As the doorknob slowly turned, Willow sat up and hurriedly wiped the tears from her face. “Spike?” She whispered hopefully.
“No. He’s out…. Hunting, I think. I hope that’s all.” Angel smiled softly as he opened the door to reveal himself. "Will I do as a close second?”
“Go away.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m not going away. Not until we talk.”
“Don’t want to talk,” she grumbled, turning away from the vampire across the room. In an instant, he was beside her, turning her back to face him.
“Then just listen.”
“You don’t underst-”
“Yes, I do understand what you’re going through. I’m probably the only one who does and ever will. I killed everyone I-”
“Cared about and did it with a song in your heart. I know. I read the diaries. Research Girl, remember? But it’s different.”
“How so?” He sat beside her on the bed and put his arm around
her shoulders. She tensed at the contact at first but then allowed
him to comfort
her.
“You just killed those you loved and who loved you. And yeah,
bad, but what I did was worse. Killing them was too easy of an escape
for them. I
had to be a daily, unliving reminder that they failed. I let
them know that they couldn’t protect me. That I was there watching
them. And you
know what I enjoyed most?”
“What?”
“The pain they caused themselves. They blamed themselves for the
things I did. Xander took Anya’s death the hardest of all.
He blamed himself
twice. Once for not protecting me, and again for not saving her.
That was the sweetest of all.” Her eyes flashed gold as her demon
dwelled upon
the memory, and then tears began to fall anew as the guilt washed over
her for taking pleasure in her friends’ pain.
“Shhh….” Angel soothed her, rubbing her back slowly as he tried to come
to terms with what she’d admitted to him. Angelus had done some horrible
things, but most of them involved physical pain, followed soon after
by death. She was truly vicious.
“No wonder they all hate me.”
“Hate you? Why do you think that?” Willow’s conclusion shocked
him. How could she think they hated her? If they did, they
would have simply
killed her. The restoration spell was too difficult and dangerous
to perform just on a whim.
“Why else would they curse me like this? Doomed to spend eternity
alone. Can’t ever achieve happiness, or my evil self comes back.
A mockery to
the vampire world. Weak and pathetic. The whole point of
being a vampire is not feeling guilt for your actions. And now they’ve
taken that away
from me. Besides, the restoration spell was intended to be a
curse. You don’t curse someone you hate.”
“Did you hate me when you restored my soul?”
“No, but….”
“But you did the spell.”
“But you were happy with your soul. Well, not happy, exactly, ‘cause you still had it. But you were content with it before, weren’t you?”
“Yes, because I had gotten used to it. And you will too, in time.”
“No! I don’t want to get used to it. I want to go back to
hunting with Spike. The thrill of the chase, and then the fear when
they realize what’s
going to happen to them…. Don’t you miss it?”
“Every day, Willow. But I know that it’s wrong, and so do you. Deep down, you know it’s wrong.”
“But I don’t want it to be wrong. I just want it to be.” She pouted.
“You’ll get used to it. And this will get easier. It just takes time.”
“I have plenty of that now, don’t I?”
“Come with me.” Angel stood and started pulling Willow toward the door.
“What?”
“Come with me. Back to L.A. You have too many memories here.
And Buffy expects you to be exactly like you were when you were human.
But
you’re not, and you never will be. You need to get away from
here so you can determine who you really are.”
“But Spike….”