Before Sunrise

Author: Zenobia

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~Part Eleven~

Giles slept peacefully with his head propped up against the arm of his sofa with a large, battered looking book doubling as a pillow. The rays of early afternoon light were creeping through the Magic Box windows and beaming on to his face causing him to scrunch up his eyes in his sleep. Beside him on the coffee table next to another pile of well-worn books was a whiskey glass containing only the clear water of the previous night’s ice. Being a Watcher and having witnessed phenomena that could make a hardened marine turn pale, Giles was a little embarrassed by the fact that he was scared of thunderstorms. Mystical thunder and lightening; the kind that was conjured by some dark sorcerer or that came spewing out of a portal to hell was fine. But the natural kind, which lasted for hours and plunged everything in to darkness, terrified him.

But as usual there was work to be done. There was a Hitikan Bible to translate, so during the big thunderstorm that had hit Sunnydale the previous night he had gathered the book and a torch, wrapped a large blanket around his shoulders and curled up under the counter, just like he had done as a boy, except with the addition of a bottle of Whiskey. And this is where Xander had found him three hours later, asleep with his head thrown back, snoring like a drunken baby. Xander had helped him up off the floor and on to the sofa in the back room. Despite Giles protests that he could walk fine unaided, Xander had insisted saying that he had been helping his father off floors professionally since he was nine and so Giles was in expert hands. Xander had then explained to him that he, Anya and Willow would be unable to help with research the next day and left, although not before spending five minutes making fun of the 'poor, fraidy cat, booze monkey watcher'.

Giles stretched in his sleep, reaching an arm above his head and sending the pile of books crashing to the floor, which startled him to wakefulness. He sat bolt upright with a muffled scream, as he did so the full force of his hangover hit him and his hand slapped against his forehead. "Urgh, must lay down, must lay back down."

As he slowly fell backwards the sound of the shop doorbell rang through his brain.

"Giiiiles?"

Giles sat back upright. Buffy. He scanned the debris around him. "I’m back here Buffy," He yelled as cheerfully as he could as he quickly pushed the half empty bottle and the glass behind the sofa.

Buffy appeared in the doorway clutching two paper cups. "Ugh, take a look at you."

"I assure you, I’m fine. I just slept in an awkward position."

"Looks like the Slayer is about to save yet another poor soul in distress", she said as she handed him one of the cups, "Although I think that this poor soul's distress was a little bit self-induced." Giles smiled weakly at the comment as he sipped his coffee.

"So how come you slept here last night?"

"Well there’s a lot things we still don’t know about this Hitikan lot, and besides I didn’t particularly relish the idea of being swept away in the storm on my way home."

"Did you get far?" Buffy said as she flicked idly through the book that Giles had been using as a pillow.

"Not really. Most of the Hitikan Bible is just repetitive nonsense. It only seems to briefly touch on how the Hitikans choose their targets, but it’s nothing we don’t know already. I got so desperate last night I ended up phoning a few old contacts to see if they'd ever heard of the Hitikans. Didn’t turn up much in the end though. I even resorted to phoning Wesley to see if he could help."

Buffy rolled her eyes "I'll bet that goes down as being the most pointless phone call of all time."

"Well to be fair Buffy he was a trained Watcher. I gave him as much information as I could but the storm cut out the phones half way through. Anyway how come your here so earl-", Giles cut off as he glanced at his watch, realising it was one-thirty in the afternoon.

"Well I was hoping to arrive here fashionably late but it looks like everyone else beat me too it."

"Oh, it's just you and I today", Giles said as he grimaced at the taste of his coffee. "The other three aren’t coming."
 
 

"How come?"

"Oh they've gone off somewhere for the day, they’ve gone..." Giles stopped as he remembered what Xander had said to him. He'd said they were going to a water park, a bloody water park? He couldn’t say that, it was obviously a lie, who goes swimming the night after a storm? "... Shopping"

"Shopping?" Buffy repeated, in a hurt voice.

"Yes" Giles added quickly, "I think it has something to do with your birthday coming up."

The suspicion faded from her face, "Well a girl doesn’t mind being left out of a shopping trip if she's on the receiving end of the shopping. It just a shame though, what with Oz coming over later."

Giles looked up from his coffee, "Coming, here, why?"

"Well I think that he and Willow aren’t quite driving down the road to recovery just yet. But no matter, all they need is a little time and a little togetherness. So I invited him over for research, just like old times."

Giles was about to lecture her on leaving things alone when his hangover clogged brain began to ask itself a question. Why had Xander lied? He was sure it was something to do with Willow, maybe she just couldn’t face Oz and the others were covering for her, which was completely understandable. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Spike fitted in with all of it somewhere. He resolved to find out what was going on when the others returned, and to have serious words with Xander about his lying abilities.

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Spike yawned as he stretched his arms out at the side of his body. Almost instantly he frowned into his pillow, something was wrong. He tapped his hand blindly against the other side of the bed; empty. Not believing his own sense of touch he pulled himself up on to his elbows to inspect the side of the bed; still empty. His confused expression glanced over his shoulder at the empty apartment. There was no way it could have been another dream, it was so vivid, the bed he was lying in smelt of her skin, he could still taste her blood as he ran his tongue across his teeth. And besides her knickers were still hanging off the lamp on the nightstand, how much more proof did he need?

"Hey!"

Spike craned his neck round to the doorway to see a very welcome head, and pair of hands peering around the door.

"I just went outside for some air. I was gonna leave a note just in case you woke up and got all worried, but then I thought no, he's a big vamp now, he's just gonna have to deal with the absence of me."

His relaxed back into it’s usual cocky expression. "Luv, the only reason I was worried is because I couldn't hear you snoring next to me, I was worried that you'd stopped breathing or something." He turned around and reached over to the nightstand for his cigarettes, as he did he glanced down at the crack between the nightstand and the bed. Grinning he turned back to the door where Willow was still partially hiding. "Come over here."

"What, why?"

Grinning even harder he motioned his head for her to come over again. With a role of her eyes she stepped out from the doorway. She was wearing his duster, which despite being far too large for her size looked quite cute on her. She crossed her arms defensively across her chest, "What?"

Spike reached down beside the bed and pulled out her still damp skirt which had been discarded the night before, "So what exactly are you wearing underneath that?"

Willow blushed as she leapt onto the bed, trying to grab the skirt from him with one hand and hold the duster closed with the other. Spike chuckled as he easily kept the skirt from her grasp, until she finally gave up any hope of getting it back without the duster flying open and moved to sit on the edged of the bed with her back to him. He slowly moved behind her, curling his body around her back. "I don't know what your so embarrassed about, plenty of girls I’ve met have got a fetish for leather, be proud of being a freak."

Without looking round she nudged back and gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs, prompting him to chuckle even more. "It’s always the quiet ones"

"For your perverted minds information my clothes happen to still be wet. Anyway I was all covered up, and its not like a graveyard is a big social scene during the day. Oh and I resent being called a quiet one."

"Red any illusions I ever had about you being a quiet one were thankfully shattered last night." As he spoke he slowly pulled down the side of the collar on the duster, exposing her shoulder and the bite marks on the side of her neck.

"Gutterbrain." she smiled

"I told you I could make you scream," he said as he kissed the bare skin on her shoulder.

He uncurled himself from her body, rolled off the bed and walked off into the bathroom with his usual confident stride, as though he didn’t even notice that he was completely naked. Willow stood up and followed him as far as the bathroom doorway. She leant against the side of the doorframe and watched him as he stood at the sink; it was like looking at something for the first time. Sure she had been in the company of a member of the opposite sex when they were naked before, but she had never felt so relaxed about it and so never took the time to appreciate it. He was hers, well, at least until that night anyway. Just a few more hours…

"I can see you y’know, checkin me out."

"Me?" willow said with mock innocence, "Nah, I don’t see anything worth checking out in this room. Although for a vampires bachelor pad don’tcha think its kinda weird that there’s a mirror in here?"

"Now come on Willow, surely someone of your intelligence knows that you can’t have a bathroom without a mirror in it. What would the neighbours think?" He bent down and began to splash his face with water.

Willow walked up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her cheek against his back. Spike looked up as he felt her hands against his skin. The reflection in the mirror made a bizarre but sad sight, just Willow with her face turned to the side and her arms held out in a circle in front of her and the wet shimmer of water hanging in the air where his face should be. "What’s all this in aid of?"

"I don’t know," she mumbled against his skin.

Spike turned around in her arms, away from the sad reality of the reflection. He looked down at her, all dishevelled with bed hair and his duster slightly draped open, revealing a tantalising glimpse down the centre of her chest. If it were possible she looked even better than she did the night before.

She lifted a hand to his face and wiped away some of the water from his mouth before tiptoeing up and kissing him lightly. "Mine." she whispered against his mouth, "Well for now."

She smiled sadly as her heels touched back against the ground. Quickly picking up a towel from the side of the bath she thrust it into his hands and scuttled out of the room, leaving Spike staring after her with a bewildered but happy expression on his face.

Willow sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the duster tightly round her body. She couldn’t get past it; no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get past the idea that the whole thing was on some kind of countdown to zero. When she had woken up that day she had been so angry with herself for sleeping in, for losing precious time, it was so unlike her. But then when she had woken up she was so afraid of waking him up, in case things had been awkward between them that she’d just lay there and watched him sleep for about an hour and now sunset was like five hours away and to make things worse she had a pounding headache. She leant forward, rubbing her temples with her fingers as she tried to slow the thumping in her brain down.

"What’s wrong?"

Willow looked up to see Spike standing in the bathroom doorway, now with a towel draped around his waist. "Oh, I just… y’know, headache".

"Thinking too much again right?" he said, kneeling in front of her. "I knew that big brain of yours would cause you problems one day."

"I’m fine really. Maybe I just need to eat something, I haven’t eaten since… uh? Well, I know I’ve eaten food at some point."

Spike got up and wandered into the kitchen area. "Well I don’t think I’ve got a lot in at the moment." Willow could hear him opening and closing cupboards. "Not unless you feel a bit of the blood lust coming on."

"I’m fine really."

Spike appeared back in the bedroom empty handed, "I guess we could order something, pizza or Chinese, or whatever else they shove in those little boxes."

Willow grinned at his attempts at being a good host as she lay back on the bed. "Number one Spike, the phones are still down. And number two, what exactly would you say to them? "I’ll have a plain cheese with garlic bread and two cokes delivered to a big grey crypt in the Sunnydale graveyard, the one with the big pointy roof".’ Willow begun to giggle despite her mood. "Oh yeah but hold the garlic bread right", she said pointing at him and lapsing into further giggles.

Spike suppressed a grin as he tried to keep his face straight. "You know what I think? I think you’ve been hanging around with that walking doughnut boy for far too long."

"Hey, I’ve known him since kindergarten."

"It shows." he replied as he lay down behind her on the bed.

Willow leant back into his body. "Leave Xander alone, if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t even be able to be here. He’s lying for me right now you know."

"Really?" Spike replied with genuine surprise. "Remind me to sacrifice something in his honour someday." He waited to see if Willow would bite back after his comment, but she didn’t, so he continued, "So are you gonna let me in on know what was going on with your mood in the bathroom then?"

Willow kept silent as she thought of how to answer his question, to be honest she didn’t know how to answer it, other than to scream and say that she was falling apart. She knew he couldn’t see her face, but she could feel his eyes burning into the back of her head waiting for her to answer. "Spike, I know we weren’t gonna mention this but, where are you gonna go?" She could hear him sigh quietly behind her.

