~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
~Part: 21~
When Salix saw Spike and Angel come through the portal she thought her heart was going to stop. Then it resumed its pace and a knot of dread settled in the pit of her stomach. She showed them no sign of recognition and the only thing that gave away how disturbed she was to see them was a single twitch of her left eye which she was sure Eshe caught. She was also equally sure that Eshe recognized them as well and was thankful that she gave no indication of it. Going through the standard motions, she and Eshe led them down the hall and then split up.
As she continued down the corridor she could feel Spike's eyes boring into her back and had to resist the urge to tease him by putting more sway into her hips. Now was not the time to get playful. Finally she reached his room and with great flourish she threw open the doors and strode in. Turning to face him she swept her arms around to indicate the room.
"So what do you think? I hope it suits your tastes and if not I can have it changed."
Spike gave the room a cursory glance and noted the red and black color scheme before turning his sight back to Willow. He looked her over and a jolt went through him when he realized he couldn't read her. Willow's face had always been expressive and he had always been able to tell what she was thinking. Now all that was there was what she wanted him to see and nothing else and that bothered him.
Willow took the time to really look at Spike. Besides the suit he hadn't changed at all. He still had the stone face and reeked of danger and sex although now she could read him a bit better than she had before. Growing bored she decided to start the conversation that she knew was coming.
"Look, I know it's been a while since you've seen me but staring is still considered rude."
Spike looked her in the eye when she spoke and saw that the recognition he'd been looking for was there. What he couldn't tell was whether or not she was happy to see him so he decided not to say anything. Leah's question about her wanting to leave was still flitting around in the front of his mind so he decided to use what little patience he had and let her reveal her stance on his appearance. Shrugging off his coat he circled her and tossed it on the bed. Then he reached into his pocket, grabbed a cigarette and lit it. Leaning on the footboard of the bed he took a few drags and settled in to wait.
Salix realized that he wasn't going to be starting conversation anytime soon so she decided to get the ball rolling. She didn't feel like playing games and she just wanted to know why they were here. Walking towards the bar situated on the left wall of the room she poured a double shot of whiskey and downed it in one swallow. She used the time to decide the best way to broach the subject and chose the direct approach.
"So Spike, why after all this time have you and Angelus decided to pay me a visit? I mean you two were never were the type for running empires, more the rape and pillage genre. So what, you heard I was still alive and decided to come and have some fun?"
Salix while talking had walked up to Spike and stood between his legs. Reaching up she took his cigarette out of his mouth and took a drag while she took a few steps back. She held the smoke in her lungs for a few moments feeling it swirl and burn and then released it in a perfect ring.
"'Cause I hate to disappoint you but the girl you knew died about, oh three centuries ago."
~Part: 22~
"What do you mean it's been four hundred years?"
Angel was staring at her like she'd lost her mind and she was pretty sure that he thought she had. After separating from Salix, Eshe lead Angel to his room. It followed the same color scheme as Spike's except the bar was on the right side of the room. Like her counterpart she'd been curious as well about why Angel and Spike had appeared after all this time and decided to get straight to the point.
"I mean exactly what I said; Salix stopped being your Willow about a hundred years into her stay. I could be off by a century, I'm not exactly sure how long I was dead, but yeah it's been quite a while. Of course I'm also curious as to how you both lost you souls considering Willow made yours permanent and Spike never had a clause in the first place but I can wait for the answer to those questions. Right now I just want to know if you came here with the intention of fucking with Salix's head 'cause I can tell you now that you'd be wasting your time."
Angel felt as if the floor were tilting and stumbled into the nearest chair. He vaguely recalled Leah mentioning that time passed differently but he hadn't expected it to pass this much faster. If Eshe was correct than time passed 400 times faster than on earth. Willow had only been missing for 3 months their time. Time in hell hadn't even passed that quickly. Desperately he searched for a flaw in Eshe's reasoning and came up with one.
"That's not possible. Willow would have been dead a long time ago if that much time had passed."
"True, unless we found a way to stop aging . . . which we did. Come on Angelus, this is not the way I expected you to react. If I didn't know any better I'd say you were still Angel."
