Part Five:
The night at the library had been painfully uneventful no one wanting to talk about what they had seen at the mansion even though Buffy wanted with everything each of them had seen or thought they had seen an equally strong part of herself didn't want to know. It was easy to pretend that it didn't matter that Angel wasn't farther away from her then ever before. She knew he was. So far from her, so much closer to Willow.
Looking down at the watch on her wrist she knew she had time to make another sweep past the cemetery before heading to bed. She moved speeding up her spider sense kicking her that there was a vampire near. As she rounded the corner at full tilt she stopped dead in her tracks. Angel and Willow where standing beneath the lamp at the park. Talking, Angel holding a brown paper bag and Willow holding a container of what looked to be Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Buffy watched with some fascination as Willow lifted a spoon of the chocolate ice cream to the vampire who took a little bite. "See I told you it was good." Willow said, Angel nodded a small chuckle escaping form his parted lips.
Buffy continued walking over toward them, Angel must have heard her approach and turned pushing Willow behind him, before relaxing on seeing her.
"Hey, Buffy." Willow said trying to project warmth and welcome into her voice. She looked down at the carton in her hand then up at the slayer. She dipped in the spoon. She lifted it to the Slayer.
"Want some?" she asked. She giggled softly as some of the chocolate got onto the Slayer's lips. Buffy swallowed her bite and then laughed as she took the offered napkin and wiped the smudge from her chin.
"I'm sorry." She said suddenly. Looking at Willow pleadingly. "You know how I am, I sometimes open mouth insert foot before thinking. " Buffy said quickly.
Willow smiled, and shook her head. "Okay, forgiven." Willow said. She reached forward and hugged the slayer. "I know this is hard for you." She whispered. She drew back and studied Buffy for a long moment.
Before the slayer shifted and looked reluctantly back over at the cemetery. "Got to go finish my rounds. Super hero time. " Smiled and trotted off without looking back.
She felt better, she loved Willow and the thought of having her best friend hurting because of her was more then she could bare. She knew that sometimes she got onto these kicks and for got that other's feelings mattered too. She got on these kicks all to frequently in fact. She knew it was wrong but it didn't make it any easier to stop. She tried she did.
The wait of the world rested on her shoulders, she just assumed that she wouldn't be begrudged what she wanted, never really thinking that what is wanted isn't always needed, that life that is based on need not want. Sure you can want and take and have, but then what. She wasn't happy about what was happening between Willow and Angel and it was happening, faster then she had thought, and it wasn't something that she could stop. She knew it. She only hoped that in the end whatever the out come no one was hurt beyond repair.
She knew already that even if by some miracle Angel's soul was his forever. It was over between them. She couldn't recapture the heart she had lost when they had clashed the last time. A lot had happened between them and to them, she could pretend it didn't matter but it did. He had been Angelus, and she knew even though she didn't want to deal with it that she had been forced to see that he was a vampire. Not that she hadn't known it, but she had for a long time thought that he was different from other vampires, now she knew he wasn't he merely didn't act on their impulses.
Which met as far as she could tell that Angel wanted her dead at least once a day and that loving her had to have been the most painful and strange thing that Angel had ever known. She even began to wonder if that hadn't been part of her draw for him, she was everything he wanted to be. So it would only make sense that he would seek out what he wasn't.
Then where does that leave you? she wondered. It left her with a broken heart that time would eventually mend. She sighed and headed deeper into the shadows seeking out the vampires she knew would be waiting. She needed to quote Spike a good spot of violence it would help. Then she would have to raid her chocolate stash, and then maybe the world would once more focus and the truth would hurt that much less.
The walk back to the mansion had been relatively uneventful, both where thinking over Buffy's actions. Each wondering if she should trust them together. He wasn't sure. He knew he felt something for the hacker, what it was, however was still clouded by the uncertainties created by what he knew that she didn't.
He took in an unneeded breath and opened the front door to the mansion. He waited for Willow to enter and followed her into the living room. She set down on the couch, putting the ice cream container on the coffee table and smiling at Angel. She was still hungry but the ice cream had hit the spot, Buffy was right there was nothing that chocolate couldn't fix.
"Goddess, I don't know what's wrong with me." Willow said suddenly. Angel's eyes slid over her worriedly. Wondering what was ailing her. "I am so hungry." She said reaching for the paper bag Angel had set on the table. She pulled out the sub she'd ordered at the store's all night deli and looked up at Angel.
"You sure you don't want anything?" she demanded. "I mean just cause it taste good and all."
Angel chuckled. "It only taste good cause your hungry," he said smiling at the small pout her lips made before she bit into her sandwich.
He set down beside her and waited till she had swallowed the bite. "So Willow, what are doing about this doppelganger?" he asked.
"We are hoping that Giles found out it had a weakness cause if he didn't we may just have to see how it likes the old stake through the heart routine. Cause as far as I could find they don't have weaknesses."
"So we just have to wait and see?"
"Yeah." she said finally.
They set in silence for a long time as she finished her sandwich and started in on the defenseless donuts that she had bout as well. Powdered, Angel watched as she got powder on her cheek and lips, when she had finished he watched her for a long moment before reach forward and brushing the powder from her cheek.
"Thanks."
"Sure, still got a spot," he said leaning in closer, his lips brushed hers and his tongue brushed away the small powder smeared before she had a chance to react. He drew back, waiting watching her cheeks flush and her eyes widen.
"We need to talk." He said finally, she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
"No see your lonely you miss Buffy I'm just convenient reliable Willow." she stammered. Angel stared down at her his eyes going feral at her words.
