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“Hi.”
Angel looked up from the book he was reading as Willow entered the room.
He smiled at the small young woman as
he marked his place and set the book down on his desk. It had
been two weeks since Willow had returned to the
world of the speaking, and he had to admit that it still surprised
him sometimes to hear her say something. He also
had to admit that he often found himself prolonging even the most
boring of conversations simply to hear her voice.
He had been mildly embarrassed when he first discovered he was doing so,
but that had changed when he realized
that Spike was doing the same thing. “Hey.”
“I’m not... interrupting you or anything, am I?” Willow asked. “I
mean...” The redhead trailed off, gesturing to the
vampire’s book.
“What, this? I’ve read it at least two dozen times. You’re
not interrupting anything.” Knowing that his childe
practically followed Willow around everywhere these days and wondering
where the blonde vampire was, Angel
glanced at the door Willow had come through, half-expecting to see
Spike. When he didn’t, he turned back to the
redhead. “Where are Faith and Spike?” he asked, purposely including the
Slayer in his question. The brunette had
been staying with them since that evening two weeks ago when she
had happened upon Willow in the cemetery, and
she didn’t seem to be planning on leaving anytime soon.
“They went to the movies,” Willow replied as she sat down on the couch.
Angel swiveled his desk chair around so that he was facing the girl, and
he raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Spike
and Faith went to the movies together? I’m sorry, but I just
can’t picture it.”
“I didn’t say they were going to see the same movie or anything,” the
redhead replied with a small grin. “They just
went in the same car. Yours.”
“Please let Faith have been the one driving,” Angel begged. Odd as
it seemed, the brunette Slayer was actually a
rather good driver, unlike Spike, who liked to run into roadside
signs on occasion.
“I’m pretty sure she was.” After a moment, the smile faded from Willow’s
face, and she opened her mouth to say
something, then quickly snapped it shut.
“Willow, what is it? Is something wrong?”
With a small sigh, the redheaded witch, then shrugged. “It’s nothing,
really. Or... or maybe it is,” she said after a
brief pause.
Angel watched in silence for a moment as she bit her lip thoughtfully.
“Willow, if something’s on your mind, then
you can tell me about.”
“I know. It’s just...” Willow trailed off again, then began studying
the carpet. For the past couple of weeks, she had
been trying to find a way to bring up her worries about Angel’s behavior,
but she didn’t know how to do it. She was a
bit worried about his mental health, but she certainly couldn’t blurt
out that she was afraid that he would completely
lose it and start taking advice from dolls like Drusilla did.
She also wasn’t sure how he would react to her
mentioning his occasionally odd behavior, partly because he very
rarely exhibited it in front of her. That time she
had caught him in a daze, drawing a picture of her deceased friends
was her only experience with it, and Willow had
a feeling that she never saw his lapses, or whatever they were, because
he was always so determined to be strong
in front of her. And she wondered if his determination to be
the strong one and show no weakness his front of her
was part of the problem.
“Willow?” the vampire questioned, her silence worrying him.
Taking a deep breath, the redhead decided to start as simply as possible
and just hope they actually ended up really
talking about things. She looked up so that she met his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
The seriousness in her voice and on her face made it clear that this was
not just part of the ‘hi, how’re you doing?’
part of a daily conversation. She was worried about him, and
he was pretty sure he knew why. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I care about you. Angel... Right now, I have three people
in this world, and I care about all of you, even
Faith. That means I worry about you when something’s wrong,
and I know something’s wrong.” She stopped there,
hoping he would speak, but the silence between them stretched on for
what seemed an eternity.
“Of course there’s something wrong, Willow. You know what I did,” the vampire finally said.
“I know what Angelus did,” she corrected. “I miss them, too.”
“Yes, but you didn’t kill them,” Angel managed. He didn’t know why
he was talking to Willow about this. He didn’t
want to talk about this. But maybe he needed to talk about
it. “I've killed people, Willow. I’m a murderer.”
“And so are Faith and Spike. If you’d take a moment to think about
it, you’d realize that of the four people living in
this house, I’m the only one who’s never killed somebody.”
She paused then, more than a little unsettled by that
statement. Sighing, she tried again. “And that’s really not
the point. The point it, yes they are dead, but it wasn’t
really you.”
“Yes, it was!”
“Damn it, Angel, why do you insist on doing this to yourself?” Willow cried,
standing up to stare down at the
vampire.
“Because I deserve it!” the vampire nearly yelled, standing up himself. “I still had my soul when I killed them!”
“You were drugged; you weren’t in control!”
“Do you really think that matters? I still murdered them, and I had
my soul at the time. I killed them. I would have
killed you, too, if the drug hadn’t worn off in time.”
“But you didn’t kill me. You took care of me instead.”
“I’m the one who hurt you in the first place. And don’t tell me it
wasn’t really me, because soul or not, the demon is
always there.”
“I know that. The demon’s there, and sometimes, I look at you, and
I can see you fighting it. I’ve seen you fight your
demon, and I’ve seen you beat it.”
“Yeah, well, I obviously lost that night.”
“Maybe you did. I’m sure the drugs helped, though.”
Angel sighed as he sat on the edge of his desk. “Sometimes... sometimes
I just want to end it... I just want to go out
and meet the sunrise...”
“You’d give up just like that?” Willow asked, tears springing to her eyes.
The thought of Angel turning to dust
caused her stomach to clench. “We all screw up, Angel.
We all fall down. And when it happens, sometimes what
we do is so awful and terrible, we just want to die. Or we
want to give in to the darkness. But we *can’t*, because
that’s just losing; it’s just giving up, and that means we don’t
care.”
“Willow-”
“What about the people you killed? Buffy and the others? Don’t you think you owe it to them-”
“Don’t say that! That isn’t fair!”
“Oh, and telling me you’ve thought about killing yourself is? Why
didn’t you do it that night after the drug wore off
and you remembered what had happened?”
“You needed me.”
“And now I don’t?” Willow practically screamed. “How can you even
think a thing like that? I need you with me,
Angel. You, and Spike, and Faith... you’re all I have.”
“Willow-”
“What if I’d given up? What if I had decided that living without
the others was too hard, and instead of getting where I
am now, I just gave up... walked out in front of a car, or slit my
wrists... whatever? I could have gone outside during
the day and done it, and you couldn’t have stopped me. How
would you have felt?”
“It would’ve killed me,” the vampire replied, chilled to the bone by the redhead’s words.
“And that’s how I’d feel if I lost you.”
“Sometimes I think I’m losing, Willow,” Angel whispered, his voice strained.
“I know you do. And you never ask for help.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
“How many of us really do? You have to fight, Angel. But you
can’t fight alone. You have to lean on the people who
care about you, just like we lean on you. You helped me when
I really wanted to give up. Please, Angel, let me help
you. Just let me be here for you, and don’t try to hide it from me
when you’re hurting. Please,” she implored, offering
her hand to him, praying he would accept what she wanted to give.
After a moment, he reached out his own hand and entwined his fingers with hers.
~~*~~*~~*~~*~~
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