Rated: PG13
Pairing: W/Angel
Disclaimer: All things BtVS/AtS belong to Joss Whedon and/or whomever is currently claiming responsibility for it.
Author’s Note: Holiday Quickie #2
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It snowed in Sunnydale once.
Back when Angel had his soul and wanted nothing more than to end his life because of what he had done throughout the ages.
He stood on top of one of those many cliffs that seem to overlook our quiet little town and he waited for the sun to rise.
But it never did.
It snowed.
I’ve loved snow ever since.
Buffy may have been the one to go up there, talk him down off of that ‘mountain’, but I was the one loving him the entire time. Don’t get me wrong, she loved him in her own way, but it was the way a child loves her toys and doesn’t want to see them get broken. It wasn’t the way a man loves a woman and vice versa. It wasn’t even the purely platonic love of friendship.
No, her ‘love’ was strictly selfish in nature.
That doesn’t matter now; he left that night after our Graduation. We blew up the snake demon, formerly known as our Mayor, and Angel walked right out of Buffy’s life.
Out of my life.
Or so I thought.
The first letter he sent was a shock. I hid it in my bookbag, almost frightened to read it – images of those pictures Angelus used to draw and send flittering through my head. I had to read it, though. I had to know what was being said on whatever was in that plain white envelope, labeled so neatly with my name and address in the bottom center and his return information in the upper left. Perhaps I should have thought harder at the time. Angelus would never have included a return address, after all.
And so began our friendship.
Now, when I say friendship, I don’t mean meeting at the corner to talk about the latest shows. No hanging out in coffee bars or going out and just hanging. This was a friendship built on distance – emails and letters. The phone calls came later, much later. But in the beginning it was just emails and letters.
The letters meant the most to me, of course. These were the ones that he actually sat down, at a table or desk, and wrote. Pen to paper in that lovely script that looked like it was made for older times. Perhaps it was. He is sort of old. He always begins them the same, too –
Sweet Willow.
Sweet.
He labels me as Sweet, just as Xander would label me dependable or Buffy would label me intelligent. It’s a label, but also an endearment. He means what he says, or else he wouldn’t bother with it. Every word he writes means *something*.
That’s why the letters were always my favorite. So much more intimate, that touching of pen to paper rather than the clacking clicking of a keyboard.
Emails and letters can’t hold a girl, or vampire, forever, apparently; and one night he called.
I didn’t even know he knew my number.
It was a thrill, for that one second, just to know he had actually taken the time to pick up the phone and dial. To put it to his ear with the express purpose of speaking to me and hearing me reply.
Too bad that illusion quickly faded.
He had called to talk about Her.
His Cordelia.
His angel.
His savior.
Nearly two years since both of them had left Sunnydale and they were working, and almost living, together. It took such little time for him to get over his ‘soulmate’ – his Buffy.
My own fault for being there when he needed someone to talk to, I guess. Sure, I’ll blame it on myself, I thought. Much easier than blaming it on him considering I could never stay mad at him to begin with.
Dutiful as always, I consoled him. Cordelia was the ‘one’ if he felt she was ‘the one’.
But she wasn’t.
A few months later she had broken his heart.
And our phone calls continued.
What did we talk about? In those early days of letters, emails and phone calls; stolen when our ‘friends’ couldn’t see and judge? We talked of love and hope. Of companionship and the past. We talked of the future and redemption.
We talked about everything.
He had more to talk about, of course. I would imagine that would be the only way things *could* be when speaking to a man that has lived more than one lifetime. More than two or three, for that matter. He saw so many things, even without his soul. The first cars, televisions, radios and phones. Computers, which I cannot imagine living without, were something that he could remember being only a dream of the scientific community.
I enjoyed those talks.
He enjoyed those talks, too. I know it in my heart.
But he never gave me the one thing that I came to want after years of being his friend. He couldn’t give me that one, simple thing that I needed more than anything.
Love.
The sun is coming out now, despite my fervent desire for the sky to gray over, for fat globs of snow to fall from the sky and cover me where I lay. I don’t want it to save me. I want to feel the coldness creep into my clothes and chill me, freeze me. Find me in the morning with my skin frozen through, a snow angel of sorts, laid out for the world to see.
