Notes:  Major charactor death, sequal to "Darkness Rising", splits
off
from Cannon during the third season.

==================================================
====================

It happened in an instant, one minute Willow was chatting happily to
Oz as he drove them toward home for the night, the next the van was
on
it's side, the window was covered in blood and Willow's legs
were in
horrible pain.

Willow couldn't get her seat belt unfastened, couldn't move
far enough
to touch him, couldn't move far enough to touch him, and
couldn't
determine how badly hurt he was.

She tried calling to him but he didn't respond. She tried a spell
the
pain in her body prevented her from maintaining the necessary
concentration.

Willow saw the driver of the other car crawl out of his vehicle and
stagger toward them.

"Get help!" She screamed, "We're trapped!" The
man looked over in her
direction blankly then disappeared from her field of view.

At first Willow told herself he'd gone to call for help but as
the
hours drug on, hope faded.

===========================================================

Angel glared at the overturned van; he could distinctly hear a single
heartbeat coming from the twisted heap of metal. The night had been
one delay after another.

He hated the summer. The long days cut down his prime hunting time.
There were always the tunnels and sewers, but in the years since he
had started hunting down there the other vamps had learned to be
cautious.

Once he'd finally got out of the house, he'd run into the
current
Slayer, Jennifer. She was a real new comer to the game. So new Giles
apparently hadn't had time to explain him to her yet, very
careless of
him. Angel reacted instinctively to being attacked and the night
could
easily have had a tragic outcome.

As it was she'd have a headache in the morning. He'd left her
unconscious body on Giles' doorstep with a note detailing some
weak
points in her fighting style.

Now just when he'd gotten back to the hunt there was this wreck.
Angel
considered just ignoring it, but he knew Buffy would have disapproved
and if Willow ever heard about this she'd be disappointed in him.

Irritably Angel climbed on to the upturned side of the van. The door
handle had been crushed when the van had rolled; the window was
obscured by dried blood. Angel realized the wreck must have occurred
hours earlier. With almost disdainful ease he ripped the door from
the
twisted frame of the vehicle.

And froze. Angel's vampiric vision could easily pierce the
shadowy
interior of the van to identify the young woman in the passenger seat
below him. Angel hadn't felt anything since killing Aurora after
Buffy's death, yet that night terror filled him. The danger to
Willow,
his last tie to the mortal world and Buffy, breaking through the
detachment that had possessed him for so long.

"A-Angel?" Willow whispered weakly.

"I'm here," he answered. "It's going to be
okay."

"Oz?"

Angel glanced past Willow to the still, utterly silent form in the
driver's seat. He strained his senses, trying to detect some sign
of
life beyond Willow's. When he looked back at the pale redhead
Angel's
face was a mask. "I'm going to call an ambulance, they'll
take care of
you both," Angel said. "It will only take a few minutes,
I'll come
right back."

Angel raced to the nearest house, he hated to leave Willow alone,
even
for a few minutes, this was Sunnydale after all, and she was
helpless.
Still, the ambulance had to be summoned. Angel couldn't carry her
without risking aggravating any spinal cord injuries she might have
suffered.

The occupants of the house were sleeping when he arrived, fortunately
when the man awakened he was too disoriented to wonder how Angel had
reached the window of his second story bedroom. He listened dazedly
as
Angel explained about the wreck then invited the vampire in to use
the
phone.

Angel explained again to the 911 operator, then hastened back to the
scene of the collision. As he passed the other car Angel paused,
detecting the distinctive odor of alcohol emanating from the other
vehicle. As Angel went to investigate his game face surfaced.

The window on the driver's side of the car was cracked and
spattered
with dried blood. Delicately Angel scrapped some of the blood off the
window and tasted it. Angel began to growl softly as the taste of
alcohol ladened blood filled his mouth.

"Not now," Angel muttered to himself as he returned to
Oz's van his
human seeming reluctantly sliding back in place.

He climbed easily back to the upturned passenger side of the van.
"Willow, the ambulance is coming," he said.