"I don’t know yet," he paused for a moment as he leant up on his arm so he could see her face. "There are places I haven’t been to yet, then there are places I haven’t been to in fifty years. I guess I’ll just see where I end up. That’s the great thing about immortality, you stop planning things and leave the fear behind."

"Do you ever think you’ll come back here?"

Spike began to realise where this was leading. "I’m not leaving because of you pet. I think without you I would’ve packed up and shipped out a long way back. But I’ve read enough Shakespeare plays to know that these ill-fated love stories never have happy endings, and I can’t just hang around here pretending that you and I are all great and pally. If I go, sooner or later the Slayer and the rest will just forget that any of this ever happened. It’s best that way."

Spike was quite pleased with the way his little speech had sounded, considering that ninety-percent of it had been complete bollocks. To tell the truth he didn’t quite relish the idea of being on his own again, because he had never been alone. First there had been Darla, Angelus and Dru, then it was just him and Dru. There was only a period of about a few months after Dru had left him when he had truly been alone, but then he was so consumed with hatred towards Dru, his sire and the rest of the world that he didn’t really get a chance to feel alone. Then there was her.

Willow twisted round to look up at him, her soft face forcing itself in to a smile, "I didn’t mean to bring that up, it’s just playing on my mind".

"Yeah, I know." He said as he casually let his fingers stroke down the centre of her breasts as the duster slowly slipped away from her skin, watching as she closed her eyes at his touch. Things could be a lot easier if he could just turn her, if she would let him or if he could let himself. If she offered to go with him he didn’t know if he could stop himself, but then she was to smart to do that. She had so much potential in life; even someone who was dead could see that. He had to leave her; he had to leave her to save her.

"Willow?"

"Hmm", she murmured, her eyes still closed

"I want you to promise me something."

She opened her eyes, leaning up so that she was face to face with him, "What?"

Spike held on to her hand, playing with her soft fingers to avoid looking her in the face, "Later on, after sunset, if I’m asleep don’t wake me up, I just want you to go."

"Okay." She whispered

He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, then looked up at her face, which thankfully was full of understanding rather than hurt at his request. "There’s something else, and this is more important."

"Sure."

"I want you to promise me that someday you’ll get out of here." Willow wrinkled her forehead in confusion, "Sunnydale", he continued, "Is a stinking hole in the ground and you deserve better than what this place can offer you."

"Well that was kind of the plan." she replied.

"Right", Spike said as he got up off the bed, he was determined to do a U-turn on the depressive tone the day had taken. He held out his hand for Willow to take, "If madam would like to follow me in to the drawing room."

With a suspicious look on her face Willow took his hand and her led her to the sofa in the living room. In front of the sofa was a bottle of wine and two glasses, "What’s with the big seduction scene?"

"You misinterpret my intentions madam," he said as he sat next to her on the sofa and started fiddling with a corkscrew, "I am merely commencing the days entertainment. First we have a re-run of last nights Passions, and then the grand finale, a lesson on the true nature of the ways of the vampire."

"Meaning?" Willow said as the cork popped out of the bottle.

Spike leaned over to the coffee table and picked up a video box, tossing it onto her lap. Willow read the box out loud, "From Dusk till Dawn."

"Yep, don’t let anyone tell you that don’t know how to show a lady a good time." Willow rolled her eyes as she held out her glass for him to fill. "Oh yeah, I feel like a Goddess."

"And don’t you forget it".

"I won’t", she mumbled as she turned towards the TV screen. She winced at the bright white light from the TV cut through the dim room and hit her eyes. Her head was still hurting pounding, but she was determined not to let that, or any other depressive thoughts ruin her last few hours with him. As the two of them lay in the dark of Spike’s crypt they slowly forgot that there was a world outside of the crypt door. They couldn’t see the group of demons currently tearing through Sunnydale as they tracked their next potential host, and they were unaware of the car speeding down the freeway from Los Angeles to California.

~Part Twelve~

He hadn’t had this dream in ages, in fact he hardly ever dreamt about Drusilla anymore. Yet here he was, pressed against the back of her cold body with his face buried in her mane of black hair, in a world somewhere between sleep and consciousness. There was a time when the only way he could ever fall peacefully asleep was with this picture in his mind; he never imagined that a time would come when he’d be desperate to wake up from it. Somewhere in his mind she was still there, the scent of Drusilla’s hair was the same as Willow’s, fresh and warm. There was also the scent of blood in the air, human blood.

“Willow?” he whispered through the dark.

As he waited through the silence for an answer his ears picked up on another sound, a heartbeat, weakly pulsing and almost inaudible even to his sensitive ears. He reached over and dragged her body over to face him, she was limp and ice cold to the touch. Spike jumped up and sat over her, holding her shoulders and supporting her head in his hands as he screamed her name in her face. When she made no effort to move panic began to accelerate. He shook her violently. “Wake up, Willow! MOVE! Don’t piss about!”

Sense took hold of him and he released her back down on to the bed before he shook the last of the life out of her. Thoughts and emotions pulsed through his frozen body at a thousand miles an hour yet each second he sat staring at her in the still dark felt like an eternity. She was dying right before his eyes, of that he was certain. He could feel her life slipping away beneath his fingertips, being replaced with something else that he was powerless to stop.

The scent of fresh blood wafted up towards him, tempting him to act. As he looked down at his bite marks on her neck his stomach tightened, had he done this? Had he taken too much? He desperately searched though his memories of the previous night, had she tasted his blood? Or was that the answer? Would turning her now be the only way to preserve what was left of her? He gently tipped her head to the other side, revealing a patch of fresh blood on the side of her head, which was slowly soaking in to the pillow. As he wiped the blood away with his thumb he revealed the ‘U’ shaped cut that the Hitikan demon had given her the night she had been attacked in the graveyard. Yesterday it had been no more than a fading scar, but now it was inflamed and weeping blood more rapidly than he could wipe it away.

As much as it pained him there was no way he could deal with this alone. He leapt up from the bed and began searching round the room for Willow’s clothes. When he had located all of the items that were in a passable state he ran back to the bed and quickly dressed her. “Come on Red”, he mumbled anxiously as his trembling fingers worked their way along the buttons on her shirt. “Snap out of it, come on”. As he said this Willow’s head snapped back sharply as she began to gasp for breath. The sound sent a tremor of dread though Spikes core, she sounded like she was screaming to breathe. He held her head in his hands, yelling her name at her over the sounds of her rasping screams.

As if the noise within the crypt walls wasn’t currently bad enough, the sound of fist on wood erupted behind him. He gently placed Willow’s head back down and walked cautiously towards the front door, pausing behind it as he attempted to pick up on who or what was on the other side.

"Spike, come on man, open up!"

Spike flinched at the sound of Xander’s voice. No company was good at this point, but better a human than a Hitikan demon. As he turned the handle Xander barged the door open and strode into the crypt, looking around anxiously. "Where is she?"

"I don't know what happened." Spike replied ignoring Xander’s question

"What do you mean? Giles called saying that we have to get her out of here now, those demons are after Willow."

Xander spun round at the sound of screaming suddenly erupting from the room next door. Spike turned to walk back to the bedroom, "I think they've already got her".

He walked in as Spike knelt down over the bed to hold Willow down. She screamed and thrashed under his arms as if she was possessed and something was trying to break out of her. "What the hell is going on?"  He reached out and touched Willow’s face, "She's stone cold ".

"Well what did the Watcher say we have to do?"

Xander stood and began to pace by the bed, his eyes glued to his dying friend. “He never said anything about this, we have to get her back to Giles’ so Angel can help her ".

"What are you on about?"

"Apparently Angel’s the big whiz on all things Hitikan. He's the one who called Giles and told them how to find the next host."

Spike turned back to Willow, who had suddenly gone silent in his arms. "Marked", he murmured under his breath before turning back to Xander, "Is he here?"

Xander nodded, "He's here to help Willow, got in a half hour ago."

Spike’s feelings for his sire conflicted with his feelings on Willow. He wasn't prepared or happy with the idea of coming face to face with him, but then if was going to have to be in town he better put himself to some use.

Spike picked up his duster, carefully wrapping it around Willow’s shoulders. As he did so her head flopped to the side exposing the bite marks in the side of her neck to Xander gaze. "What the hell did you do?"

Spike turned to face Xander, then down to where Xander was looking. "I didn't hurt her".

"Oh yeah right, and what is that? A mark of love?" He rushed forward and pulled Spike’s hands away from Willows shoulders. Spike easily deflected his move with a sharp push to Xander’s chest, sending him flying backwards against a wardrobe. Instantly Spike’s hand flew to his forehead as the chip zapped him.

When the pain had subsided, he glared back at Xander. "I am not discussing this with you, not now." He stood and lifted Willow’s limp form into his arms.  "Shut the door on you way out", he said as he marched toward the open front door, closely followed by Xander.

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Angel stared uncomfortably at his feet as he sat on Giles' sofa. It hadn't been that long since he had last been there and yet in a few months the entire atmosphere of the place had changed. He didn’t feel relaxed at Giles’s place, although it was difficult to be comfortable in the house of a man whose girlfriend you once killed. After what he had done he was surprised that Giles could bear to continue living there. "This place, it's nice. What you've done with it, very nice."

Giles wrinkled his brow in confusion, "Oh, er, thank you. Out with the old and all of that."

Angel nodded before the two of them returned to their uncomfortable silence. After a few moments, Cordelia emerged from the bathroom. "Nothing like a long drive on the freeway to make a girl’s make-up melt," she said as she sat down next to Angel. "So what did I miss? Come up with any action plans yet?"

"We’ll work that out when she gets here."

Giles stood up and walked to the kitchen area, "Willow stayed with Xander and Anya last night," as he spoke he glanced quickly at Cordelia, who looked the other way just as fast. "I've explained what I can to him and he's bringing her over here now."

"She can't stay here", Angel said firmly. "It's not safe until the entire Hitikan group has been destroyed."

Giles returned to the sofa holding out a cup for Angel, "Well what do you suggest?" Angel eyed the contents of the mug, then with shock back up at Giles. "It's Spike’s, it's not terribly fresh I'm afraid."

Angel accepted the mug with a polite nod as Giles turned back to his chair.

"Ooh, oh!" Cordelia said getting excited, "She could come and stay with us?"

"Well...” Angel and Giles both began in unison.

"...She's real smart so she could help with cases, and that place is far too testosterone heavy with both you and Wes hanging around."

"Cordelia it's not as simple as all of that. I really don't think Buffy... Buffy."

Angel and Cordelia turned to where Giles’s gaze was now fixed. There in the doorway were Buffy and Oz.

“Angel?” Buffy said in a voice filled with disbelief.

Angel had prepared himself for this inevitable moment. After the turmoil that had taken place the last time he had seen her in L.A he was prepared for there to be a bad atmosphere between them. "Buffy, Oz", he said as he stood up.

"Hey! Angel, Cordelia." Oz said, giving a little wave. Buffy remained dumbstruck in front of him, mouth open, waiting to think of something to say. Oz saved her the trouble, "So how come you guys are in town?"

 "We could say the same to you", Cordelia said defensively. "But ah, we won’t. Or, well what I mean is, so what brings you back, ah, here?"

"What's happened?" Buffy said calmly, finally finding her voice.

