.
She’d have said something if him getting Angel drunk had affected the spell, he reasoned. Obviously it hadn’t been a problem.
* * *
Anya huffed as she lost count of the money in the till for the third time. She scowled at Dawn, who was leaning earnestly over the counter.
“You’re sure you haven’t noticed anything wrong with Willow?” Dawn pressed.
Anya sighed. “For the last time no! She’s cut back on the magic’s that’s all.”
“So why is she spending all her spare time with her head in a magic book?”
“You think she’s secretly still juiced up?” Anya asked, alarmed.
Dawn shook her head. “No, just that something’s up with her. It started after we came back from LA.”
Anya frowned. “What could have upset her there?”
“I don’t know.” Dawn admitted. “But Angel was pretty upset too when we left.”
Anya considered. “You don’t think the two of them…?”
“No!” Dawn exclaimed, shocked at the possible implications. Slowly she adjusted to the idea and found that it made four. “Unless…?”
Anya frowned again. From what she had been told the return of Angelus wouldn’t mean a celebratory party. Well, she might get an invite to D’hoffryn’s but nobody in Sunnydale would be pleased. On the other hand sales would probably go through the roof. “What spell did you say they were under?”
“Voluntas Neco.” Dawn said.
Anya pulled a book down from the shelf behind the counter and flipped through it. Dawn craned her head to get a glimpse of the title. Fatale Battle Magicks the spine read. Anya reached a page and stopped flipping in favour of reading.
“It’s alright.” She said. “There’s only one way to reverse these effects. True Love.”
She looked up, realising what she had just said and met Dawn’s eyes. The two of them looked at one another with a profound realisation.
“Shee-at!” Dawn said.
* * *
He’d been in love with someone from Sunnydale but it wouldn’t work. They weren’t meant to be together. Buffy and a thousand other things prevented them. He knew that. It had to be Cordelia. She was from Sunnydale. They wouldn’t work if they were in love. It had to be her. But he wasn’t drunk now. Why couldn’t he remember?
* * *
Willow sat staring at the garden, trying to find some release from the demons that beset her.
Angelus was pissed off with Angel. She didn’t know why, the demon refused to tell her. She was pissed off with Angel too. How come he hadn’t worked out that they were sharing Angelus by now? It had been two months! How come he hadn’t contacted her? Did what they’d shared mean so little to him that he now no longer cared about her at all? Was he that angry with her? Did he hate her that much for leaving? Why couldn’t he understand that it was all she could do not to run back to him. It had torn her apart to leave him but she had to. She loved him too much to destroy him and that’s what she would have done. She couldn’t explain it. She just knew that Buffy could never find out about them. Something catastrophic would happen. It wasn’t just that she knew Buffy would be seriously hurt by her best friend sleeping with her soulmate. Some sixth sense rang warning bells so loudly that she was always surprised no one else heard them whenever she even thought about Buffy finding out. But nothing could stop the way she felt about Angel. She ached to be with him again. To stand by his side. Even just to catch a glimpse of him in a crowd. She looked for him everywhere but he had come nowhere near her. It was for the best really. They weren’t meant to be together. He might be her True Love but she knew she wasn’t his because he was still Angel. It wasn’t that she wanted Angelus back but knowing that she didn’t mean enough to him for him to lose his soul hurt. It hurt a lot. And then he didn’t even care that she was sharing his demon. Why? Why couldn’t he love her the way that she loved him.
Willow didn’t even notice the tears raining down onto her lap.
* * *
They were meant to be together. He just knew it. He and his Cordelia. But why couldn’t he remember when they were together? Or why they weren’t still together? Something was wrong. He just didn’t know what. Why couldn’t he remember? He’d tried. He watched Cordelia constantly, looking for some kind of clue that would jog his faulty memory. It was no good though, his memories of their time together were locked in some corner of his mind and he could get to them no matter how he tried.
* * *
Intent on confronting Willow with what they knew Dawn and Anya knocked on Willow’s bedroom door and entered without waiting for an invitation. At first the room seemed empty and then something glinted in the corner of Dawn’s eye. She turned to look and there was Willow.
The red-haired witch was curled up in her pyjamas on the windowsill in a shaft of sunlight gazing, unseeing, into the back garden. Tears sparkled like diamonds as they made their way down her still face and it was that which had attracted Dawn’s eye. Dawn caught her breath as she looked at Willow. The witch was so still that at first Dawn had a horrible suspicion that she was dead. Then she saw the shallow rise and fall of Willow’s chest as she breathed and she relaxed.
Anya and Dawn stood in the middle of Willow’s bedroom unsure of what if anything to say to her, which was definitely a first for Anya. It was the first time she’d been wordless. She was on the verge of leaving the room when Willow’s trembling hand rose to wipe the tears from her face. With a sigh the witch rose and turned to get dressed only to be confronted with Anya and Dawn looking at her with a curious mixture of sympathy, love and acceptance. As she stood there, unsure of what to say to them they enveloped her in a hug. Willow sobbed.
The End