"My legs hurt," Willow whimpered.

Angel leaned into the vehicle, trying to see if there was anything he
could do to ease her pain. What he found was the dash broad pressing
firmly against the edge of her seat; both Willow's legs were
crushed
between it and the metal frame of the seat.

Angel retreated to the side of the van, hiding shock as well as fury.
"The ambulance is coming," he reiterated. "They'll
take care of you."

Willow's green eyes were huge in her pale face. "We've
been here
forever," She whispered. "The other driver just walked off. I
thought
he was going for help, but it never came. Angel, he just left us here
to die. Then night fell; all I could do was wait for the monsters to
come for us. I haven't even been able to check on Oz, he
hasn't
woke-up, not even once, since the wreck." Her tears sparkled in
the
dim starlight.

Carefully Angel reached out and brushed them away. "I'm sorry
Willow,"
he said after a long pause, "I should have gotten here sooner,
I'm
sorry you're hurt."

Willow reached up to clasp his hand.

==============================================================

Angel stalked around the perimeter of the activity, the cops and
ambulance had arrived together, unfortunately the position of the van
as well as it's crumpled frame made extracting Willow difficult, to
say the least.

Currently the paramedics were securing Willow so she wouldn't
fall
when the van's dashboard was dislodged and the seatbelt cut.
They'd
also given her medication for the pain. Angel wished they'd
hurry.
He'd told them he could take care of the van's frame once
Willow was
prepared. They didn't believe him, they thought they need to wait
for
mechanical assistance to arrive. Angel resisted the temptation to go
game face on them; the last thing he needed was to have them run off
without caring for Willow.

Angel had also eavesdropped on the police while they had run the
registry of the second vehicle. Now he knew the name of the person
responsible for Willow's pain, and his address.

He hoped the individual would be able to evade the police until he
had
time to deal with him. It would be so much neater if the man were
dead
before entering police custody.

He watched the rescue workers pull back from the van, they were just
waiting for their "Jaws of Live" thing to arrive. Angel
grabbed the
first paramedic handy. "What needs to be done?" he demanded.

"We need more equipment before we can extricate her from the
vehicle,"
The man replied.

"Why?" Angel growled.

"The van's frame can't be forced off her without
assistance," The man
explained.

"I'll move it," Angel said.

"That's not possible," the paramedic argued. "No
human could move
that."

"I guess we're lucky I'm not human," Angel snarled,
finally allowing
his true features to surface.

The paramedic remained frozen as Angel dragged him to the wreck.

Five years ago Angel doubted he'd have been able to force the
twisted
metal holding Willow prisoner back to a rough approximation of
it's
original shape, he certainly wouldn't have tried it with over
twenty
curious on lookers watching. Right now it was easy, and Angel could
care less about what the watchers thought so long as they didn't
panic.

Minutes later the paramedics were placing Willow's unconscious
body in
the ambulance while the remainder of the team turned their attention
to removing Oz's body from the wreckage. Angel rode to the
hospital in
the ambulance with Willow.

=============================================================

"Giles, Willow's hurt, she's at the Sunnydale general
hospital," Angel
announced abruptly as soon as Giles answered his phone.

"How?" Giles asked. "I'll be there shortly. Who is
this?"

Without replying Angel hung up the phone. Except for brief phone
calls
and emails to Willow, Angel had broken all contact with the mortal
world over four years ago. Whistler had told him that living in the
world would hurt when he'd first started preparing Angel to help
Buffy. He'd been right; everything reminded Angel that he
wasn't human
any more. Everything from Xander's annoying nickname to the
simple
fact that everyone around him had a heartbeat while he didn't.
Still
it had been worth the pain to be near Buffy.

After her death he could stand it. Angel took out vampires before
they
could even approach their victims. That way he rarely even saw
humans,
let alone put himself into situations where he had to pretend to be
one.

Reluctantly Angel picked up the phone again and had the operator find
Xander and Cordelia's numbers for him.