Her question was answered as Spike burst through the door behind them carrying Willow. At the site of Spike barging through holding the unconscious girl in his arms Angel stepped to the front of the group, ready to take him down. But no one else seemed to be reaching the same conclusion as they watched Spike waltz past them and up the steps to the bedroom, leaving a breathless Xander to explain.

"We don't know what happened, she just collapsed. She's cold."

At this Angel bounded toward the stairs to the bedroom where Spike had taken Willow, closely followed by Buffy Oz and Xander. As he entered the room Spike was laying Willow carefully down on the bed. He could sense it the moment he walked in; his Chide had marked her. Nothing very surprising there, but then Angel knew about the chip, she would have to have been a willing partner. Ignoring that thought and returning to the issue at hand he knelt down by the side of the bed and placed a hand on her forehead. Her skin felt like damp tissue clinging to bone, as though there was barely any life passing beneath it. “It’s already started.”

“What’s started?” Buffy said as she watched her friend from the doorway

Giles brushed past her as he walked into the room. “Willow is the Human host we’ve been looking for, but I didn’t think it would have gone this far.”

“How long has she been like this?” Angel cut in urgently, turning to Xander.

“Ah, I’m not too sure. Uh, It might have been…”

“Nearly an hour,” Spike finished for him. He swore at that moment he could actually feel the Slayer’s glare burning into him like a splash of Holy Water on his back. He glanced momentarily over Willow then to at Angel who was staring back at him with an expression of unease that he guessed pretty much summed up the feelings of the whole room. Under pressure he slowly stepped back from the bed.

“Willow’s turning into a demon?” panicked Xander.

Angel turned to Giles; “We have to get her out of here now.”

“Out? Out where?” Buffy said stepping in front of Angel.

“Buffy this has to be done now. If the transformation goes too far then it’ll be irreversible, and I’d say the cut off point is about 10 hours from now.”

“Where are you going to take her?” Buffy repeated firmly.

Xander stepped between them, “Well people I have a plan, how about we leave the happy reunion till later and get with saving the girl you claim is going to die in ten hours.”

Angel frowned as he realised how uneasy this was going to be. “I can’t do this, not by myself.”

“What do you mean ‘you can’t do this’?” Xander yelled. “Your not here for social call pal, this is the only reason why you’re even in town.”

From the expression on Buffy’s face he could she that Xander saying pretty much what was on her mind too. “When Wesley told me all I knew was that she had been marked, I didn’t think it had gone this far. I can’t stop her from turning, but I know someone who can.”

“And why am I doubting that that someone is Cordelia”, Buffy said dryly.

Angel went to respond but was cut off as Willow began to go into another violent fit. It was clear that the demon’s strength was increasing inside of her as Angel and Spike struggled to pin her convulsing body down on the bed. Oz rushed to her other side, slowly easing Spike out of the way as he helped Angel. He watched powerlessly as her former lover whispered soothingly into her ear and tenderly stroked her hair until after a few moments the demon inside Willow seemed to calm down.

 Angel hesitantly backed away from the bed, leaving her in Oz’s arms. “Burn some sage in here. It’ll purify the air, hopefully that should slow the transformation down.” Giles nodded and disappeared downstairs. Angel followed, grabbing Buffy’s arm and pulling her out of the room with him. Angel led Buffy into the front room where Cordelia was waiting anxiously to find out what was going on. Buffy stood silently in the corner with her arms crossed, watching her ex-boyfriend as he quietly went over and explained the situation to Cordelia. Finally he turned to Buffy, “Why are you fighting me?”

“Fighting you? This has nothing to do with us, all I did was ask you where you thought you were taking Willow.”

“It takes very powerful defence magics to exorcise a demon like that from a human body, and that’s not a power I have.”

“But you know someone who does right? So where are they?”

Angel began to lose his calm, “It’s not as simple as that. Do you think that once you remove the demon this is over? This wasn’t a random attack Buffy, she would have been chosen for this a long time ago and just taking the demon away this time isn’t going to stop them coming back and trying again.”

“Do you think I can’t protect her here?”

“ I know that you’ll try, but it might not be enough”. He replied honestly. He could see that comment had beaten her down a little as she turned her face away from his.

Suddenly Xander’s voice broke into the tension as he came down the stairs, “She seems to be doing better, I think she’s sleeping. So what’s happening?” Angel and Buffy turned away from each other while Cordelia shrugged in the background.

“Angel wants to take Willow away to safety,” Buffy said as she turned back round to defiantly to Angel.

“Where?” said Xander suspiciously.

“He won’t say.”

Angel began to wonder if he’d accidentally spent the last fifteen minutes speaking in another language, why didn’t they seem to understand? “They can hear her, right now they can hear the demon inside of her and it’s calling to them and the stronger it gets the louder it’s going to scream until they come running. We need to get her as far away from here as possible until they’ve been destroyed.”

“Well we’ve already killed three of them, that means there’s just three left.” Xander said hopefully.

“You were lucky. You’re not dealing with demons that just fight with force, they’re powerful magicians. How else do you think they were able to infect Willow so easily?”

Buffy walked towards Angel with her arms folded, “I’m not letting you take Willow off who knows where. We take care of our own Angel, I thought you might have remembered that.”

Everyone in the room but Angel jumped as the front door slammed shut behind them as Spike, who had been listening to the argument at the top of the stairs decided to make an exit. Buffy massaged the back of her neck irritably as she was reminded of her other problem. She turned her attention back to her ex-boyfriend. “Don’t think that you can just fly in here and save me when ever you want.”

“You’re not the one I’m here to save”. Angel said bluntly, not understanding or appreciating Buffys attitude when all he was trying to do was save her friends life.

Buffy felt as though she was losing the grip on the discussion. She could feel tears begin to cloud her vision as Angel’s coldness stung her, she knew that she probably deserved it but it didn’t stop it hurting anyway. She turned to make her way back up the stairs, “I’m meant what I said, Willow stays with us. Now if you know how to help her then help her, if not then remember to give my regards to Wesley when you get back.” With that she carried on up the stairs.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Angel knew that Spike wouldn’t have gone far. As he hurled open the front door he spotted him instantly, leaning against a tree with a stream of cigarette smoke rising above his shoulder. Spike growled through his teeth as he felt his sire approach.

“There was a time when you wanted to watch this place burn, now you’re carrying in their wounded. Why does this strike me as strange?”

“Before you hand in your application for the Nobel peace prize you might want to take a moment to reflect on exactly who helped stop who from unleashing Armageddon on this place the last time”, he replied, all the time pretending to be deeply interested in the grass below rather than look up at his sire’s face. “Oh I’m sorry, it wasn’t you was it? It was Angelus. So who are we today then? Saintly poof or crazy poof?”

Angel took a step towards him, noticing for the first time the smear of Willows blood down the centre of his t-shirt. “Well it doesn’t really make much of a difference since they both feel like it’s been far too long since I last kicked your ass around Sunnydale.”

“A bit of both then.”

“Spike I’m really very sorry if I don’t seem more thrilled to be reunited with you, but the last time we met I seem to remember you hiring some random insane vampire to push iron spikes into my chest, oh and lets not forget the bite on Willows neck. Now ask me again why I might not trust you”. He could see the expression change on Spike’s face at the mention of her name. Angel decided to change tactics. “She’s dying Spike, or she will die if she stays here.”

Spike blew out a cloud of smoke and threw his cigarette to the side, “But Captain Summers won’t let her off base, I heard.”

Angel could tell that he was determined not to give anything away to him. He didn’t really know how to deal with whatever the situation between Spike and Willow was. On one hand the notion of either of them having feelings for each other was absurd. To Spike humans were a disposable resource, like food containers. He never took pleasure in the art of the kill, more the battle before it. And Willow was intelligent and had defiantly seen enough to know better than to leap in to that situation. But at the same time everything Spike had done since he had walked in carrying Willow had said otherwise. He was determined to provoke him into revealing the truth, “Are you saying that you care whether she lives or dies? Someone’s obviously been brushing up on their people skills.”

Spike ignored him, looking down and picking his chipped black nail-varnish and trying to appear indifferent.

“What is she Spike, a regular meal? Is that why you care if she lives or dies, are you worried that your supply will dry out?”

Spike snapped out from his casual manner and pounced forward, grabbing Angel’s collar and flipping him round to pin him against the tree. For the first time Spike looked at into his face. This was exactly the reaction Angel hoped to get and he knew that his sire had won. “You don’t have to talk to me, you don’t have to touch me, you don’t even have to look at me. Just save her.” He released Angels collar and stepped back. For a moment he held Angel’s gaze like a warning, making sure that he had gotten through to him, before flipping round and walking away from the house.

Angel straightened himself up as he watched Spike’s figure retreating. Things certainly had changed since he had last been in Sunnydale, he felt like stranger surrounded by strangers in a strange place. Seeing Buffy had been painful, there were moments when he had felt as though he wasn’t even talking to the same girl that he had spent such a precious three years holding to. Although her attitude towards him had made it easier for him to deal with it and to finally come to a decision about Willow.

He’d be the first to admit that he didn’t know Willow that well, he didn’t really know any of the remaining Sunnydale group that well but he did know her as being sweet, honest and intelligent. She was the one he’d have been least likely to believe would knowingly enter into any kind of relationship with a vampire, hadn’t she been the one who comforted Buffy when ever some human/vampire issue had caused chaos in their relationship?

Angel’s thoughts were broken as he heard the front door to Giles’ house open behind him. Cordelia emerged looking tired and angry. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just getting some air”, he said absently, still watching the road in front of him. “Cordelia has Willow mentioned anything about Spike to you?” He could see in her face that she had.

“Angel don’t ask me that. I don’t want to have to lie to you.”

Angel nodded. He looked up at the road Spike had disappeared down. “Things have changed.”

“You’re telling me, I for one am very pleased that I got away from here when I did. I mean what’s Buffy’s brand new trauma?”

“I wish I knew.” he replied honestly.

Cordelia ran her hands wearily through her hair, “So what do we do now? I don’t know if Buffy’s stubborn enough to sit there and watch Willow turn into the creature from the deep but I don’t want to wait around and to find out.”

He had already come to his decision. Willow had once risked her own life to return his soul and he was now willing to risk angering Buffy to save hers. “Cordelia I need you to do me a couple of favours.”

“Anything.”

Angel led her further along the road away from the house, looking back uneasily in case someone came out. He stopped at the end of the street. “I want you to go to Willow house, find a suitcase and pack some of her things, enough to last a few weeks, but just the essentials.”

“Okay”, Cordelia said apprehensively. “But how am I supposed to get in there?”

Angel reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bunch of three keys. “I took these out of her pocket when were upstairs”. He said handing them to her. “Hide the case in the bushes at the front of the house. Oh and pick up some blood on the way back, that will give you an excuse for why you were away.”

Cordelia twirled the keys round on her finger, “Got it. So what’s the second favour?”

He smiled at her, “I need you to show me exactly how good an actress you really are.”

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

A silence had descended throughout Giles house. However in this instance the silence by no means meant peace as the tension is the household was as thick as the new dark clouds forming outside. Since Cordelia departure, Angel had retreated to the dim light of Giles’ bedroom to keep an eye on Willow’s condition. He sat on a chair in the corner of the room silently observing her still form beneath the sheets, listening cautiously to he light scratchy breaths as she slept. As her screams had gradually died down, so had everyone else in the house, but Angel was becoming increasingly concerned. The less she screamed and struggled in her sleep meant the less she was fighting off the demon that was consuming her from within. Time was definitely running out, but until Cordelia returned there was nothing to be done but sit and wait.