"Do you really believe that I would think so little of you to use you as a substitute. For the Slayer. I don't want Buffy, it wasn't Buffy that curled easily in my arms last night, it wasn't Buffy that I woke up next this morning, That woman is the one I want. It's not easy for me Willow, I look at you and I see everything I've ever wanted looking back at me. Acceptance and caring and maybe if I'm lucky you could want me too." he said trailing off.
"But you love Buffy." Willow incited holding that fact up to him as though that feeling would somehow out shine that which he felt for the hacker. It didn't and wouldn't he'd already tried that.
Seeing the resolve in his eyes, she looked down, and whispered, "Why? Why me? Why now?" she demanded.
"Because timing in things are always inconvenient. Because you make me feel, and I like it." Angel said looking down at Willow.
"What about Buffy?" she demanded blunt.
"Buffy has no place in this equation." Angel answered.
"She does," Willow said standing. She began to pace slowly in front of him on the floor." She matters a lot because she's the slayer and my best friend. She loves you." Willow said.
"Does she?" He demanded, he caught a hold of her hand and dragged her into his lap. She gasped and looked worriedly into his face.
"Angel?" She whispered, and immediately hated herself for worrying about what he would or wouldn't do. Angel wouldn't hurt her she knew this is was just the things that where happening and what the doppelganger had said.
"It bothers you?' Angel asked suddenly. She looked at him questioningly.
"What he told you, what he said." Angel elaborated. She looked down at her hands clasped in her lap and then turned her face to look at him.
"I don't really see where what I feel, want or need has anything to do with this. We can't ever be. So why talk about what isn't possible?" She demanded, not wanting to go over all the reasons they couldn't be there where a lot of them, but the biggest was his soul.
"Why Willow? What are your reason?" He demanded. She didn't say anything for a long moment and Angel spoke again.
"Because your not Buffy? Because you're not what Willow? What makes you think I can't want to pursue you in that way?"
Willow bit her lip wondering why he hadn't said the one thing that really bothered her. The issues with Buffy and the Scooby gang had nothing to do with what she was feeling or why she was questioning his feelings and the validity of those feelings.
"It's not a matter of me not being something. Angel maybe once I would have doubted that you could want me based on my likeness to Buffy, and I had a lot of help with that way of thinking. I mean everyone wanted Buffy most of the time they still do. But I do realize that I am not that unattractive. I mean no I am not California grown beauty like Buffy but I have my own charms." "Indeed that you do lady fair and you've bewitched me complete." She blushed slightly at his words. Looked down again. Then away from him into the embers of the fire that had died out in his hearth.
"Angel do you get cold?" she asked suddenly. He looked at the hacker oddly before allowing her to steer them away from this conversation that was clearly making her nervous.
"I am always cold, Willow all you have to do is touch me to see that I am not human and there for cold."
She reached forward and captured his hand in her own. "Is that why you never used to touch me?" Willow asked still holding his hand captive.
She offered him a warm smile as he reached to pull her even closer. She allowed herself to be situated more intimately against his larger frame, only slightly embarrassed when he settle one of her legs on either side of his hips.
"Uh, Angel." He chuckled at the worry in her voice and was more then elated when she didn't pull away, when he loosened his hold on her form. He reached up and brushed the hair out of her face and then settled back against the couch. She leaned forward so that her head rested against his chest and waited to see if he would speak again.
For long moments silence ruled the room, broken only by her slowly in drawn breath and the slight crackle of the dying flames in the fireplace. She rested her head against his chest, listening to the cadence of silence, feeling strange fission of awareness and energy zing over her nerve endings.
He listened silently as her breathing deepened and sleep whisked in stealing her from him. He stared down at her for a long moment uncertain of what she was feeling and thinking about everything that had happened.
He smiled to himself as he remembered all the times he'd turned to her and when the others had walked away she had remained. She had become very dear to him over to past months. Hell will make you see things in a new light, and having the first tempt you and learning that if you failed you would have killed a slayer and unleashed a horror like none other. He trembled knowing full well that had Angelus been released a second time he would have been even crazier then the first.
Angelus as Willow had so sweetly pointed out over one of their hands of cards, was a few bunnies shy of a hutch. That was a truth that no one least of all himself would deny. Now he belonged to himself, but as Whistler had told him to chose where he loved very carefully, because he would have to be able to see what was merely a memory of a feeling from the true presence of that feeling. He still wasn't sure he understood all he did know was that he and Buffy had no where left to go.
They had traveled a road that was untrodden and paid a terrible price for their star-crossed love. He wondered looking down at the wisps of red hair if what he was feeling for the young woman in his arms wasn't every bit as dangerous as what he had felt for the slayer.
Only he knew that wasn't right, it wasn't as though he just suddenly opened his eyes and saw Willow it was a much slower then what had happened with the slayer. It started with simple companionship. She never pushed him away; she merely embraced him accepting the good with the bad.
Willow was a different manner of person then Buffy, a creature of moon light where Buffy was like the sun, and as much as he might have wanted to stand with in her light, he should have known that one day she would have burned him. Willow on the other hand was the night, the moon, changing and mutable, but always remaining the same in her action. Even Willow's beauty reminded him of the night, save the long fiery tresses.
Lifting her in his arms he headed toward his own bed, he pulled back the covers awkwardly with one arm and gently lay her down in the burgundy silk sheets. He smiled as she turned reaching for him and sighed in frustration when her hands met only cool sheets. He moved to the other side of the bed and slid his shirt over his head not bothering with the buttons. He stripped quickly efficiently down to his boxers and crawled in bed beside her, keeping a fair distance from her soothing warmth.