Angel's head shot up at the comment and for the first time Eshe looked him straight in the eyes.
"Oh shit."
~Part: 23~
"So Spike, just how much time has passed on Earth?"
Spike found himself in much the same position as Angel. He was finding it difficult to accept the fact that for Willow, four hundred years had passed in his three months. Now that he thought about it, that explained Deimos' 'years' comment and how it was they had managed to break her and change her so quickly. It also reinforced Leah's question about her willingness to leave. Spike knew from experience that with the right training a person could be made to enjoy their captivity. Not to mention that if she'd been here for this long she probably felt more comfortable here. Salix cleared her throat and brought him out of his troubled thoughts. He remembered her last question and answered her.
"It's been three months since you disappeared. We've been constantly searching for you since then. Slayer's in a snit and Chubs is barely holding himself together."
Salix watched Spike's face while he spoke and processed the information he'd given her. Buffy and Xander were still alive; hell all of them were still alive. She realized she hadn't thought about them in at least a hundred years. They'd ceased to be important to her not too long after she stopped being Willow and started being Salix. Her mind began spewing out the full implications of Spike's news.
"So let me get this straight, if it's only been three months and you and Angel have been looking for me, then neither of you has lost your soul?"
"No."
"And you're here as the rescue party?"
"Exactly."
For a moment she felt her blood rush at the thought of seeing them again. Of seeing how Dawn had grown up and whether or not Xander and Anya were still together. It would be just like coming for a visit to see friends you hadn't seen in twenty years. When she had been Willow and still trying to find her balance between herself and Ash often she would imagine how her friends lives had turned out. It helped her stay sane.
With a jolt she realized it wouldn't be like that at all. All that had passed for them was three months and they would expect her to still be Willow or something very close to her. They wouldn't understand how she had changed, wouldn't understand her ability to kill, hell, to enjoy the kill. More importantly, they wouldn't understand her relationship with Eshe. Sure they had accepted Tara but they wouldn't get that Eshe was her mother, sister and lover. They wouldn't understand that her relationship with Eshe superceded her friendship with any of them. They wouldn't understand that as much as they loved and cared for one another, one could just as easily kill the other. And then she realized she didn't care what they thought, nor did she necessarily want to go back. And in the end that was all that mattered.
~Part: 24~
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."
Angel had been listening to this mantra for about five minutes now and believed that it effectively summed up the entire situation. They were in enemy territory, trying to rescue a friend whom, as far as he could grasp it, for all intents and purposes died about 300 years ago. Things were not going as planned, but then again, when did they ever go as planned? Closing his eyes Angel took a moment to wrap his mind around the information he'd just received. Opening them he found himself starring into Eshe's eyes.
"I can't talk you into leaving can I?"
Angel looked at Eshe and felt a ripple of unease crawl up his spine. Standing up, he began to edge around her so that although his back was now to the door there was no longer anything between him and it. Never once did he take his eyes off of Eshe as he did this, and she made no move to approach him, just turned so that she was still facing him. Continuing to hold her gaze he took a moment to truly think about her question. Leaving Willow would be the easiest and the least likely thing to get him and Spike killed. If what Eshe said was true there was also a pretty good chance that she wouldn't want to go anyways. A not-so-small part of Angel was screaming at him to just take this opportunity and run with it. Take the offer to leave before things got ugly. Another part of him, the larger part of his personality, conjured up an image of the woman that Willow had become after all of his years of knowing her. Of the friend that always tried to bring him back to himself when all others insisted that it was impossible. Willow had never given up on him and he, in good conscience, could never give up on her no matter how hopeless the situation might appear.
"No, you can't."
Although he couldn't be sure, something in Eshe's posture made him think that this was the answer she had been expecting and that she'd only asked him as a formality. He noticed her eyes flash purple and her posture straighten. The stone around her neck began to glow with an eerie purple light and she cracked her neck to either side. Flexing the muscles in her hands she cracked her knuckles and once again centered her gaze on him. For the first time in a very long time Angel felt fear when looking at his opponent, and he had no doubt that this woman was going to be his opponent.