Occasionally he could make out raised voices from downstairs as Giles tried to, no doubt reluctantly convince Buffy to let Willow go. He was sure that the watcher would fail. He recognised the look on Buffy’s face when she had warned him not to defy her, she wasn't going to let this one go without a fight, a fight that he meant to win for Willow’s sake even if it meant cheating a little.

He glanced over at the chair next to the bed where Xander sat dozing in a chair, face down on his folded arms on the bed. At least some people could be relied on not to change too much, he almost welcomed Xander’s obvious mistrust as he stood guard by the bed.

On the bed next to Willow was Oz, also sleeping with his head leaning back at an angle against the headboard. It was then that Angel remembered what Cordelia had said about it being surprising that Oz was there. Oz had left. He didn't know the whole story behind it, but he remembered how sad he had felt on her behalf when Cordelia had told him. Despite Oz's inhuman aspects they had somehow managed to have the kind of relationship that he could only have dreamed of having with Buffy, and for that he wanted it to work for them.

He cast his mind back to when he had last seen her. He remembered thinking that she had looked different when he had briefly spoken to her on his last visit to Sunnydale, a little broken and full of false perkiness. To be honest he hadn't really given it much thought, there was only one person in Sunnydale that had entered his mind since he had moved to LA. He felt a pang of guilt at that thought, after all everyone in the building had saved him in some way and at some point, with the possible exception of Xander. Maybe that’s what Buffy’s attitude was trying to tell him, if he could turn his back on them once, why change now?

He turned sadly from the couple on the bed. He couldn't stand to see them looking exactly the same as he had left them a year before and yet know the truth. He mentally began to will Cordelia to return so that he could get back out of Sunnydale.

He heard quiet footsteps coming up the stairs. He sat up, readying himself for another possible confrontation with Buffy, but was pleasantly surprised to see a weary looking Giles standing in the doorway cleaning his glasses. "How is she?"

"No change. She hasn't made a move in twenty minutes."

Giles nodded gravely as he walked past Angel towards the bed, also understanding what her present condition meant.

"Any luck with Buffy?"

"Also no change," Giles replied. “I have decided to give up on that course of action and concentrate my efforts on research, if there’s some other way of solving this them I'm bloody well going to find it."

Angel stepped up behind the watcher; "It’s not going to help Rupert, there is no time for research."

"Well what do you suggest I do?" he began calmly without turning around, "Sit here and do nothing or go downstairs and waste more time trying to convince Buffy to let her go off with you or try and find another answer?"

Angel stepped to Giles side so he could see his face, "I've given you the answer". As he spoke the sound of banging echoed upstairs as someone hammered on the front door.

Giles looked over and saw Xander rubbing his eyes as the noise groggily brought him back to life. He turned to Angel and whispered quickly, "Well be that as it may, but we're running out of time and Buffy’s not going to back down. Now I've thought of another plan and I suggest you do the same." He held the vampires gaze for a second before disappearing out of the room to answer the door.

Xander yawned, "What was that?"

"That was the door", Angel replied, smiling for the first time that evening. "Cordelia’s back." And with that he left the room.

Downstairs Cordelia was doing her best hostess impression as she entered the house carrying a cardboard tray covered in paper cups, "I thought everyone might want a little pick me up", she said placing the tray down on the table. "I think I remember how everyone takes their coffee, but I'm sorry if anyone’s gone on a sugar free diet or has become diabetic since we last spoke."

"No, we're all still very much on the super slayerette sugar diet." Giles said smiling weakly as he removed a doughnut and a cup from the tray.

"How is she?"

"She's quiet at the moment," Angel answered as he entered. " Sleeping peacefully".

"Well that’s a good thing right?” Cordelia asked as she handed him his blood. But Angel’s expression told her otherwise.

Angel retreated to the kitchen area to heat his blood. As he walked in he saw Buffy leaning against the counter staring into space, obviously having overheard the conversation in the other room. She didn’t notice him come in. “Do mind if I use the microwave?”

“What?” She said looking up in surprise, “Oh go ahead.”

She side stepped out of the way, but stayed close to him. “So she’s sleeping?”

“Has been for half an hour.”

Buffy nodded. “Well did anyone find anything?”

The microwave beeped and Angel took out his cup, he shot a glare at her as he turned to leave.

“Angel wait!” She called out to him. Angel stopped but didn’t turn to face her. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“You have a funny way of showing that.” He replied finally turning round.

“You can’t just ride in here on your white horse and solve everything like nothing’s changed!”

“No, you’re right Buffy, everything’s changed”! He yelled, slamming his hand down against the counter making Buffy flinch backwards. He heard the room next door go quiet, so he moved in closer to her and whispered, “The girl I used to know wouldn’t sit and watch her best friend die just because she has pride issues.”

“This isn’t about pride, and she isn’t going to die.” She stated firmly, desperately biting back the tears at this point. “You know what? I was coping okay without you, but every time you show up here and I see you, I feel like I’ve turned back into the mess I was when you left.”

“Buffy, I wouldn’t be here unless it was an emergency.”

She laughed bitterly as tears began to fall unintentionally from her eyes, “Emergencies I’m good at, remember?”

He raised a hand to brush the wetness from her cheek, but she shrugged him away and turned her back to him, embarrassed at breaking down. She took a deep breath to calm herself, "I don't need your sympathy. All I need you to do is understand that I am going to do everything in my power to save Willow."

"As long as in the end you understand that that’s all that I'm going to do."

For a moment the pair stared each other down, each trying to understand what was behind the others words of warning. Both heads suddenly turned as a loud scream came from the other room, followed by the sound of furniture scraping against the wood floor. Angel pushed Buffy to the side as he ran off to investigate. As he arrived in the room Giles was trying to get through to Cordelia as she held her head and screamed again. Xander held her round her waist trying to stop her falling to the floor, "Cordy what is it? God this Hitikan thing isn't spreading is it?"

Angel watched the scene for a moment with a slight smile on his face before remembering the reason for the situation at hand. He rushed forward and pushed Xander out of the way, "She has visions!"

Giles stood back confused, "Visions?"

"She can see parts of possible futures, things that will happen if no one does anything to stop them", He explained as he led her to the couch, kicking the fallen chair out of the way. "Can someone get some aspirin and water"?

Xander leaned in to the sofa, staring at Cordelia as though she were a two-headed dog. "Since when did this happen?"

"Who cares?” Cordelia snapped as she got her breath back, "Water, aspirin, pain!"

As Xander ran off to the kitchen Buffy emerged out from where she had been watching in the doorway, "What did you see?"

Cordelia opened her mouth to explain but lost her breath and fell forward clutching her head again groaning "Oh my God".

Xander reappeared and handed her some water and aspirin. Buffy waited a few moments, watching as Angel gently rubbed between Cordelia’s shoulders trying to ease her stress. She felt a cold sting of jealousy go through her stomach. For all she knew he and Cordelia could be a couple, she doubted it, but it was still a possibility. Angel wasn’t hers anymore and despite knowing it wasn’t the truth, the thought of him being with someone else still hurt. But what bothered her even more that he might fall for another human after they had tried so hard to make their human/vampire relationship work. She stepped back from the pair on the couch; she couldn’t even stand look at them with the thoughts that were running through her mind.

Giles pushed the still gawking Xander out of the way and crouched down in front of Cordelia, “Are you feeling any better,” he asked kindly. Cordelia nodded, “Can you tell us what you saw?”

“Demons, four of them, and they all had these weird shapes on their heads, sort of like the Star Trek symbol.”

“Hang on,” Xander began holding his hands up, “This doesn’t make sense, we killed three of these things which means there’s three left. There can’t be four of em out there.”

“Unless Cordelia’s seeing a future where Willow’s transformation went all the way”, Giles replied as he glanced behind him at Buffy. Her expression remained blank as she took in the new information.

“Where?”

Cordelia narrowed her eyes as she examined the mental image the vision had left her, “I’m not sure, it was like I was looking through a dirty window in to a building. It’s a small, old looking place made of stone. Looks like it’s about to collapse.”

“Anything else?” Buffy said getting impatient, her tensely folded arms digging into the material of her top.

“They were all inside, it looked like they were doing a spell or something. There were lots of trees around and I think there was a building in the distance, with a flashing light on the roof.”

“What like a lighthouse?” Xander added

“No! Like a sign, a flashing sign.” She closed hers eyes as she played it over again in her mind, “Motel! The sign said ‘motel’”.

Buffy stepped closer, “What colour were the lights?”

“Blue and white.”

“The blue anchor motel”, Buffy said as she crossed the room to the weapons chest. “It’s just outside of town, right on the edge of the woods. By car we can get there in twenty minutes.”

Once again Xander held his hands in the air, “Hold on, wait a minute. If Cordy sees the future, how do we know that they’re even there yet?”

Both Angel and Cordelia were about to explain but Buffy saved them the trouble, “We don’t, but I’m willing to bet that that’s where their base of operations is.” She pulled a large axe out of the chest and delicately ran a fingertip along the blade before handing it to Xander, “This ends now.”

Xander nodded and began to unload more weapons from the chest. Buffy grabbed her coat and addressed the others, “The plan is to kill two of them, bring the other back here to reverse this. Cordy do you think you’re up for the journey? We may need some help finding this place and we need a driver with a car.”

She glanced nervously at Angel as she got to her feet, “Uh, I’m fine but don’t you need someone to stay here with Willow? I mean what if they come after her again.”

“I’m staying,” Angel said calmly looking at Buffy. “If Willow’s condition gets worse while you’re away I’m the only one that knows how to deal with it. Besides, I’m sure you can deal with this on your own.” Angel knew that antagonising her at this point was a bad idea but he couldn’t resist hammering his point home. But from the stony expression on her face as she looked at him he could tell it hadn’t done any harm.

“Fine, I’ll be back in an hour. If there’s too much trouble, I’ll call.” With that she turned and disappeared through the front door. Sighing, Giles followed.

Cordelia was still looking at Angel with pleading eyes as she put on her jacket. He glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Xander was still occupied with the weapons chest then pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He took out fifty dollars and stuffed them into a confused Cordelia’s hand, quickly whispering something in to her ear as he walked past her. As Xander turned back to face her with his arms full of axes, crossbows and other pointy things she quickly stuffed the money into her pocket and made her way to the door.

“Wait a minute!” Xander yelled.

She froze momentarily before turning around, giving Xander her best ‘I did nothing’ face.

“Can you take some of these?” He said extending his crowded arms to her. “Don’t think just because you live in L.A. now and can see in to the future that you can get out of the dirty work.”

She ignored the comment as she absently took half of the load, relieved at his answer. Xander left without a word to Angel who stepped ahead to hold the door open for them both. “Watch your back.” he said as she passed him.

She looked up at him in the doorway, smiling uncertainly. “You too.”

Before the door had even clicked shut behind her, Angel was bounding up the stairs to the bedroom. As he arrived he froze in the doorway – Oz! - he had forgotten that he was still there. Thankfully he was still asleep. As Angel silently crept towards the bed he weighed up the odds in his head, would moving her wake him? If he did wake up he very much doubted that he could convince him to let her go. He had moved slightly since Angel had last been there. He was now lying next to her on his side, touching her only with his arm, which was curled over her waist. He leant down next to her, staying in silence for a moment as he listened to their breathing. Oz breathed deeply and was obviously in a deep sleep, Willow wasn’t breathing at all. He had been expecting this, right now the only thing keeping her alive was the demon and her own heart beat.