==============================================================

Giles was the first of Willow's friends to arrive at the
hospital. The
first thing he noticed was that the people in the waiting room were
all huddled together near the door. As he stepped into the room Giles
realized why that was. A tall dark haired man paced across the far
end
of the room, radiating tension, anger, and raw power. The black clad
individual's movements were forceful and purely predatory. Even
after
he turned toward Giles it took several minutes for the Watcher to
identify Angel.

It wasn't that he had changed physically, time had lost its hold
on
the vampire two and half centuries earlier. Still the quiet brooding
individual Giles had known was gone, and despite the predator clearly
visible in Angel's movements he didn't remind Giles of
Angelus either.

Dressed in black jeans and a turtle neck shirt of the same color,
Angel's pale skin looked almost unreal. Then there was the power,
when
Angel had first arrived in Sunnydale he had been able to hide what he
was from the Slayer for months. Now even normal humans, completely
unaware of the existence of creatures like Angel could sense the
power
rolling off the agitated vampire. As Giles approached him the
sensation got worse, it felt like ants crawling all over his skin.

When Angel noticed the watcher he stopped his pacing and watched as
Giles approached him. The man's discomfort was apparent, even to
a
casual observer.

"H-How is Willow?" Giles asked.

"They're still operating," Angel replied harshly.

"What happened?"

"A drunk driver," Angel's voice turned even darker with
fury. "She
survives growing up on the Hellmouth and fighting demons for years to
get hit by a God damned drunk driver! I'm going to kill him."

"Angel?" Giles queried, uncertain that the vampire was
serious.

Despite Angel's human feature his eyes were glowing yellow,
convincing
Giles that he meant every word he had said.

"If he's human, wouldn't it be better to allow the police
to deal with
this?"

"Willow's in the hospital, her legs are crushed, the doctors
won't
even say if she'd going to live. Oz is already dead. Because some
idiot didn't call a cab. After the wreck he walked away, he
didn't get
help or even check on Willow and Oz's condition, he left. They
were
there for hours before I found them, because of him! Willow was
conscious that whole time, trapped in that van, hurt and scared and
he
didn't care. I'm going to kill him," Angel said coldly.

Giles knew he should argue. He shouldn't condone murder, even by
silence, but during the course of Angel's monologue his desire to
defend the other human withered and died. A Ripper-like corner of his
mind suggested that it might be satisfying to go along and help when
Angel killed the bastard.

==============================================================

A tired, grim looking doctor approached Giles and Angel almost an
hour
later, "You're with Ms. Rosenburgh?" He asked.

"Yes," Giles answered, "How is she?"

"Stable, we believe she has a good chance of surviving," the
doctor
replied.

"Except?" Angel asked, almost growling.

"Her lower legs weren't just broken, they were crushed, and
the delay
in treatment ended what little chance there was of repairing them,
the
blood supply was simply cut off for too long," the doctor stated.

Angel's low rumbling growl brought both Giles attention and the
doctor's to the vampire. Angel was in game face; a faint aura
flickering around his body, black flames tinged with crimson.

"A-Angel?" Giles asked.

Without a word the angry vampire stormed out of the hospital.

"Oh dear," Giles said.

==============================================================

The police had already picked up the owner of the car when Angel
arrived. He shrugged slightly; this would make things somewhat
messier.

Despite the fact that Mayer Wilkins was just a bad memory the
Sunnydale police force was still renown only for its incompetence.
Angel had little difficulty sneaking into the jail. Once there
breaking into the drunk's cell was child's play.

"What do you want?" the man stammered.

Angel stalked toward him soundlessly, his aura strengthening with his
anger.

"What are you?"

Effortlessly Angel cornered the mortal. Still without making a sound
his hand snapped out, claws cutting the drunk's cheek. Angel raised
his blood stained hand to his lips.

"What… Why?"

"I wouldn't want to kill the wrong drunken lout," Angel
said softly.
"Just the one who crippled Willow."

"I don't know any Willow," the man protested.

"You wouldn't," Angel rumbled.

"I didn't…"

"You left her for dead," Angel continued.

