Pairing: Willow/Spike (sort of)
Rating: PG (i think)
Disclaimer: I humbly borrow, twisting and bending plots to my will.
Summary/Spoilers: WARNING!!! Spoilers through the season 7 finale!!! My version of what comes after
Thank you so much to Janet for all your help!
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The view is great. Beautiful. The best in L.A. or so he's been told. Top spot in the city to watch the sunset. Ironic, being the office of a vampire and all. He isn't really big on the ironic humor these days. Truth be told, he's pretty sure he could go the rest of his unlife without another piece of irony and be perfectly content. Well, alright, not PERFECTLY content, not as in losing the soul again content, but, yeah, he could certainly do without the constant irony that is his existence.
"Sir, there is a woman here to see you."
The dark haired vampire quickly drops his feet down from where they are resting on his desk top and looks up at the secretary, grinning. She's interesting in a completely boring sort of way. She has the ability to appear both nervous and snooty at the same time.
It's fascinating in a way, although for the most part, he just likes to ruffle her feathers. After all, it's not like he's actually going to kill her or anything. I mean, vampire with a soul here, remember?
Unless, of course, she turns out to be some sort of evil demon bent on destroying the world, which, to be quite honest, happens more than you'd think.
"Does she have an appointment?" He asks, glancing toward his PDA. There isn't actually anything on there other than some game that Gunn had loaded for him and if there was he'd have no idea how to look it up. He's never really gotten used to the whole computer age, but still, a guy can pretend.
"No, Sir, she just sort of appeared."
Yes, Sir. No, Sir. Right away, Sir. Sometimes, as much as it amazes him, he really misses Cordy. Never a `right away, Sir' out of her. Hell no. She told you how it was and how it was going to be, whether you wanted her to or not. Enough to drive a man crazy at times, but then, always kept things interesting.
"She say why she was here?" He asks.
"No, Sir. She said she was an old friend."
He raises an eyebrow at that. He has a lot of `old friends' that he would prefer to not to run into on the street these days, let alone in his office. He's pretty sure most of them would be quicker to stake him rather than shake his hand, but then, he wouldn't really blame them.
Letting out a deep, unnecessary sigh, he tells Diane, or Linda or, whatever her name is, he can never remember. 250-some years, still no good with names. He tells her to send the woman in and braces himself for the worst scenario, standing up behind his desk and watching the door.
When he says he doesn't care for irony, he really means just that. Big no on the irony. After over two centuries of existence in this world, you would think that Angel might have gotten used to the idea that you can't plan for things. Sometimes life just throws stuff at you, when you least expect it and yeah, usually there's a big, red, blinking neon sign pointing the way, but most people are too busy looking around at other things to notice it. He spends a large part of his time watching others as they miss their signs and yet, ironically enough, he never seems to catch his own until weeks or months later, when Fred or Wes is pointing them out just as they are about to avert an apocalypse. Yeah, he really doesn't like irony.
Seeing the woman walk in, his eyes widen in shock. He thinks it's fairly safe to say that this is the very LAST person that he expected to see come walking through that door.
"You know, you're a hard guy to track down, and that's saying a lot for me," she says in her usually perky tone.
She smiles at him and he can't help but notice how beautiful she's become and how she just glows now, even looking as war-torn and disheveled as she does, which begs the question, "Willow! What are you doing here? Is everything alright? Is Buffy…"
She holds up a hand to stop him, smiling softly and laughing lightly.
"Buffy's fine, Angel. Working with a group of girls in Ohio last I heard, actually."
Hmmm…that's interesting. Last she heard. He quirks an eyebrow at that, but she chooses to ignore it and he decides to let it slide, for the moment.
"So then, what's up? Hear about another vampire losing his soul? Cause I hear you're pretty good with that."
"I…uh…I was actually called here. Something big is coming, think you might be able to use my help."
It's true. Something big IS coming, but then again, when isn't there. And yeah, of course they could use her help. Who is going to be crazy enough to turn down the help of a real and true, flesh and blood sorceress, especially when something big is coming?
"Yeah, actually, your timing couldn't be more perfect. Wes is out of town, gathering some info, should be back tomorrow night. It would probably be best to wait and let him fill you in on everything. He's more of the fact and info guy. I'm more the hand me a sword and point at what you want me to kill kind of guy."