They would cry.
He would cry.
I shiver. The mountain top is cold with no one to warm it for me. No friends to talk me down, either. No one I love to save the day. The only person I love is sitting in Buffy’s living room right now, reminiscing about the good old days. And I had left, ‘gone to the store’, unable to watch them get close again. I had walked out of the door with no intention of ever going back.
So much easier this way, to simply end it all rather than dealing with the pain.
But I know, even as I think it; that I won’t die here today. The snow will not be coming. Nor will I freeze. I wore a coat, you see. My subconscious is as against this whole death thing as anyone else would be.
“Willow?”
It’s a trick of the wind, when I hear his voice, calling to me across that overhang. The lights are twinkling in the town below. Christmas morning is only a few short hours away. A sigh escapes from my mouth before I can stop it; the hot air crystallizing into a puff of cloud right before my face. So pretty.
“Willow? Are you alright?”
O-kay. So it’s not a trick of the wind. Still, I don’t want to talk to him. He’s only coming out here because I left the house in such a state. He doesn’t care about what he’s doing to me; I doubt he’s even aware.
“I know you can hear me. Why did you leave?”
“Because –“
“Because?”
And now he’s prompting me? That silky smooth voice, so low and compassionate. Talking to me like he’s my best friend.
Wait.
He is.
I turn around before I hurt him even more being the child that I am.
“I needed some air.”
“Ah.”
He doesn’t like that answer; but, then again, I’m not here to appease him. I came out here to be alone and if he wants to disturb me in that he can take whatever answer he gets and make of it what he wants.
“You left before we could talk.”
My eyebrow raises and I can’t help the sneer that comes across my lips, though I try to soften it with a laugh.
“You came to talk to Buffy. There was no need for me to stay.”
Ouch. I hate that look on his face. The sad, I just kicked a puppy, look.
“I came to talk to *you*.” He is stating firmly, hands in pockets. “Buffy was just an –“ And now he’s pausing, a wry grin on his lips. “Unfortunate side effect, if you will, of the fact that you live in that house, too.”
Oh.
Goddess.
Now I feel like a jerk.
“Um?” I blink innocently. “My bad?”
At least he’s laughing, even if it’s the silent kind. I can see it in his eyes, that twinkle.
“So . . . You came here, to Sunnydale, to talk to me?”
He’s nodding. A good sign.
“That would be situation, yes.”
Oh, damn that smile! That sultry little smile. It shouldn’t even qualify as a smile. In fact, it should be indecent to look like that in a public place. That’s a look for the bedroom, not a cliff on the outside of town. Does he even realize what that look does to women – to *me*?
Apparently, he does.
“I was hoping the two of us could go out. . . for coffee. Or a movie. Or both?”
“Ug. . .”
Yes, all hail Willow Rosenberg, Queen of the Senseless, Mistress of the Unspoken Gurgle.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
Whisper much?
“Glad to hear that.” Another smile, this time not so seductive-like. He did it on purpose, I can tell. You get to know these type of things, being best friends with someone.
“Was that all you came here for?”
Another whisper. When did I get so romantic-novel breathless?
Oh, yeah.
The moment Angel joined me on this cliff.
“No.” He admitted solemnly, stepping up and taking my hands before I could even think to move away. As if I wanted to anyway. “I wanted to tell you something. Something I should have told you a long time ago.”
Uh oh.
Here it comes.
He and ‘Delia ran away to Vegas and got married.
He’s secretly batting for the other team and him and Wesley are shagging like rabbits every other night.
He took a vow of celibacy and can never again know the pleasures of a woman.
“You mean a lot to me.”
Wha-?
“I – yeah.”
Someone just slap a piece of duct tape over my mouth, will you? But – no! Two for one special – the babbling just keeps on going.
“You mean a lot. To me, that is. You mean a lot to me. Too. Oh, Goddess. Just shut me up.”
“Gladly.”
Okay.
So, when I said shut me up, I didn’t necessarily mean kiss me.
Its working, though.
~*~The End~*~