"Guess I'll have to kill you then. Can't have you wandering around here fucking up our happy little home."
Angel never actually saw her coming.
On moment he was getting himself ready to block any punch that she might throw at him and the next thing he was aware of was slamming into the door after being hit in the chest. Falling back on old reflexes he gasped for air and winced when he felt several broken ribs shift. Ignoring the pain he rolled away from the door and stood up in a fighting stance. Eshe in the meantime had picked up a chair from the bar and slamming it down hard on the floor, shifted through the shards selecting a stake. Standing up her eyes locked onto Angel and she began to move towards him.
"I'd usually draw this out but since you're only trying to help your friend I'll be nice and make this as quick and painless as possible."
Once again Angel found himself unable to track her movements. It was as if every time his eyes tried to lock on her she'd change directions. He nearly doubled over with the two punch combo she delivered to his solar plexus but was stopped by the knee she brought up to meet his face. Falling back she swept him and the only thing that saved Angel from having a stiletto heel driven into his face were his reflexes, quick enough to roll him out of the way. Pulling himself up he felt her hand wrap around his throat and apply more pressure than he thought she was capable of. Once again utilizing her surprising strength, she pulled Angel forward and slammed him back into the door hard enough to make it crack. She did this two more times and then raised her makeshift stake to finish him off. Looking her in the eyes Angel had the incredibly odd thought that he was about to be staked by a woman a few inches shorter than him wearing an evening gown and stiletto heels. And then all he could see was blue.
~Part: 25~
Eshe honestly didn't want to kill Angel. He had never caused her any kind of harm and despite having an underdeveloped sense of survival she thought he was an okay guy. But she couldn't allow him to come here and try to take Salix with him for several reasons. First off Deimos would not just let his two prized fighters walk out of here without a fight and she had no doubt that it would be both of them. She and Salix were matched and thus inseparable. Second of all they had each been here for several centuries, Salix's four to her twelve; you don't just suddenly decide to leave your home after that long unless compelled by a very good reason. Thirdly she knew that Salix wouldn't want to go if only for the fact that her friends would not understand that she was a different person. She realized that she had two options, talk Angel into leaving or kill him. She couldn't just kick him out because he would just come back with more people the next time. She didn't really think the first one would work but she had to ask, so when he answered "no" she wasn't really surprised.
Deciding on option number two she shifted to Kali but kept a tight reign on her this time. She didn't want Kali dragging this out any longer than necessary since she didn't think Angel deserved a lingering death. As she'd thought Angel was not a difficult fight at all and as she prepared to stake him she was glad that she could get this over quickly. She looked him in the eyes and then everything was blue.
As a blue lightning bolt shot from Angel's eyes to hers, both their bodies became rigid. They began to rise up off of the floor and blue light streaked around both of their bodies. Wind began to swirl around the room whipping their clothes and hair, but neither of them noticed because they were lost inside themselves; or rather, each other.
It took Angel a while to realize he was seeing Eshe's life from the beginning to the present. He experienced being raised as a black woman in the south surrounded by a family half of which loved her unconditionally and the other half of which thought her just a little odd. He experienced the joy of graduating and getting into a good college on a full scholarship and finally getting to indulge her passion for literature and culture, learning new things about everything and making some of the best friends she'd ever had. He watched as a year into college she was taken, and watched as for the next several hundred years she trained, became the master's favorite, had a baby that was taken from her and became both Eshe and Kali. He experienced the desperate need to find a match, someone to be a companion in this journey through hell; the many failures and the thrill of final success. The peace that several years of lying on a slab of stone, for all intents and purposes dead, brought and finally the new development of two people coming to take that all important partner away and the reasons for stopping it.
Eshe in the mean time had the distinct pleasure of living through Angel's memories from birth to death by Darla and beyond. Kali took a distinct pleasure in the Angelus era, appreciating his killing style. He liked to play as much as she did. When they reached the curse era though, a very odd (well odder than what was already happening) thing occurred. As she remembered the experience of being cursed with a soul through Angel's eyes she felt a corresponding ache within herself. For the first time in millennia she felt her conscience stir. Her soul was awake.
next | back