The redhead simply nods with another, slightly weaker smile.
He again notices her appearance. Clearly she's been through some sort of fight or battle recently. Torn clothes, a few smudges of dirt on her face, rumpled hair that contains bits of grass and dirt from rolling around on the ground, as opposed to the sexy sort of rumpled hair from sleeping after a long night of love-making. And he has NO idea where that thought just came from. This is Willow, Willow Rosenberg!
Angel doesn't have sexy thoughts about Willow. He sits and broods over blonde slayers and maybe the occasional half-demon half-prom queen or was it May-queen? Either way, it's never been Willow. That just isn't the way it works.
"Are you alright?" He asks. "You look a little…" Don't say rumpled. Don't say rumpled. Anything but rumpled. Disheveled, tired, worn out, beat, haggard even… "rumpled." Damn it!
She chuckles and stretches her back a little bit. "Yeah. Had sort of a rough day at the office. You know, I think it's a little ironic that I was always top of my class and worked so hard in school and all that, and ended up three classes short of a degree from a college that no longer exists, and now I spend my days or more my nights really, fighting the evils of the world, no degree required, training on sight, and you know, despite what you might think, based on what you have going here, really doesn't pay very well." Yeah, whoever said that knowing that you did good was reward enough, they never had car payments or rent or any of that other fun stuff.
He smiles at her. He forgot how interesting and hard to follow her babbling could be. He misses that more than he had realized.
"Do you have a place to stay?"
This time she gives him more of a shy, sheepish grin and her cheeks turn pink. "I hadn't really thought about that," she tells him. "Last I knew, you still had the hotel, but I guess," She gestures to their surroundings and he nods.
"Yeah, pretty nice, huh? Cordy would be in her glory here."
They both look down a little awkwardly at the mention of the former cheerleader, before he continues. "I have an apartment on the top floor. Plenty of room. I'd like it if you'd stay."
She smiles appreciatively at him. "Don't have much with me. I tend to travel light." Willow gestures toward the bag at her feet and he suspects she carries a lot more with her than is easily perceivable. "I could really use a shower though."
"Of course," he replies, quickly snatching up her bag and leading her out to the elevator and up to his apartment. As they walk through the large foyer and into a long hallway, she tries not to gape openly at everything she sees and he tries not to look too proud or smug.
"You can keep your things in here," he tells her as he stops at one of the spare bedrooms and sets her bag on the bed. "Bathroom's in there," he says, pointing toward a doorway. "It extends into my room as well and the sitting room is through that door," he adds, pointing toward the other doorway.
Again, she simply tries not to gape like a wide-eyed child. A sitting room? She has a sitting room? How unnecessarily extravagant of him.
Angel leaves her alone finally, and Willow plops herself down onto the bed for a moment, closing her eyes and sighing. She tries to clear her thoughts as best she can, though that's been an increasingly difficult task these days. Finally, she drags herself back up and toward the bathroom, in desperate need of a long, hot shower.
Turning on the water, she quickly discards her ragged clothes and steps into the already steamy shower stall. She wets her hair and quickly lathers it up with shampoo before rinsing it. Thank the Goddess that the white hair is only a temporary side-effect, because an eternity of having to dye it? She thinks that right there might be the deal breaker.
Glancing down, she looks at her abdomen for a moment, running a hand lightly over the already healing wound. She figures that one had to have punctured a kidney, but she knows it doesn't really matter. Tomorrow, there won't even be so much as a scar. There never is, even when the wound should be fatal.
Of course, it would be nice if she could just not get wounded. Even though they heal, it still hurts like hell. Yeah, that's pretty much her goal right now, learn to not get wounded. That would be nice.
Leaning her head on the wall, she feels her tense body begin to relax as the hot water beats against her back. Slowly, she feels her resolve crumble and breaks down crying, her tears mixing with the cascading water as she sobs. At the moment, nothing else around her exists, and she fears that this is the way it will always be from now on.
Willow doesn't hear the knock at the door, nor does she hear it open or the man coming into the bathroom.
"Hey, I went out looking for that book you wanted, but I couldn't find-" He stops and listens for a moment, hearing a faint sound hidden behind the shower spray. It's the sound of someone crying, he's sure of that, just as he's sure of the fact that it isn't Angel. Before he has a chance to ponder this further, the spray shuts off and curtain is pulled back, just before a scream is elicited by the shocked redhead.
