The taxi ride home was dead silent.

   #

   Willow pushed the mug another inch away from her. It could not go much
   further before it was in front of me on the table. She had already pushed
   it to arm's length and the thought of semi-congealed blood wafting its aroma
   under my nose made my already upset stomach lurch.

   "You have to drink it sooner or later," I mumbled, covering my mouth as a
   belch expelled from my cantankerous stomach. I had gas bad, and it hurt.
   Bad.

   "Later better than sooner," Willow snapped sullenly. She was not a happy
   camper, definitely not enamored with the idea of a vampire's natural diet.

   "Later will come sooner...*belch*." I slapped a hand over my mouth again.
   There were certain aspects of being human again there were not sitting well
   with me either. My stomach was one. The nineteen-year-old girl part was
   another.

   I AM NOT A SHE.

   I do not wear makeup or skirts, talk for hours on the phone, gossip with
   girlfriends, shop for hours on end, or worry about my period being late. OH
   GOD! My period... Mood swings, cramps, and crankiness... Not that!
   Please, anything but that!!

   I am not a she but look between my legs and the equipment says otherwise.

   I belched again and began to hyperventilate.

   "Serves you right for eating all that junk," Willow zinged with a shrewish
   I-told-you-so look. "My stomach is easily upset."

   I nodded, too miserable to argue. I did not keep any Pepto Bismal or Tums
   in the house. Earlier, I had made the awful mistake of thinking that
   because my ironclad stomach handled a day of pigging out on everything in
   sight, that Willow's would too. Now I was paying for my gastro-intestinal
   indiscretions.

   Willow's expression softened. "What are we going to do, Angel?" she
   moaned, turning the mug in a circle. She continued to rotate it by the
   handle but made no move to drink it.

   I had no answer. All I could think about was Willow's stomach...and my
   own. She had to be hungry. I had not eaten yet today. Willow's unexpected
   visit from Sunnydale had caught me off-guard and I had not fed before I
   picked her up at the bus station.

   "A-a-angel," Willow stuttered. Her brown eyes were wide with tears again.
   It was there on her lips again, apology and contrition, but this time she
   could not bring herself to say it.

   "I'm sorry," simply was not adequate. Willow had taken my already awful
   existence and actually succeeded in making it worse. The thought of rotting
   forever in a immobile corpse holds far less appeal then being a vampire,
   even one that cannot fuck, and I am sure you can see why.

   The bitter, petty little part of me wanted to condemn her. It was on my
   lips, the words that would have reduced her to tears, but I looked up and
   met her eyes and I would rather have cut out my own tongue than speak.
   Willow already felt as terrible as a person possibly could, or should. I
   could see it in her eyes, which pleaded with me for forgiveness.

   I opened my mouth and shut it again. Strangely, my anger and resentment
   passed with blessed ease. Who the hell am *I* to place blame? I, who
   murdered Willow's teacher, strung her fish on a line, threatened her life,
   and stalked and terrorized her for months?

   Who am I to deny forgiveness? Lord knows, she forgave me far worse than a
   body swap and a botched curse.

   I reached out and took her hand. "I'm not angry, Willow, and we're gonna
   find some way to get through this. Just because Madame Beulah says that it
   can't be undone doesn't mean that we have to accept it." I forced a hopeful
   smile and suddenly my stomach felt a tad better. "We'll keep looking for a
   solution, OK?"

   She smiled and it was like watching the heaven lighten. "OK." The smile
   was tremulous but real. Without warning, she reached out and grabbed the
   mug, gulping the blood down. Then, she gagged with distaste and wiped her
   mouth on the back of her hand.

   "Fresh tastes better," I commented randomly. "And human better than
   animal. But I don't recommend developing a taste for it," I finished
   hastily as her eyes widened. "The cravings get harder to control."

   "You've lived on this stuff for eighty years?" she asked with newfound
   admiration, which made me uncomfortable. I do not deserve praise.

   "Over a hundred," I corrected. For some reason there seems to be a
   commonly held misconception about how long I have abstained from consuming
   human blood.

   "I have to get the taste out of my mouth." She stood.

   "There's a toothbrush in the bathroom." I pointed and she left, closing
   the bathroom door behind her. My recalcitrant stomach grumbled again and I
   wished that she had not closed the door. Just in case.
 

   #

   "So," I said, returning the table with minty-fresh breath. Yeah!! I no
   longer smelled or tasted of icky cow's blood. Or whatever that was that
   Angel had fed me. It had tasted so totally gross that I did not want to
   think about the fact that I had drunk it.

   Angel looked up. His arms were still crossed protectively over his tummy
   and I felt so terrible for him. Poor thing... If he is this miserable from
   a bad case of indigestion, they might just have to hospitalize him when he
   gets his first period.

   I giggled. I could not contain it. Angel looked at me strangely but did
   not ask any questions, which was just as well. Poor Angel... Poor
   vampire... Poor me...