If he was going to move it would have to be now. Carefully he slid his hand underneath his wrist and lifted it a few inches in the air, he paused for a few seconds to see if Oz would react. When he didn’t he moved his arm and placed it on the pillow next to him. After checking that the couple were now fully separated he reached down and swiftly scooped her up in his arms then made his way as quickly and quietly as possible down the stairs.

As he opened the front door and felt the cold night air on his face he heard a cough behind him. He stood unmoving in the doorway, waiting for whoever was there to make the first move.

“I decided to come back”, Giles said calmly as he walked towards him cleaning his glasses. “Or more Buffy decided that I should come back”. Angel’s heart sank as he slowly turned around to face him. “You know Angel, I’m not entirely sure she trusts you.”

Angel looked down at the dying girl in his arms, then at the former watcher as he replaced his glasses. His expression was unreadable, not angry and yet not totally approving of what he was seeing.

Giles continued. “You know I must remember to let Cordelia know what a bright future she has in acting, she’s very good.”

“But not good enough,” Angel added. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on.”

“On the contrary, I know exactly what’s going on, and what’s going to happen now”.

“Rupert…”

“Now I came back and you were upstairs, and then I heard a noise outside. I went out to investigate and when I came back you were gone, although I’m sure when I explain it to the others I’ll be a little bit more detailed than that.” Angel stared at him dumbfounded, not entirely sure that he was hearing him correctly. Giles continued, “Oh and you stole my car”. He reached into his pocket for his car keys and handed them over.

Angel stared down at the pieces of metal in his hand, still not completely confident of his grasp on the situation.

“Angel, I think this is probably the part where you make your exit.”

He put the keys in his pocket. “Thank you Rupert”

“I wouldn’t bother thanking me yet. She’ll never forgive you for this, you know that don’t you?”

He had thought about this. He knew that no matter what he did as Angelus in the end only his actions as Angel had any real effect on Buffy. The moment he walked out of the door carrying Willow it would be the final nail the coffin. He looked down at Willow again, “I think it’s worth the risk.”

“So do I.” Giles stood up and made his was to the back door; he paused suddenly and turned back to Angel. “You will let us know, as soon as she’s safe?”

“Of course.”

Giles nodded in acceptance and farewell as he left the room, leaving Angel once again alone in the doorway. He left the house and quietly closed the door behind him. As he stood on the doorstep he gave a loud sigh of both relief and stress, stress because he had lost. From that moment on he knew that he would not be welcome there anymore. Buffy was no longer just his ex-girlfriend; she was to become his enemy. Yet he had also won, he had got Willow out. But wasn’t a complete victory quite yet, there was still a race against time to be win, so wasting no more time worrying about what was to come he made his way to Giles’ car.

^~Part: Thirteen^~

It was beginning to feel like he had been sitting in the car on the same road for days, when in reality it had been just over two hours. They had past through the built up concrete of the freeway a long way back, left Sunnydale way behind them and were now travelling along a seemingly never ending dark stretch of road that cut through a forest. The thick mass of trees that swept past on either side of the car arched inward, cutting off the little light that was coming from the sky above. Angel was beginning to wonder if he was on the right road. It had been a good half hour since he had last seen another car or a building and although it had been a few years since he had last made this journey he was certain it wasn't this long.

Time was running out, for both of them. Leaning over the steering wheel to look at the sky above he noticed that the inky black was slowly diluting in to a velvety blue as sunrise crept forward. Next to him Willow was still sleeping, at least that is how it would appear to anyone who glanced into the car. She was lying in the exact same position that he had left her in when he placed her on the seat, not fidgeting or uttering a sound during the entire journey. It was no longer certain that she could be saved, too much time had past now for him to know for sure.

He felt his phone vibrate inside his pocket, just as it had been doing for most of the journey. He had answered it once, believing it to be Cordelia, but as soon as he was met with the first words of a pissed off Slayer he had hung up. The little voice of reason inside of his head was reassuring him that eventually she would see sense? When all of this was over, and if Willow survived, she couldn't hold saving her best friend’s life against him. He had spent most of the journey running things over in his head, trying to come to some conclusion about how it was all going to end. In truth he already knew that so much had changed back in the town that he once called home that he couldn’t be sure of anything. His brief, although heated encounter with his ex some hours earlier had felt like an argument with a stranger in the street. The woman he used to love had the power to hurt him more than any other creature on earth. But her actions didn’t hurt this time, they were just making him angry.

The road began to dip down steeply as though the car were travelling down the side of a mountain. He began to catch glimpses of light breaking through the wall of trees to his left. He breathed in deeply, catching a faint aroma of salt in the air. The signs of life were encouraging and he pressed down harder on the gas pedal, jolting the car down the road.

Little by little the trees separated out, revealing that they had been driving along a Cliffside road looking out onto an inky black ocean that glittered in the moons reflection like a carpet of crushed velvet. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the road narrowed and the car got closer and closer to the edge of the steep drop. What would Willow’s reaction be if she opened her eyes right now and found herself face to face with a hundred foot drop into the ocean? She'd probably look to her left, see who was driving and assume she'd been kidnapped. He had to admit that, given past evens, it wasn't exactly a conclusion he could blame her for leaping to.

As the road descended further the coastline slowly began to stretch in to view below. As they got closer he could finally make out the matchbox-sized shapes of a small town. The only building that stuck out in the mass of shadows below was a clock tower in the centre of it all, the face of which glowed in the half-light. It was all he needed to let him know that they had were definitely on the right track.

He turned sharply onto a side road and stamped down on the gas pedal. From there onwards he knew the way like the back of his hand and could take the sharp turns in the road by instinct rather than sight. The little hairs on the back of his neck stiffened as he his body began react to the approaching sunrise and the growing inhuman presence filling the car. Looking down at her he noted that she still hadn't moved and her appearance hadn't changed, yet the air around him was changing. Something with a soulless aroma that made the air inside of the car dry and lifeless was overpowering her human scent. Every nerve in his body was picking up on the presence within the car, urging him to destroy the creature next to him before he was destroyed by it.

Angel glanced back up at the road just in time to see the dead end rushing towards him. Cursing, he slammed on the breaks and forced the steering wheel to the left. The tyres screeched violently as the car span round, narrowly missing an impact with the wall. The car came to a sharp halt at an angle in the road, slamming Angel into the back of his seat. The engine took a few moments to die down and he sat in stunned silence for a moment staring at the ivy covered grey wall in front of the car. He could feel a painful throb in his left arm and his temple where he had impacted against the doorframe.

Willow was still in an unnatural sleep next to him, her head now slumped towards him. The pale blue early morning light reflected off of her features making her look beautifully inhuman. For a moment he couldn’t decide whether she was alive or not, his mind felt kicked out of sync by the near-miss and everything around him seemed to slow down and he watched her. After a few moments he unhooked his seat belt and gently brushed her jaw with the back of his hand until her head rolled back facing forward. If there was life left in her it was being hidden well. He let knuckles brush lazily down her throat, unconscious of what he was doing until his fingers came in to contact with the ripple of broken skin on the side of her neck. His demon mask softly slipped through his features, leaving his soul sat besides in shock. Bringing his fingers to his face he inhaled deeply. She smelt sweet and rich; like an expensive perfume, that you could only ever be able to afford the once. It had been too long since he had last let himself savour the smell of human blood.

He could also taste Spike’s presence as he moved a finger between his lips, lightly tracing it with his tongue. The faint but powerful touch of a family mark on his taste buds brought a thin smile to his lips. It was a wonderful cocktail, and only slightly tainted by the stench of the demon possessing her.

‘Only slightly tainted’. If he could still sense her; then she was still alive.

Suddenly the reality of being sat in a car with a dying friend leapt back to the front of his mind and he pulled his face back from hers. He wasn’t entirely sure what had just come over him, it felt as though all the blood had drained from his brain and something else had taken over. After spending 200 years living in a body with two opposing forces he had learnt to keep a careful hold on both his soul and his demon. Of course sometimes the demon leapt forward in the middle of a fight or when he was mad, spurred on by his souls negative emotions. But what he had felt was not what he would call negative, quite the opposite.

He quickly checked her over, from what he could see she didn’t need to add broken bones to her list of problems. All of a sudden he heard the soft crunching sound of footsteps on gravel in the distance. For the first time since the car had landed he began to notice his surroundings, the car had stopped at the start of a long gravel driveway lined with wild and unkempt looking trees. At the end of the driveway, peeking out from the trees was the white stone of a tall house. It didn’t matter if it was partly hidden, he would have recognised it in total darkness.

Out of the corner of his dark eyes he caught sight of a shadow, shuffling cautiously towards the car. Unsure of what was coming he got out of the car and walked round to the passenger side and stood protectively in front of Willow’s window, never once taking his eyes off his target.

Slowly the shadow emerged from the darkness of the trees and on to the partially lit gravel pathway. It took him a moment to recognise them, but when he did he felt relief wash through his body pulling his demon face away with it. They had made it.
 
 

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She wasn’t sure how long she'd been there. Moments, minutes and hours - it all seemed non-existent. Something had pulled her under into a sea of featureless black. She could remember feeling like she was sinking as the soft mattress and the comforting smell of sex faded into the background and the darkness wash over her. Something without form, sound or smell pulled her deeper, squeezing in its walls around her like it was trying to crush her into nothing. Somehow she fought back, pushing all her energy outward as she tackled the invisible enemy. For moments, minutes and hours she defended herself, but it was like she was gradually slipping away like sand through an hourglass. She was losing.

From somewhere in the distance there was the soft hum of voices chanting. The walls around her shuddered and the grip of the invisible wall crushing in begin to ease off. She began to struggle harder as she took her only chance to claw her way free.

There was a sudden flash of nuclear white light and the walls around her screamed in piercing agony. She could feel its pain shoot through her and screamed silently with it. Layers began to peel away, ripping at her insides as it desperately clung on. Air flooded into her lungs as the last holds were torn back and her eyes snapped open. It was as though someone had hauled her out from under the water and now she was staring up at the person who had pulled her out. She found herself looking up at a pale face surrounded by long brown hair. It was almost impossible to focus on the details of the face, but what she saw definitely didn’t seem familiar.

Behind the face, everything in the dimly lit room was scary and unreal, and spinning for some reason. Dark orange and grey shadows flickered on the wall behind the face looking down at her, making the features even more menacing and difficult to see. Breathing was also an issue. The air in the room was warm and stifling, it was also thick with a scent that was making her think of burnt ginger. It was definitely a magical scent.

Someone else stepped forward, tall dark and pale. She tried hard to focus on their eyes as they stood over her. This one was familiar, and the simple idea of familiarity made her relax in his presence. She no longer felt the need to be in control of whatever situation she was in because he would take care of that for her. It was out of her hands and she let herself go, the room gradually fading back to black as she calmly sank away.

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It had been a long time since she had felt like this, well a long time meaning the last time she had been pummelled in a Sunnydale graveyard- which had been last week. Her head was hurting like mad, the moment her brain had fuzzily come back to reality it had hit her like a cartoon mallet and now it felt as though a giant lump was trying to push its way through her skull. In fact lumps could possibly have been trying to push there way out all over her body, every muscle ached as though she was at the end of a millennia in gym class.

She could feel a soft mattress beneath and a thick, fluffy blanket over her, the quality of which made it unlikely that she was in hospital. She tried to push the aching in her body away as she contemplated opening her eyes. Wherever she was there couldn't be in any immediate danger, after all danger wasn't known for including warm beds and fluffy pillows.