Willow stumbles backwards and nearly slips and falls on the wet tile, grabbing a hold of the shower curtain and holding it in front of herself. Her fingers are clenched around the slippery material tightly, her knuckles turning white and she brings her other hand to her chest, feeling her heart beat so fast that she's sure it's about to rip through the skin. Hmmm, that would be interesting. She wonders if she would survive that.
Finally, she peers back around and gasps, as if she is seeing him again for the first time.
"Red?" He asks, clearly just as surprised to see her. Well, he can't be JUST as surprised. After all, she's not the one that is supposed to be dead and gone. Not that dead and gone every really meant much, just a stumbling block really.
"My god! Spike, what- how- I-" She's at a loss for words, something that doesn't happen to her very often. When she finally stops gasping and closes her mouth, she notices that he is staring at her, an all too familiar smirk on his face. Suddenly, she glances down and remembers that behind this thin, translucent piece of wet material, she's completely naked and not really doing a very good job of hiding her charms.
"Could you, uh, hand me a towel?" She asks weakly, pointing toward a big fluffy blue towel hanging on a nearby rack.
He nods and grabs it, handing it to her, never taking his eyes off of the witch. She gives him a look which he doesn't seem to even register and she sighs, grabbing the towel out of his hands.
"Could you, you know, turn around for a minute?" She asks and he seems to be brought out of his reverie for the moment.
"Oh, right, sorry `bout that," he mumbles, turning around and thanking the gods above that Angel had installed that large mirror on the opposite wall. He never really understood the point of a vampire having mirrors around, but right now he couldn't understand why he would not want the entire apartment walled in the shiny metal. He isn't able to see as much as he'd like to, watching the bit of flesh that was visible where the glass isn't fogged up. Hey, no one ever accused William the Bloody of being a gentleman.
She turns her back to him and he notices a wound, which appears to already be healing, on her lower back.
"Spike, we thought that you died when," she begins, turning back around, the fluffy towel now secured around her aching body.
The blonde turns back to look at her and though he suspects she's still talking, he's ceased hearing anything she's saying. His eyes are riveted on a small water droplet resting on her shoulder, and they follow it as it slowly descends down her arm and eventually to her hand, weeping from her finger tips. His eyes snap back up and again, he notices another droplet, at the base of her neck, which slowly makes its way down her chest and eventually disappears behind the towel, dipping into the valley between her breasts. He's never noticed how soft and creamy white her skin is and...
"What's that?" He asks, suddenly remembering that she had been talking to him.
The redhead lets out a sigh and rolls her eyes. "Spike, what happened? We thought, well, you know."
"Oh, right, that. Sort of a long story. I did die. Was nothing but dust. Saved the world too, didn't I?" He says proudly, holding his head up, chin tilted high. "Got my redemption. Was a champion, just like Buffy said."
"And now, you're here, how exactly?" It wasn't that she didn't believe it was possible for him to be back. She knew now all sorts of impossibilities were, well, possible, but the how, that always remained fascinating.
"Not entirely sure, really," he tells her, and he isn't lying. He's tried to figure it out, they all have. But the bottom line is, he's back, it doesn't matter how. He knows the why and that's what matters to him. "Died. Was, well, no where for a little while, and then suddenly, I was here."
"And you remember everything? From before?" She asks.
He nods. "Every second. I'm different now, though."
"The soul?" She assumes that's what he means, but really, that's not all that's different now.
"The lack of the demon," he explains, grinning as her eyes widen. "Don't get me wrong. I can still be a real son of a bitch when I wanna be. The demon, he's still there, but bonded to the soul, just not the same anymore. I'm a champion. They sent me back to fight with Angel. It was my choice of course, but come on, eternity of bobbing around in nothingness or eternity to annoy and torment Angel, which would you pick?"
"So, you're telling me that you have your soul but you're still a vampire and you were sent back here by the Powers That Be to help Angel fight the forces of evil?" She sums up.
"Well, yeah, guess it's not that long a story after all," he says with a grin. "Really pisses Angel off too, you know? He's not the only vamp with a soul anymore, not the one and only champion. Makes him crazy." He snickers and grins at that thought.
Willow grabs her head as she walks into her room, sitting down on the bed. It's so much to take in. She should probably call Buffy and let her know what she's just learned. That's the first thought that pops into her head, though it's quickly replaced with the reminder that doing so would also tip Buffy off as to where she was and...