   "So," I repeated. "How are we going to handle this?" I was determined to
   be positive. If Angel could find it in his heart to forgive me, if he could
   be magnanimous, generous, and gentle, then I would do everything in my power
   to make things better. I was gonna be the friggin' Sunshine Fairy of Cheery
   Feeling if it killed me!

   "Well," he drawled thoughtfully. "We could start with damage control. I'd
   rather not have my entire life upended...what I have of one anyway...because
   of this, and I'm sure that you feel the same." He met my eyes and I nodded.

   "So we lead each other's lives until we get this all sorted out?" I asked.
   That sounded almost OK. I could walk a couple weeks in Angel's shoes if I
   had too. (I deliberately did not let my thoughts stray into the realm of
   months or years.) "Who do we tell? About the swap?"

   Angel considered. "How about keeping this to a need-to-know basis?" he
   asked and I found myself agreeing. This was defiantly not something that I
   wanted all of my friends to know about. It was way too embarrassing and
   personal.

   Xander would freak, Giles would disprove in his stern parental way, Anya,
   that demonic little freak, would say something tactless, and Buffy...poor
   Buffy would be lost. I mean, technically, Angel CAN be with Buffy now. The
   happiness clause is gone.

   If Buffy wants to become a dyke.

   "That sounds good," I said. "We can just treat this as a needs-to-know
   secret and cover for each other until things get back to normal. Which
   should happen really quickly." I grinned, perkily, with all of my teeth.
   It only occurred to me later that an alligator grin from a vampire is
   probably pretty darn scary. "Who needs to know?"

   "I'm not sure," he replied. His expression was puzzled. "Probably Cordy."
   He nodded. "Yeah, Cordelia will be able to help you a lot. She knows
   most everything about my life that you will need to know." Angel suddenly
   noticed the face I was pulling. "Cordelia's not that bad."

   I stared at him pointedly, in disbelief.

   He spread his hands. "Really. She's changed a lot since high school."
   His voice softened. "She's my friend, Willow. Please give her a chance."
   His desperate loneliness-tone made me teary.

   "Oh, all right," I grumbled. Angel made having a friend sound so precious
   that I felt bad for having doubted Cordelia's saintliness. Mother Cordelia
   would get no more lip from me. It made me feel bad that I had not
   recognized his generally friendless state before, or done anything about it,
   too.

   Suddenly, badness occurred to me! "Wait a second!" I exclaimed. "If you're
   talking about *me* leading your life, that means that you're planning on
   going back to Sunnydale and leading mine!"

   "That was the plan."

   "But how will you do my homework? What about my GPA? I take Calculus and
   C Programming and they didn't even have computers when you were born!" I
   kept going, babbling like no one's business. It was a Babble Attack. It
   was The Invasion of the Babble Beast. A Babble-A-Thon, a BabbleFest, and a
   Babble-Off all wrapped up in one.

   Angel was the Babble Buster. "WILLOW!" He interrupted, holding up his
   hands, demanding surcease. I shut up and stared at him. Angel never
   shouts.

   "If I have a problem with your homework, then you can help me, OK?" he
   asked gently. I nodded and felt like a fool again. I am good at that,
   nodding and being a fool. Since Oz left my self-esteem has been somewhere
   around Grand Canyon level and this whole soul-swap fiasco had dragged me
   even lower.

   In some ways I am lower than I ever was in high school but the grown-upness
   of college has been confusing. Too much of my life, my identity, has become
   labels. I am Willow the Wicca, Willow, Oz's girlfriend, and Willow, Buffy's
   sidekick. I used to think of myself in adjectives, as Willow who is bright,
   intelligent, capable and loyal. I was Willow who was a good friend and
   really great with computers.

   When did I lose so much of myself to labels?

   My most recent screw-ups with magic...that thing with the "my will be done"
   spell and now this had me seriously questioning my Wicca value-set. Maybe
   conjuring the forces of darkness, practicing transmutation, and fooling with
   curses are not the brightest things I have ever done (sarcasm here).

   I am in over my head and I know it.

   My pride has led me to my fall. Now I am Willow who is stuck in a vampire's
   body. A MALE vampire's body... Given, a REALLY gorgeous body but *still* a
   vampire's and *still* a male one. I think that if I am going to keep my
   sanity intact, I need to go back to concentrating on who *I* inside and not
   on my socially assigned designations.

   Angel and I talked for hours after that. It was decided and agreed that we
   would live one another's lives and continue to seek a cure for the curse.
   Our friends would be informed on a need-to-know basis and we would spend the
   weekend together exchanging pertinent personal information.

   On Monday, Angel would go back to Sunnydale and resume life as a UC
   Sunnydale student. I would stay here and battle the forces of darkness, or
   at least try. Privately, I think it is more likely that I will spend a lot
   of time brooding and look really good while I am doing it.

   You want to know the really freaky part about all of this, the part that
   scares me to death and makes me thing that all of this is a joke? My life
   has changed forever and it is still only Friday.

 
read the sequal The Emperor's New Clothes

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