**********

Parts 1-2

    Willow stared at the screen and tried to understand what she was
reading.  It didn’t make any more sense than when she had started
researching and that was nearly four and a half-hours ago.  She groaned and
banged her head on the desk.

“No luck, I take it?”  Jenny Calendar asked as she walked into her
classroom.

Willow looked up, surprised.  She hadn’t heard the teacher come in.  She
sighed. “No, nothing that makes any sense. You?”

Jenny sat down across from the desk Willow was sitting in. “Well, aside from
a lecture from my uncle on my duty to the Calderash people, nothing.  They
won’t discuss it.  They say that what’s done is done.  The curse stands.”

Willow groaned loudly as she stood up.  She paced around the room for
several seconds before speaking. “I don’t understand this.  He killed the
favorite daughter of your tribe, so they curse him with a soul.  That I get.
What doesn’t make any sense is the clause!”  Jenny started to explain, but
Willow held up a hand to silence her. “I know, I know.  They wanted him to
suffer for eternity.  But, where’s the logic?  If he has this one true
moment of happiness, and reverts to his former evil self, who's that
helping?  More people will die.  It doesn't make sense!”

“Vengeance is rarely logical.”  Jenny echoed something her grandmother had
once told her.  Her eyes brightened.  “That’s it!”

Willow looked confused.  “What’s it?”

Jenny stood up and walked around to the computer she pulled up another file
and skimmed over the ancient text.  She highlighted a section.  “Here” She
pointed.  “This was the original curse.  It was changed after the girls’
mother demanded a firmer punishment.”

Willow walked over and peered over the gypsy’s shoulder.  “Okay, are you
saying there wasn’t supposed to be a clause in the original curse?”

Jenny nodded.  “Yes.  If we can somehow get the original curse, and replace
the current one…” She turned towards Willow who was shaking her head
furiously.  “What?”

“No, see, according to this,” She pointed back at the screen, “In order for
this to work, it requires three things we don’t have.”  She clicked the
mouse to scroll down further.  “See, this plant.  Very rare.  So rare, that
it hasn’t been grown outside of Europe in nearly sixty years, and only in
certain unpopulated areas.”  She scrolled down a little further.  It also
requires the blood of the Sire and the blood of a Childe of the vampire who’
s being cursed.” She looked sadly at Jenny.  “Two things we don’t have.”

“Damn!”  Jenny cursed. “Why couldn’t we have found this last week, before
Spike and Drusilla died in that fire?”

“Because that would be easy, and this is the Hellmouth.”  Willow answered,
although she knew it was a rhetorical question.

“What if we go back?”  Willow asked quietly, an idea slowly forming in her
mind.

“Back?  Before Spike and Drusilla were killed?” Jenny asked, not following
Willow’s train of thought.

“No, See that wouldn’t do any good.  Even with Spike and Dru still alive, we
still wouldn’t have access to this plant, or the Sire’s blood.  Darla’s
dust.  But, if we can go back to before the curse was cast, maybe we can
make sure that the original spell is performed.”  Willow’s green eyes were
shining brightly with excitement.

“Oh, Willow, I don’t know.  You’re talking about powerful magiks.  What if
we can’t convince my people to perform the original curse?”

“Then *I*…” She emphasized the pronoun, “…bring back the three elements we’
re missing, and we’ll just re-curse him from here.”  Willow’s face was set
in a determined line.

“Okay, but we don’t have a lot of information about what happened then.  I
have my great-grandmother’s journal which has fairly detailed accounts of
what happened around the time of the curse, but other than that, you’ll be
going in blind.”

“Well, I’ll just have to do some research then.”  Willow told her as she
grabbed her jacket.  “Look, I’m really beat.  I’ll see you tomorrow.” She
hugged the teacher and headed towards the door.  She stopped just as she
reached the doorknob. “Don’t mention this to Giles… or anyone.”

Jenny smiled, and watched as the young girl left her classroom.  Once she
was gone, she sunk back into her seat and let her mind drift.  She had only
found out about the clause in Angel’s curse recently and had been hesitant
to tell anyone about her past and her family’s connection to the souled
vampire.  But as she watched him getting closer to the Slayer, a fear had
started to form.  She had read up on Angelus and had no desire to see him
return.

  That fear along with the belief that she could trust the redheaded hacker,
allowed her to share her burden.  She had been appalled by the stipulation
in her family’s method of vengeance.  And since it was unclear what exactly
would release his soul, the pair had been researching frantically for nearly
two weeks.