"So, witch, now that I've shown you mine," Spike says, sitting down next to her. "What are YOU doing here?"
"I-I was called here," she tells him, her head still reeling. "To help Angel with whatever is coming."
"That right? So, I'm guessing that back in Sunnydale your little spell worked?"
She nods, smiling slightly to herself at the memory of that day. It was only a few years ago, but it seems like ages. She wonders at that and how time seems to already be moving so fast now.
"They didn't have to kill me," she muses, laughing a little to herself. She suspects that he might think she's just a tad bit crazy, but then again, who among them isn't? And after all, she might be little bit crazy, but that doesn't mean that there aren't still demons out there to fight.
"Well, that's always a plus, I guess," he replies, not sure of what he should be saying to that.
She looks up at him and he can see that look of happy reminiscing in her eyes. She looks back at that day as one of the great ones and he wonders at that, thinking it sad that a girl so sweet and bright counts that as a good day.
"I was imbued with the Goddess's power that day," she tells him, delighting in the shock she sees in his eyes. "Pure white magic. Changed me. Guess you know what that's like, though, huh?"
He nods thoughtfully, "So, what does that make you now then?"
"A sorceress, working for the Powers."
"Well, aren't we all these days?" He quips.
She smiles. He has no idea how much that response means to her. Finally, someone that wasn't going to act all strange around her. To Spike, she was still just Willow.
"And, you've come to help us with whatever big bad is on its way?"
The redhead nods, looking away from him.
"Looks like you got into a bit of a fight with a big bad before you got here," he muses, grinning as her head shoots up to look at him in surprise.
"Sorry," he says, though they are both well aware that he's not, "I saw the wound on your back. You should have that tended to."
Willow shakes her head, looking away again. "It will be gone by tomorrow," she tells him.
"Would have to be a pretty damn strong healing spell to make that disappear by tomorrow, Red," he says, becoming somewhat annoyed, though neither of them knows why.
Again, she shakes her head. "No spell, Spike." She looks up at him and he's surprised to see the change in her eyes.
There's something, different, something he's never seen there before. Sadness? No, he's seen that there. This is something deeper than that.
"I'm immortal," she tells him, choking on the words as if they were poison, and he feels his eyes widen as, once again, the little witch shocks him.
"Immortal. As in-"
"As in, really, REALLY hard to kill, protector of the good." Actually, it's more like protector of protectors, if you want to get technical, which for once, she really doesn't.
He senses her reluctance to talk about it and decides to leave it, for now. There are a million questions he'd like to ask her, just as he's sure there are a million she'd like to ask him. He could inquire about Buffy, or how Dawn is doing, or what Xander or Giles are up to, or how all of the Slayers are coming along, but one questions jumps into his head and he just has to ask.
"What ever happened with you and that Slayer, the dark haired one with the loud mouth and big ego?"
Willow smiles at the description, before it quickly fades to a frown. Kennedy. There was one more thing she really didn't want to think about right now.
"Kennedy? Yeah, well, you know how kites are, even the best one eventually breaks off of the string and floats away."
Spike nods even though he really doesn't understand her response. He's pretty sure he's not entirely meant to.
"Course, they usually end up crashing or getting caught in a tree," she adds as an afterthought.
This time, he doesn't try to hide his confusion but she just shakes her head a little and rolls her eyes at her own rambling. She wonders if and when she will crash and how much damage it will do. Or, if it's the other, what the tree will look like and if she'll recognize it before she becomes tangled in it's branches.
"Slayers die and immortals, well, they don't," she explains briefly and that's all he needs to hear to understand.
"I-I- don't really know what to say," he mumbles and for once, Spike, William the Bloody, has absolutely no witty response at all.
"How about saying `I'll leave you alone to get dressed,'" she suggests, hoping he'll take the hint and thankful when he does.
Spike quickly jumps up. "Oh, right, sorry," he mumbles, heading toward the door. Just before walking out, he turns around and gives her his trademark grin, the one that she's secretly missed for so long.
"Glad you're here, Red," he tells her. "No one I would rather have on my side, especially when something big is coming."
Spike turns and walks out, leaving the redhead alone with her thoughts and her rolling droplets and her healing wounds. Yeah, something big is definitely coming.
The End