"I didn't," the drunk stammered, "You can't know
that."

"Yes, I can," Angel's voice turned low and silky,
"Your blood on the
windshield of the car that wrecked her life, same blood in your
veins.
Each person tastes unique, even through the alcohol I can still taste
you."

Angel's movements were almost too sudden to be followed, less
than a
heartbeat later the drunk lay on the floor, dead of a broken neck.

==============================================================

Xander and Cordelia arrived at the hospital together early that
morning after a long drive.

As soon as he saw Giles Xander broke into a spade of questions.
"How's
Will? What happened to her? Is she okay? Who called us?"

Giles took the last and easiest question first, "Angel was
probably
the one who called."

"Deadboy? It's been... well, forever since anyone has seen
him. What's
he got to do with this? He didn't hurt her did he? Where is
he?"
Xander babbled.

"Angel found her. Willow and Oz were in an accident. Oz was
killed
instantly. Angel left almost an hour ago, he's most likely
killing the
individual responsible," Giles answered.

"Good," Xander said. "If he needs help I'm
available."

"No," Giles corrected. "They were hit by a drunk drier,
not a demon.
What Angel is going to do is murder."

"How is Willow?" Cordelia asked.

Giles hesitated, "Not good, the doctors don't believe that
she'll be
able to walk again."

"Okay, this guy murdered Oz and crippled Willow, I think
Xander's
right. If Angel wants to kill him, good," Cordelia said.

==============================================================

"Willow, how are you doing?" Giles asked.

"How is Oz?" Willow asked softly.

"Giles took her hand gently, "Willow, I'm so sorry…"

==============================================================

Angel stood, silent and unnoticed in the entryway of the waiting room
listening to Cordelia and Xander discuss Willow's state, both
physical
and mental.

She had apparently kicked everyone out of her room earlier that day,
after learning of Oz's death. Angel frowned, she needed her
friends
now, and she was pushing them away.

Using the shadows Angel crossed the waiting room without being
noticed.

==============================================================

"Willow?" Angel asked softly.

The pale, tiny, redhead turned slowly to look at Angel. "You lied
to
me," She said. "Oz died before you found us, you didn't
tell me."

Angel took a seat at Willow's side. "I did," he replied.
"There was
nothing I could do for Oz. All I could do was keep you focused on
staying strong."

"You shouldn't have lied," Willow's voice was dull, a
hollow parody of
her normal self.

"Maybe not, I did my best to take care of you. I'm sorry if I
was
wrong," Angel stated.

"You were wrong, you lied, go away," Willow commanded.

"No," Angel replied. "When Buffy died you were there for
me, now I'm
going to be here for you."

Willow turned her face back to the wall. Angel settled in for a long
wait.

During the weeks following Buffy and Aurora's deaths Willow had
come
to sit with him for hours everyday. He had ignored her, preferring to
wallow in his misery, still her presence had been a comfort.

Four hours later Willow started talking. "The other driver walked
away, he pulled into our lane, right in front of Oz, there was
nothing
we could have done to avoid him. It was his fault and he walked away,
but Oz died. It's not fair!"

Angel took her hand silently.

"He left us you know," Willow continued. "After the
accident he just
walked off, he didn't care what he'd done to us. He
wasn't a demon, he
had a soul, he just didn't care. He destroyed our lives and we
never
even mattered to him. Spike, the Master, Mayor Wilkins, at least they
were our enemies. They might have tried to destroy us but we mattered
to them."

"The other driver was drunk," Angel said finally.

"That's a real comfort," Willow snarled.

"He's dead," Angel offered tentatively.

"He deserves to be, but he's not," Willow replied.
"He walked away, he
left us to die. He didn't even get hurt and it was all his
fault."

"I know," Angel sighed. "I tracked him last night, when I
found him, I
killed him."

The silence stretched for several minutes. Willow stared blankly at
Angel; he shifted his weight nervously.

"Oh," Willow said finally, her voice was empty of expression.

Silence descended again.

The End
 

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