  Now, it appeared, they may have found the answer.  However, neither knew
what would happen once Willow left this time and ventured into the past.
Just by being there she could alter events neither could have foreseen.
But, despite the risks, it was the only option available to them.

  Jenny only hoped that they would find some other information that would
aid Willow in her task.  Something, anything that would ensure success.
Both for themselves and the vampire named Angel.

****

Willow took one last look at the circle before stepping inside.  She turned
to Jenny Calendar who was taking one last look at the spell book before
taking her own place inside the circle.

“So, I guess this is it?  We have everything?”  Willow asked.

Jenny sat down and looked carefully at the young girl.  “You don’t have to
do this.  We can find another way.”

Willow shook her emphatically.  “No.  This is it. The only way.”  She looked
into the teacher’s eyes imploringly.  “They deserve to be happy.”

Jenny nodded. She knew it was true.  She didn’t agree with what her people
had done.  Cursing the vampire with a soul was one thing.  Putting a
stipulation into the curse was something else.  If the curse was broken, it
wasn’t Angel who would suffer, but the rest of the world.  Jenny only hoped
that Willow’s plan would work.

“Okay, ready?”  The gypsy asked her protégé.

Willow smiled more confidently than she felt. “Remember, you’re the only one
who will know what I’ve done.”

Jenny closed her eyes and took a deep breath realizing the truth of that
statement.  Do to the confines of the spell, if Willow changed the timeline
in anyway, only Jenny would know the difference.  That shouldn’t be a
problem.  Willow was only supposed to go back and fix the curse, not
interfere with anything else.  In fact, she had made the redhead memorize
several incantations, which would help her to keep herself hidden, so that
she wouldn’t be in danger of tampering with the timeline.

Jenny opened her eyes and lit the last candle.  Clasping Willow’s hands in
her own she started to chant.

****

    Willow closed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to center herself
as she listened to Jenny chant the spell, which would send her back in time.
Her mind started to drift as she felt her body become weightless.  She knew
that if she opened her eyes she would find herself not entirely on solid
ground.  She could feel the shift as the spell transported her another
place, another time.

  Her mind started to grow heavy as she felt a thick fog envelop her.  She
could feel the ground beneath her becoming solid once again before she lost
consciousness.

*****

   Jenny calendar opened her eyes and tried to calm her breathing as she
realized it had worked.  Willow was gone.  She was alone in the protected
circle.  She realized that by the very nature of time travel, if Willow were
to have effected the timeline, she would have already done so, at least in
her time. However knowing that did nothing to calm her nerves.  The fact was
that even if Willow had changed something, there was nothing she could have
done to fix it.  She couldn’t even use the spell again to go back in time to
retrieve the redhead. She only hoped that Willow had been successful.

   Ideally, there would be no change to speak of.  If Willow’s plan worked,
the only thing that would have changed was the clause in Angel’s curse,
nothing more, nothing less.

  Jenny stood up and sighed as she began to clean up her supplies.  She knew
it was only a matter of time before she found out how successful they had
been.

****

  1895 Budapest, Hungary

    It was dark, and noisy.  Those were about the only two things Willow’s
brain could register.  She could feel the cold ground underneath her body.
Her head was spinning wildly in the blackness behind her eyelids.  Slowly,
she opened her eyes, and found the concerned face of a young man staring
down at her.  He held out a hand to her.

“Miss? Are you alright?”

Willow winced in pain as she came to a standing position.  Her brain
registered the man’s accent and her mind realized where she was, and how she
had gotten here.  Looking around at her surroundings, she had to suppress a
grin at the realization that it had worked.  She had come back in time.  And
if the man’s accent was any indication she was in Romania or somewhere near
there.

“What’s the date?”  She asked quietly, hoping she didn’t sound as out of
place as she felt.

The man blinked at her question but then just answered her. “July
twenty-third, eighteen hundred and ninety-five.”  He paused seeing the frown
come to the stranger’s beautiful face.  “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  Willow crinkled her brows in confusion. <1895?> That wasn’t right.  She
was supposed to come just before the restoration was cast, but if the
information in Giles’ books was correct that wouldn’t be for another three
years.

  Remembering that the man had asked her a question she turned to look at
him again.  She smiled. “Yes, thank you.  I’m… I’m well.”  She turned and
took a look around.  “I’m from… out of town.  Is there someplace I could get
a room?”