Gradually she pulled her heavy eyelids apart. For a few seconds her eyes vision was blurred but as everything came into focus she found herself looking at a high white ceiling. Light flickered across it in the darkness it what she definitely decided was a non-threatening manner, so far, so good.

Out of the corner of her eyes she caught the movement of a shadow on the wall making her realise that she wasn't alone. She glanced down at the end of the bed. The moment her brain registered what her eyes were seeing her jaw dropped ready to scream, but somewhere along the line her heart had jumped up into her throat with fright and so she just froze in silent terror. Possibly it was some illness induced hallucination or possibly Angelus was standing at he end of her bed, staring back at her with an expression of intense concentration while the flames of hell flickering behind him. All he needed was a dramatic opera soundtrack in the background and this definitely would have made number one in her 'top ten most terrifying moments' list. Her brain ran through hundreds of scenarios, things she had seen him do, things she read about him doing, all of which were no doubt about to be inflicted ten times over on her. And how the hell did he lose his soul again?

Angel had watched expectantly as she had first opened her eyes, it was the first good thing that had happened since he had encountered her again. But as soon as she had laid eyes on him he registered the look, it was the same look she had given him when they we’re last face to face in Sunnydale. He closed his eyes and sighed, not expecting to have to go through this with her again. Stepping away from the fireplace he gradually approached the bed, "Willow, I'm not evil."

Her eyes followed him to the bed, her expression remaining locked in fear.

Angel sat down on the end of the bed in the best non-threatening manner that a tall vampire dressed head to toe in black can achieve. "I've still got my soul, you're not my prisoner." He waited in silence while Willow processed the information. After a few moments she finally spoke.

"So you’re Angel?" she said in a whisper.

"Very much so."

"Sorry, it was just very atmospheric." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling her heartbeat slowly returning to normal as she mentally tried she wipe away images of chainsaws and goldfish on a string. Her eyes suddenly snapped open again and she stared straight out in front of her.

Concerned, he moved up the bed towards her, "Willow, what is it?"

"Oh nothing. Just 'Where am I?’ 'What’s wrong with me?’ 'Why are you here?' and about a hundred other questions have all just entered my head at once and my brain really can't deal with a lot of work right now."

"You don't need to worry about any of that now," he said as he leaned forward slid a hand under her shoulders, helping her sit up a little. "You're out of danger for now and you're going to feel fine in a few days, I promise. Drink this."

She looked down at the mug that he was holding close to her lips. The liquid inside reminded was reminding her of Black Lemonade, and it made her stomach turn. "I don't think I can drink this."

"You've just been through the supernatural version of being turned inside out, you need a little more than aspirin."

"Magic aspirin", she mumbled as she took the mug from his hand. She opened her throat and swallowed the liquid down fast so that she tasted it as little as possible. "Ugh, warm and fizzy!"

Angel took the empty glass from her hands and stood up. "Well it was ice-cold, but I've been waiting quite a while for you to wake up.

"Are you going?"

"You should rest some more now. I'm going to be staying in the room next door for tonight, so if you need anything just, well, yell real loud."

Willow glanced nervously around the room. Her brain hadn't quite caught up with its new surroundings just get and didn't feel like being conscious and alone just yet. There also no way she was going to get to sleep with all the unanswered questions rattling around in her head. "You know what I could really do with right now? I could really do with hearing the story of how I got here, I mean not like in the facts of life here, but how I got here in this bed with you and the mother of all headaches."

"I really think you should..."

"How about just giving me the TV guide summary version?"

He opened his mouth to argue the point further, but caught the look in her eye telling him that no matter what state she was in, she was going to argue this one to the death. Sitting back down on the bed a little closer, he looked down at his hands thoughtfully, trying to buy time as he tried to think of a way to put everything to her without causing her to get alarmed. "The Hitikan demons that were in Sunnydale were looking for a human host."

"How do you know about the Hitikans?" She asked suspiciously.

"They were looking for you". He turned to his side to look at her as she absorbed this piece of information. Her forehead was wrinkled in confusion as she stared at the bedspread. "They infected you when you were attacked in the park, two days ago you collapsed, Giles called and told Wesley what had happened, he told me and I knew someone who could help you, so I’ve brought you to them."

She kept staring down at the blanket as he spoke, her expression still locked in confusion. He began to wonder if she had actually heard him talk. After a few moments she looked back up ahead of her, "Well, that story was a lot shorter than I expected".

Angel turned away from her again, "Well there are a few more things."

"Like what? Oh God! Nobody’s hurt, are they? Or dead?"

"No, it’s nothing like that", he said placing a reassuring hand on her arm to calm her panic. "Everyone's fine. It's just that… Well..." He broke eye contact with her and stared down at his own hand on her arm. "I might have sort of, taken you without telling anyone. I guess the phrase I'm looking for is that kidnapped you." As he said the last words he turned back to face her. He was expecting the reappearance of her 'Oh my God Angelus' face but was surprised to see her staring calmly into the fire ahead of her, looking detached as though he hadn't said anything out of the ordinary. He decided that he may as well go on, "For whatever reason Buffy had some issues with me taking you. But had a choice, either I watched you die or I tried to save you."

She nodded gently but still didn't turn to face him. He knew that this was a lot for her to take in, but he couldn't help being concerned about her detached reaction. He hated being the bearer of bad news, just wondering what was going through her brain as he spoke. She didn't deserve to be going through this.

"So I guess things are going to be a bit tense when we get back. But it shouldn't be too bad for you. I mean, if I'm alive then it proves that you were right to take me, and people should, y'know, get over it."

Angel sighed and bowed his head, "You can't go back just yet. The demons had you marked as there next target long before they infected you. Just because you’re no longer infected, doesn't mean that you're out of danger. You're still their target and they won't back down until you're one of them, we have to be kept away, until they've been eliminated."

Willow heard what he was saying but none of the information was quite settling inside of her. Everything she was hearing and seeing was still blurry, as though all of this was about to disappear and her eyes would open and she'd be laying back in bed with Spike pressed against her back, in her own already complicated world. "Have I really been unconscious for two days?"

"Yeah."

"I see", she murmured. "And no one in Sunnydale knows where I am."

"No. Although Giles knows that I didn’t kidnap you, in fact he helped me get you out of there. But I think with the way that Buffys acting it would be better if no one in Sunnydale knows where you’re staying."

She nodded, "I see."

Angel waited for the next question, but nothing came. After a few moments of listening to the fire crackle in the grate behind him he decided to speak first. "I'm really sorry that this has happened to you."

For a second he wandered if she had heard him. She sat staring into the fire, the reflection dancing in her glassy eyes; the calming potion was definitely taking effect. He squeezed her arm, "Willow?"

"Huh! Oh, sorry," she said letting her head roll to face him. "I'll bet I've lived through worse, and if I haven't then there’s probably a whole lot of worse waiting for me somewhere on the Hellmouth road. Thanks for getting the demon out of me."

"It’s nothing". He said smiling awkwardly, he felt as though he were being dismissed. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or confused by her reaction. Maybe it was just the potion talking.

He stood up, and picked the empty mug from the side. "Well, once again, if you want anything just yell."

Willow nodded, but once again she was staring through half closed eyes at the fire. He slowly backed towards the door. Not really wanting to leave when there were so many questions he wanted to ask.

"Angel?"

He turned round in the doorway.

"Where am I?" Angel moved to make his way back to the bed but she stopped him. "Y'know what? Never mind, it doesn't really matter."

"Okay", he said to himself, as Willow’s eyes had closed the moment she had finished talking. He retreated to the room next door to phone Giles with the good news.

Her head was buzzing with information but something was forcing her brain to shut down into sleep anyway. One of her last thoughts, the same last thoughts had been the same two days previously. Spike was waiting for her in his crypt, still lying where she had left him, waiting for her to come back. But then two days ago they had made a deal, she had agreed that it was over. ‘‘If you wake up and I'm asleep, just go". She tried to remember something else that he had said, but before she could find it she fell asleep.

Part Fourteen

It took her a few moments to work out where she was when she first opened her eyes. The early morning light flooded through the large, open windows on the far side of the room. It bounced back off of the clean white walls and high-sloped ceiling, making everything in the room look as though it had a gold mist surrounding it.

She pulled herself into a sitting position. It was definitely the same room as the one in her mind, but it was almost completely transformed in the daylight and with the fire unlit. As she stared at the carved white fireplace a few meters in front of the bed something began to come back to her. For a moment her chest tightened as she pictured Angelus standing in front of that very fireplace, but then she remembered him sitting on the bed next to her, telling her... < Oh >.

Willow gave herself credit for the way that she took it when it all came back to her. "So Willow Rosenburg, you've been kidnapped by your best friends ex-boyfriend. But it's okay because he's only done it to save you from a pack of demons who want to kill you and take over your body." When she finished she took a deep, calming breath and looked round the room at her imaginary panel of experts, "So what do you do now?"

Slowly, she got out of the bed. As she stood up fully for the first time in days the blood rushed to her head making her feel dizzy and sick. She grabbed onto a dresser by the side of the bed to steady herself, keeping her body still and her eyes closed until the sickness passed. Her whole body felt stiff and creaky like an old machine that hadn't been used for a decade. And worse she felt unclean, like there was a thin film of slime all over her skin. That feeling alone was enough to cause another wave of nausea to hit her stomach.

After a few moments of deep breathing, the sickness began to fade and she opened her eyes. She found herself looking down at the top of the dresser; empty apart from a folded piece of paper with her name written on it. For a moment it sent a chill down her spine as she remembered the last time she had found her name written in that handwriting. That particular envelope had contained her fish. She opened the note and read to herself:

In case you don’t remember our conversation the other night...

Since she remembered everything anyway she decided to skip ahead. It was nice of him to have thought ahead for her though.

Under the bed is a bag that you should recognise. If you open it you should find some of your things in there. Cordelia packed for you so I don’t quite know what you’re going to find.

Glancing down at her feet she saw the handle of her green holdall poking out from under the bed.

The door next to your bed leads to a bathroom. On the shelf above the sink there’s a bottle with a blue label, if you’re feeling sick, take two spoonfuls.'

Feel free to go wherever you want in the house. I'm asleep downstairs. If you need me for anything come and wake me.

Angel

The bathroom connected to Willow’s room was small but beautiful. It reminded her of some sort of Victorian palace, frozen in time. Everything from the pastel blue walls, to the fine white porcelain bathtub to the towels on the rail was edged with the same detailed silver pattern. As she bent over to start running herself a bath she noticed that even the tiny, arched window above the bath had it painted neatly around the edge. The bathroom appeared to have been recently used, there were various bottles around the bath, half burnt candles and towels scrunched up in the corners. But when she looked closer she noticed that everything in the room was covered in a thin layer of dust, it was as if the previous occupant had gotten out of the bath, left the room and never returned.

As the note said she found the bottle along with a spoon on a small shelf above the sink. She carefully read the blue hand-written label, 'Laurus Nobilis'. It was definitely Latin, but not a word that she knew. After the week she was having she wouldn't be surprised if it meant 'drink me', and then she'd shrink to the size of a peanut, tumble down the plughole and end up having tea with white rabbits and big, grinning cats.

Shaking the strange idea from her head she quickly downed two spoonfuls of the bottles contents, screwing up her face at the harsh and bitter taste. It was like something had curled up and died in her mouth.