The man turned and pointed to a small building across the street.  “Maraih
runs the inn over there.  She would be glad to have you.”  He smiled
slightly and escorted her to the building in question.

   After securing her a room, the man, whose name she discovered was Adrien,
left her in the care of Maraih, who was a woman in her mid-twenties, whose
husband had died of some disease which had run rampant through the local
population.

Once Willow was settled, and found herself alone, she relaxed on the
somewhat uncomfortable bed.  She had learned that she was in Hungary, not
Romania, and it was indeed 1895.  Why she had been taken here, and not to
Romania, or why it was three years too early, she didn’t know. She only
hoped that she wouldn’t have to wait the three years to fix the spell.

   Despite the fact that she found this place and time fascinating, she knew
next to nothing about it, really. Surely not enough to help her survive for
any length of time.  She decided to get some sleep.  She could figure out
what had gone wrong tomorrow.

  As her eyes drifted closed, Willow’s last thought was of Angelus and where
he was at that moment.

*****

  Adrien rushed away from the inn, looking frantically at the darkening
skies.  He was late.  He had been on his way to deliver a package to his
employer when he had seen the redhead girl, unconscious on the side of the
street.  He couldn’t just leave her there, so he had chosen to help.

  It wasn’t that his boss would be angry with him.  But the stranger was
expected that day.  The same one who he was certain had followed him on at
least two occasions.  He didn’t know what he wanted, or even why he was
hanging around in the shop.  He only knew that there was something about
him. Something, which spoke of death and it made him nervous.

   Adrien hoped that his delay in delivering the package would not cause him
too much trouble.  He prayed that the stranger had grown tired of waiting
and had left.  He didn’t know what would happen if he was still there when
he arrived.

******

    As the skies darkened and made it possible for him to leave the safety
the small shop had provided him, Angelus smiled sinisterly.  The boy had
been late coming into his job that day.  It was a pity, he really didn’t
want to have to chase him down, but he guessed the punishment he would
inflict would be worth it.

****

Part 3

      Willow woke up and looked around the room with a sigh, the furniture
reminding her of where she was.  It had been three days since her arrival
here, in this strange place, thousands of miles from anything she would
recognize as familiar.   As she climbed out of bed and walked to the window,
she wondered what would happen now.

“I’m not in Kansas anymore.”  She whispered.

Looking out the window, Willow stared at the street and watched in silence
as different people went about their day.  People she didn’t know, in a
place she didn’t know.  What was she going to do?

  She remembered everything that had happened.  The spell, her hope that she
could fix Angel’s curse.  Her arrival in Hungary several years before Angel
would even run into the Roms.  She knew that she was stuck.  She couldn’t
return home.  At least not without attempting to do what she came here for.

  She either needed to find the missing ingredients to the spell, or she had
to ensure that the Romany used the original curse, without the clause.
Willow didn’t even want to think about what would happen to her friends if
Angel’s curse were broken.

  She shuddered at the thought as she turned away from the window and began
dressing.  It was late, almost evening, and she told Adrien that she would
accompany him to dinner.  She wondered how long it would be before the nice
man who had helped her would realize she was out of place.  How long would
it be until they all would?  Could she survive here without anything to
remind her of home?  What if she had to?  What if she was forced to stay
here until Angelus was cursed?

  Willow shook visibly at the questions her mind was asking.  She didn’t
have any of the answers that it was hungry for and wasn’t sure if or when
she ever would.  She continued dressing, it taking longer than usual because
she was still getting used to what passed for clothing here.  She longed for
a simple T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

  Once she was dressed she walked down to the ground floor and wandered
through the inn.  She hadn’t had enough time to survey her surroundings
since her arrival earlier in the week, and although she didn’t have a clue
how long she would be here, she couldn’t waste the opportunity that had
presented itself to her.

After nearly an hour of walking around and meeting several of the other
guests, Willow ventured outside, hoping that she wouldn’t run into any
vampires here, although, she reasoned she was probably better equipped to
deal with them than any of the locals.

Crossing the street carefully, Willow walked to the small restaurant where
she was to meet Adrien.  She was early, by about ten minutes so she sat down
to wait.

****
 

   Angelus let the body drop to the floor.  The boy had grown boring anyway.
Now, now he had something better in mind for the evenings festivities.  She
was the one, he could sense it.  She had power, and darkness.  It radiated
from her.