Turning back to the bath she began to undress. When she had got down to her underwear she caught sight of herself in the large mirror on the wall behind her. For a second she didn’t quite realise it was her, Walking up to the mirror she reached out and touched her reflection, examining her face. Something was different, but it wasn't. Same old nose, same old eyes, eyebrows still there and yet they didn't seem to be adding up to the normal picture.

Her eyes were drawn down to the reflection of her neck. The puncture marks were now just that, two small, round marks. Any redness or pain had already faded away, in fact Spike had now faded away, and this was all she was left with. It felt like she should be crying, everything that was happening to her was welling up inside and her body felt like it was about to pop it's emotional cork. But she just stood there.

Maybe she should be scared, but she wasn’t. And it didn't really matter where in the world she was; in fact she was almost grateful to Angel for getting her out of there. She hadn't really thought ahead to the days after Spike was gone, what she would do, how she would deal. Better to be here than at home alone.

She waited for the tears to come, but in the end she just gave up and shrugged at her reflection. Taking off the rest of her clothes she immersed herself in the tub, letting the cleansing hot water wash over her skin, cleaning her thoughts away.

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Half an hour later she emerged dripping wet from the bathroom and went straight for the green holdall under the bed to inspect the supplies she had to survive on for the next… however long. To her surprise Cordelia had actually done an excellent job in packing for her, although she had obviously been very selective in her choices. You could almost hear the echoes of Cordy sighing as she browsed though her clothes, some of which she probably refused to touch in fear that they be 'unfashionably toxic'. There was no trace of any of the fluffy, baggy or cheerfully bright clothes that made up the bulk of her wardrobe at home, after all most of her newly bought college clothes were still at the dorms. But Cordelia had sorted through and pulled out some of her more dark and casual clothes, which was a relief since she felt like she had finally managed to evolve from her fluffy phase and the idea of hanging around Angel looking like she’d just emerged from the Scooby Doo hippie van didn't exactly fill her with joy. After all it would be nice for someone to realise that she might have changed a little.

As she delved further through the bag like an excited child she found that Cordelia had packed away a few more surprises for her; including a few of the spell books that she had left lying around on her bed and her portable CD player complete with a pile of CDs. Unfortunately they were all bands and singers and music beginning with the letter 'A', Cordelia had obviously just grabbed them off of the top of the pile. Xander had always said that no good could ever come from following the laws of the alphabet to the extreme.

Not entirely sure whether it would be right to unpack her things yet she messily tucked everything back in, apart from the spell books and her chosen outfit. She quickly slipped on a pair of plain blue jeans and a long-sleeved black top. After examining her appearance in the mirror and brushing her damp hair straight down to cover the mark on her neck, she decided that she looked acceptable enough for a person who had just been through an exorcism and turned back to the now empty room. It felt earily silent, too silent for a room to be in the daytime. After a few moments of standing in the middle of the room staring at the furniture it occurred to her that she was waiting for something to happen, but what? Demons with star trek symbols on their heads to come leaping out of the closet and kill her? Angel to come walking in? No he'd knock first.

She furrowed her brow as she stomped over to the windows and flung them open as if there was a bad smell in the room that she needed to let out. Maybe if she let some sound into the room then she'd feel more at ease. But the world on the other side of the window was as quiet as the room itself. It wasn't difficult to see why; the view from the window was not the sort of thing Willow got to see often. Sure Sunnydale wasn’t exactly an unattractive little town considering what it was built on, but this was a proper view with a complete absence of concrete and tall buildings and people. When she'd got over that she noticed the rest of the view over the high, wild looked trees that surrounded the back garden. Stretching along in a glistening strip below the yellow, early morning skyline was the ocean. She had seen the Ocean lots of times but it had never looked like this, probably for the same no people, concrete or tall buildings reason. Her eyes followed down towards the coastline where the dark blue wave filtered out into a light blue as they approached the shore. The shoreline itself was cut off from sight by slanted blocks of brick red colour in the distance, which she assumed we're roofs.

Even she couldn’t have thought up a more calming, perfect and most importantly non-threatening sight to be met with. It was difficult to imagine that right at that moment her life was in danger, that right now out there somewhere there was a bunch of beasties determined that she was gonna bat for the underworld team, whether she liked it or not. As difficult as it was to imagine, she did still felt the need to shut the windows and draw the curtains, just in case. Suddenly she didn’t feel much like being alone in that room anymore, her bad thoughts had tainted it and she didn’t feel safe. Better to be alone in a different room.

The thought had occurred to her that the building could be some kind of hotel, or some other sort of place with lots of people in it, so she peaked her head cautiously out of the door on to the landing. Glancing left and right down the long landing she didn’t see any sign of life, only lots of closed wooden doors. Light was steaming down in a beam from a small glass dome in the high ceiling above, shining down in a circle over the banisters and on to the metal spiral staircase that led downstairs. She made her way down, wincing as the metal steps creaked under her weight. She wasn’t sure who she was afraid of disturbing, but if anyone was there she wanted to notice them first.

At the bottom of the steps she found herself standing between two large archways, each leading to a larger room. Looking left and right she noticed that each room was dimly lit, and filled with large white shapes. As she inspected the room to her left closer she found that the shapes were in fact furniture covered in large white dustsheets, like large, funny-shaped, inanimate ghosts.

Out of the corner of her eye one of the ghosts caught her attention. Large, with legs like a table, but still she wasn’t sure. She took a deep breath before she pulled back the dust-sheet, she had seen too many movies where some poor sucker pulls back the sheet only to find a dead body - or worse, a part of a body - staring back up at them. Fortunately for her first guess had been correct and when she pulled back the sheet she found a piano staring back at her. Grinning, she ran her fingertip along the smooth black lid covering the keys. The piano had always been her favourite, despite not actually being blessed with any musical genes; the Rosenberg’s had always been Thinkers rather than Creators.

She threw off more of the sheet; even in the dim light coming through a slit in the curtain she could see that this was one of the more beautiful and expensive pianos she had seen in her life. Carefully, she lifted the lid and ran her hands over the shiny black and ivory white keys, wishing that she could suddenly press her fingers down and magically start playing something amazing. Feeling brave she spread her fingers out as if about to kick off into a dramatic symphony and then pressed down hard. The sound of her jumbled chord echoed loudly around the room making her jump back from the piano as if it had stung her. The sound that had come out would have pretty much been the same had she just sat down on the keys.

From behind there was a loud bang, like a cupboard or door being slammed. The noise made her jump out of her chair, knocking it onto the carpet with a soft thud. Cursing mentally, she slowly tiptoes towards the archway leading into the next room. From where she stood she could see straight to the end of the room, through the next archway and to a half open door in the room beyond that. As she walked slowly towards it she could hear the rustling of papers and see a shadow moving on the wall. Definitely not Angel then. When everything went silent for a few moments she managed to gather the courage to half step into the room, which turned out to be the kitchen. At first it seemed the room was visitor free, in fact it didn't look as if anything had ever been in there. The white walls and clean surfaces gleamed like new in the early morning sunlight. As she ran her fingers along the cold grey metal on the counters she could make out a perfect reflection of her hand.

Suddenly two shopping bags jumped up and slammed down on the counter opposite her. Willow jumped and gave a strangled screech, which was a little louder than she would of liked.

"What? Who's there?" called a female voice from somewhere behind the counter

Willow stood on tiptoe to look over the counter to where the voice had come from. "Uh, it's me". Great thing to say to someone who doesn’t know you and can’t see you, she thought.

Very slowly, and in human appearance at least, the being connected to the voice pulled herself into a standing position behind the counter. The moment she registered Willow she smiled warmly, then frowned in concern, "You shouldn't be out of bed, you certainly shouldn't be walking around." The woman stopped and suddenly started giggling, she was beginning to make Willow doubt her original conclusion that she was human. "Listen to me, talk, talk, talking away at you when you obviously have no clue who I am."

Actually that wasn’t quite true. Willow had a vague feeling that she had seen her before; only the image in her head was kinda fuzzy. She looked about thirty or so, but the sort of thirty where if she turned out to be twenty-five you'd still believe her, and there was a frail slimness to her face and neck that even managed to make Willow feel bulky. But the main thing which struck as familiar were her brown eyes, which somehow managed to be bright and dark at the same time, they reminded her of a Japanese cartoon character. Her voice also seemed to remind her of something, she spoke in a clear and loud voice, like someone who had been a natural public speaker since birth. She sounded American, but there was a second rough accent pushing through, something European.

The woman stretched an arm out over the counter, "I'm Eva."

Willow stepped forward and shook her delicate hand; she was wearing pale green satin gloves, the kind for fashion rather than warmth. "Hi, I'm-"

"-Willow, yes? We have already been introduced, well not properly. Well actually you were unconscious at the time so I guess we're complete strangers." She shrugged and turned to start unpacking the shopping bags. As she did Willow noticed her hair for the first time, from the front it was tightly tied back and not very noticeable, but at the back it flowed out into a long dark brown ponytail, the end of which was hidden behind the counter. It was the hair that finally made everything click into place in her brain.

"Your the person!"

"I'm sorry?" Eva replied, wrinkling her nose and looking around embarrassed.

"I mean the person Angel took me to, the one who knew how to get the demon out of me, thanks for that by the way."

"So I see that you’re as smart as Angel says that you are," She smiled as she carried on unpacking the shopping. "Oh and you’re welcome."

"So, uh, is Angel around any place?"

"He's in a room in the basement. He was sleeping in the room next to you but I shooed him out of there, the windows upstairs are far too big, one ray of light and poof, end of the line."

It was difficult to imagine Angel being shooed out of anywhere. But for whatever reason, hearing that Eva knew about vampires made her instantly feel more relaxed. It was a strange thing that had happened to her, about a few months after she had first met Buffy and Giles and learnt all about the existence of vampires and hell mouths. She stopped feeling comfortable around those who were unaware of what goes bump in the night, initially because she was afraid that she might suddenly blurt something out by accident and ruin Buffy’s secret identity, or that people would think she was even more of a freak than they already thought she was. But recently it had become difficult to even talk to people who weren’t part of the Slay-team, after all, fighting evil was a big part of her life, and had been so for a long time. Sure she was ok with the Smalltalk stuff - music, movies, math, but most of the time it felt like she lived in another world.

Willow walked over to the table by the counter, "That was some pretty powerful magic you had going on the other evening."

"You can remember that?" Eva asked in surprise.

"A little, I remember how it felt. I haven’t felt magic that strong since..." Since what? Restoring Angel’s soul? Maybe just a little too much information for a first meeting. "Well never."

"Well you had a particularly strong breed of demon you had eating away at your soul, one that called for particularly strong forces to be called upon. Gave me one hell of a nosebleed." She stopped what she was doing and turned to Willow, who suddenly felt like she was in a spotlight under her gaze. But from what I hear, magic wise your not so bad yourself."

She shook her head, "Me? No. I'm still trying to work out the beginners stuff, but if you need a floaty pencil or a singed bedspread then I'm your girl."

"Re-cursing a Vampire with a soul, that’s not very basic where I come from."

Willow was a little taken back by this. How did she know? Why did she know? She was going to ask as much, but then it was obvious by deduction alone that it was Angel that had told her. Why? Well that was Angel’s business, he could tell who he wanted she guessed. She decided to move the subject on a little. "So how long have you been a witch?"