  The vampire doubted the girl was even aware of how dark her soul truly
was.  It didn’t matter anyway.  Soon, her soul would be gone, and she would
be his.  She had fire and passion and an insurmountable amount of
intelligence.  She would be deadly.  Just like his princess, only with more
sanity.

  He had gone overboard with Drusilla’s courting, he realized that.  But
even so, he loved her.  Her mad ravings were a part of the creature he
created.  The creature he had obsessed over and made her his own.  No, his
Drusilla was one of a kind.  And she would like this latest creature he
could mold.  Dru had always wanted a sister. And this one had hair the color
of blood.

*****

   Willow waited, and waited.  When it was clear that Adrien wasn’t going to
make it, she became concerned.  Adrien was very nice, and didn’t seem like
the type to forget a prior engagement.  That meant something could have
happened to him.  She decided to walk the couple of blocks to the store he
worked at.  He had shown her around town on the previous day, and the
redhead was fairly certain she could get there without too much trouble.

   A few yards away from the safety of the restaurant, Willow got the
feeling she was being watched. She turned around swiftly, but found no one
there.  Gulping nervously, the hacker turned back around and kept her eyes
peeled to the road.  Every few seconds she looked around nervously, unsure
if there really was something out there, or if her years of living on the
Hellmouth had caused a slight case of paranoia.

   Her concerns were brought forth with startling clarity when she felt a
presence behind her.  It was powerful.  She spun around and looked into the
coldest golden eyes she had ever seen. And that wasn’t the worst.  The worst
was they were on the face of someone she called friend.  But that was back
home, in her own time.  Here, he wasn’t her friend.  He wasn’t anyone’s
friend.  He was the Scourge of Europe. And he was going to kill her.

****

    Angelus stared at the petite redhead, her pale skin seemed to glow in
the moonlight.  Her eyes had grown wide at seeing him, but she didn’t run.
She didn’t scream, despite that fact that he was wearing his true face.  He
was impressed, and confused.

  She seemed to recognize him, but he had been careful.  He knew that the
girl had never seen him watching her these past few days, so where was it
she recognized him from.  What was it about him that caused her to stare at
him so intently?

“Angelus.”  She whispered, almost too softly for him to hear.

But he had heard.  She had spoken his name not in terror or fear, but in
resignation.  It was almost as if she knew what was to come.  But she couldn
’t.  He had shared his plans with no one, save that daft boy who had alerted
him to the beauty before him, and he was dead.  No, her knowledge of what
was to come came from somewhere else.  Not that it mattered.  The outcome
would be the same.

Angelus stepped forward and ran a cool hand down her pale cheek.  “Don’t be
afraid, sweet.  I’ll make it good for you.” His voice was silky.

Willow found herself leaning towards the cool hand.  She knew she was going
to die.  This killer, with the face of a friend, would drain her dry.  He
would leave her body to decompose on an ancient street, and all that she had
hoped to accomplish would be lost.

 Still, it would be a sweet death, of that she was certain.  Willow didn’t
know what told her this.  If it was the sweet seduction his voice spoke of,
or if it was a trust she had in him, despite the fact that he was not her
friend, but the soulless version of him.  Or perhaps it was something else
she couldn’t quite understand.  Either way, when Angelus started to lead her
away, she followed.

  She didn’t know where he was taking her, or how far they had gone.  She
was only vaguely aware of leaving.  She felt his silky lips whispering words
of pleasure and pain against her skin and the cool wetness of his tongue as
he licked the sweat from her throat.

  She knew she should be worried.  Here was Angelus, Master vampire, Scourge
of Europe, and he had his mouth incredibly close to her pulse point.  She
could feel the ridges underneath her fingertips as she traced the contours
of his forehead.

   She took a deep breath when she felt him pierce her flesh, just as his
hands found their way under her bodice.  Her skin was heated with his touch
as he slowly, torturously sucked out her essence through the twin puncture
marks.

  Willow’s mind was hazy with want and desire as she felt him draw her blood
away from her.  He removed his fangs, and she felt disappointed at the loss.
She could feel him moving her against his chest, although her eyes were
closed.

   Next, she felt something at her lips.  It was thick and sweet. Sweeter
than anything she had ever tasted.  At least it seemed that way to her.
Opening her mouth to take in the sweet elixir, Willow’s mind was drifting
farther and farther away.  She swallowed more and more of the sweet liquid,
not knowing or caring what was happening to her, or how it would change her
life. All of their lives.

****

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