Eva laughed as she turned back to putting things in the cupboard, "Oh I'm not a Witch. Witches are more all round, spells, divination and charms. I'm more specialised in defensive magic; curses, exorcisms. I do a little other magic but I'm not very advanced, believe me the only way I'd ever be able to float a pencil is if I dropped it in a bowl of water. Do you like hotdogs?"

"What?" Willow replied blinking. She had never met someone with babbling skills on the same level as her own and was finding it difficult to keep up.

"Hotdogs," she said again rattling the packet in the air. "Angel said something about you being Jewish, but I wasn’t sure if Hotdogs counted as pork, or whether you don't eat pork".

Willow stepped up to the counter. For the first time she was able to fully see how Eva looked and was a little confused by what she saw. She was dressed smartly, but too smartly. Sure she looked great and elegant in the pale green jacket and dress, but elegant in an expensive wedding reception way. It reminded her of how Cordelia used to dress up for school. And again with the gloves. "Uh, actually I don't really eat pork."

"You don't? Well never mind, I'll put it in here anyway." She turned and bent down slowly and put the meal in the freezer, which to Willow’s horror appeared to contain dozens of boxes of microwave meals. "There’s a few supplies in here for you, feel free to help yourself. Oh and by the way this is my place. I don’t live here; I live a few minutes away. But while your here just treat this place as your place."

Willow wondered why anyone would want to live elsewhere when they had a home like this, her other house must be incredible. She didn't ask though, it seemed a bit rude to ask. "Thanks, and thanks again for the exorcism."

Eva giggled manically again, "Isn't it funny when you get to a point where a sentence like that doesn’t sound strange?"

"Yeah", she replied, but then she actually thought about it, and it really was funny, and she too started giggling like a maniac.

"Well I have to go, busy morning." Eva said when the giggles had subsided; it's been nice to finally meet the conscious Willow. She picked up a black cane leaning against the freezer that Willow hadn’t noticed before. "Why don't you go down and see Angel? Its the door on your left when you get down the stairs."

"I don't know, it's light so won't he be asleep?"

"Angel doesn't really have the same sleep patterns as most Vampires, he sleeps like a Vampire and a human, if that’s possible." She chuckled to herself shaking her head as she limped slowly out of the back door. Willow watched her as she crept across the lawn towards the driveway, leaning heavily on the cane with every step and giggling to herself along the way.
 
 

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Despite being asleep he heard her approaching long before she entered the room. Most of the living tend to assume that becoming a Vampire is the worst thing that could ever happen to you, and they'd be right. But it does have its small benefits, an early warning system being one of them. The demon inside of him could hear it the moment her foot touched down on the creaky metal staircase; it sensed blood approaching, so it in turn woke him up. But the trick is that if you’re woken up from the inside you don't move, there isn’t the sudden jolt of consciousness that you get when someone shakes you awake. You can just lie there, and wait and then if necessary, pounce. It’s a skill that had come in handy many times over the last 247 years. But this was the first time Angel had ever felt guilty about using the skill.

It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her, but then it wasn't like he did. He was very pleased that she was awake and walking around and alive and would have loved to tell her so. But at the same time there were things that had to be said, or more things he felt compelled to lecture her about, it was his duty as a friend to look out for her. It wasn’t exactly an easy conversation to start with anyone, but the idea of attempting to broach the topic of 'the dangers of sex with the un-dead' with Willow Rosenberg seemed just that little bit more uneasy.

There was another fear of course, and that was his fear of himself. The morning they had arrived, he was still unable to explain to himself what had happened. The only thing it could be linked to was her human blood, being that close was too much for him and he was ashamed. He was there to save her and one slip of control could have ended her life quicker than any Hitikan demon.

After Buffy’s powerful blood being on his lips he wasn’t sure how long it would be before he could spend time in the company of humans again, the need for something sweeter than pigs blood would have his demon screaming through the night while he tried in vain to sleep. But with Cordelia working for him and the interactions he was forced to have with the population of L.A., he managed to rebuild his resilience to the craving.

Willow hadn't quite opened the floodgates, and it wasn't really her fault. But it had made things a little less easy and at that moment, after spending most of the last week awake he felt too drained to deal with anything. The plan was that she'd walk in, see that he was asleep and then leave. Which is why he was a little surprised when after a minute he didn't hear her treating back up the stairs.

She approached the bed, to see if he was asleep and then backed away, but she didn't leave. He could hear her softly, wandering round the room and in the background behind every breath sound or gentle scrape on the carpet was her heartbeat, thumping away with a force that had barely existed a few days ago. It was strange how noisy a silent room can be when you just listen.

He waited until he heard her retreat to the far corner of the room before opening his eyes; he wanted to see her first. At first she was hidden amongst the maze of stacked boxes that covered the floor, then suddenly her head and shoulders popped into view above a heap of boxes. She was staring down at something she held out of sight in her hands.

"Good morning."

Willow screeched and jumped round to the bed, the object she was holding slipped from her fingers with a bang and a glass breaking crash. "Morning", she replied weakly with a little wave.

Angel, himself a little startled by the screeching, pulled himself into a sitting position so that he could see her better, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you. What are you -"

"I wasn't, y'know, sneaking around or anything. Well, of course I was sneaking around, but only sneaking in the quiet sense because I didn’t want to wake you. I was just looking at the clock," she gestured down at the pile of smashed wood and glass at her feet and sighed, "The now deceased clock".

"Don't worry about the clock".

"It was very pretty."

"And what I was going to say was why are you out of bed? You should be resting."

"I'm okay, really I'm feeling good as new, except for a slight dizziness and a slight urge to uh, puke."

He smiled. She was certainly looked a lot better than she had done in a while. "I'm pleased that you're feeling better."

Willow relaxed a little when she saw him smile, "So they all know? They all know I'm okay?"

Angel nodded, "I've been keeping in contact. I called Giles the moment I knew that you were, well that you weren’t."

"Gonna die?" Willow offered hopefully.

"Pretty much." he nodded and then turned to get out of bed, then hesitated "Uh, Willow?"

"Hmm?"

"Could you uh, y'know?"

She looked at him blankly, and then noticed the sheet covering his lower half and his naked torso above it. Although he had the trademark pale skin like most vampires his complexion still seemed darker than Spike’s. It was probably his bleached hair that did it, or maybe it was the soul. Mentally she began to kick herself for thinking about him, if you’re going to get over something then thinking about it every ten seconds wasn't the healthiest path.

"Willow?"

"Huh?" She snapped, jumping back to reality. Angel was staring at her like something was growing out of her forehead; unconsciously she reached up and touched her head. "What?"

"Nothing I just want to get out of bed so..." It felt childish but he couldn’t look her in the eye, so he just fixed his gaze on the wall and nodded sidewards, a gesture that Willow didn't quite get.

"Is your neck okay?" she said wrinkling her forehead at the half naked vampire in confusion. Actually for all she knew he could be naked on the bottom half too, you couldn't really tell under that sheet. He was probably... "Oh!" She quickly span round so that her back was too him, "Sorry."

That was not quite what he had meant, her leaving the room till he'd got dressed was more the idea. Sighing quietly he quickly began to pull on his boxer shorts under the sheet.

Willows cheeks burned with embarrassment as she listened to him getting dressed, she had this guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach, like she was betraying someone by being there. Actually it was Buffy that sprang to mind as the someone. If the Slayer were suddenly to come busting through the door it was unlikely that she would approve of this little scene.

"So how are they?" she stammered.

"Who?" Angel replied as he awkwardly struggled to pull on his trousers and keep himself covered.

"I mean the they back in Sunnydale."

"Well I've only spoken over the phone to Giles, but I'm sure he would have mentioned it if anything had happened."

"I guess there all in demon hunting mode right now. So has anyone seen the Hitikans in the last few days?"

There was something suspicious in the tone of her voice, a little bit too much curiosity, like she wanted information. "Not that I know of. Giles has my number, I'm sure when something happens we’ll be the first to know."

"Oh." she said nodding gently.

It was him, it had to be. She wanted information on Spike. Angel threw the sheet that was wrapped around him down onto the bed, never taking his eyes off the damp hair on the back of her head. She had to know that he was aware of what she was trying to do. "You can turn around now."

When she span back round with an awkward smile on her face he was staring right into her eyes, making her feel even more uncomfortable, she wasn't loving the expression on his face either. "You know you don't have to get out of bed just because of me, you can go ahead and be as nocturnal as you like."

He nodded and sat back down on the bed as he continued to do up on his black silk shirt.

Willow frowned slightly, not liking how this was going. Conversationally she was running low on gas, he was giving one-word answers and one-word answers were just one teeny little step away from awkward silences.

She pretended to carry on glancing around the room, although there wasn't much to look at in the windowless room unless you were really interested in boxes and peeling wallpaper. It was the sort of room that once, a very long time ago and minus the unpacked boxes would have been an elegant looking bedroom, but age and lack of upkeep had put a kind of grimy depressing cloud over the once rich colours. Her eyes came to rest on Angel; he seemed to fit the room perfectly.

Suddenly she thought of the easiest and most obvious thing to say, "You know I'm really grateful for all of this, y'know the snapping me away from the jaws of a nasty mutated death and bringing me here. Especially since the bringing me here part is probably causing major problems for you."

Angel stared at her blankly.

"I mean Buffy!", she added. Whispering her friend’s name as if it were a bad word.

"Oh." He looked down at the floor, gently rubbing his palm over his knuckles.

Willow was worried for a moment that she'd made him angry by raising the subject. Which is why she was a little surprised when he finally stood up and replied.

"It doesn't matter. Buffy and I..." He looked her in the face. "Buffy and I don't come in to this. I came to Sunnydale to stop you from turning into a demon and to keep you safe from another attack. Problems with Buffy aren’t my concern anymore."

His words were cold, blank and to be honest hurt her feelings just a little. After all she wasn't just some stranger who'd wandered in to his office in L.A. asking for help. She knew him, not very well obviously, and most of what she did know had come from books or Buffy, and generally the books were about Angelus rather than Angel. "So what are you going to do about your work?"

"I'm sure that Wesley and Cordelia can handle the fort for a little while without me." He leaned forward and picked up a small pile of files from the bedside table, "Besides, there's always plenty of paperwork," He sighed and dropped his shoulders in defeat as he flicked through the files, "a never-ending pile of paperwork."

"I guess you could commute." Willow replied absently as she noticed the laptop that had been hidden beneath the pile of files.

Angel saw her eyes light up. He slid the laptop off of the table and handed it to her. "Here, just give it back to me in the evenings."

She took it from him and cradled it in her arms like a baby, "Wow, the helping the helpless gig must be pretty lucrative. This is really nice."

As far as he was concerned a computer was a computer, so he just nodded. "Just remember, no emails to Sunnydale, in fact no emails at all. I don't want there to be any way of tracing you here."

"Is it even possible to trace someone's laptop? Anyway I've seen those Hitikans and let me tell you, plenty of muscle, teeny little minds."

"That kind of thinking is going to get you killed." His tone was serious and stern, like he was telling her of for playing in a road or something. "You haven't seen what these things are capable of."

Haven't seen what their capable of? Hello. Exorcism? Days spent lying unconscious? She decided not to voice her thoughts though, it would probably make an already awkward situation a whole lot worse, and it wasn't as though they were getting on like a house on fire.

Angel continued. "All you've seen so far is the muscle of the group, the one that infected you-"

"Is dead, Spike killed it. He killed one before that too". It was the first time that his name had been mentioned out loud since they had got there. Instantly the atmosphere in the room got a little frostier. "And Buffy killed one."

Angel contemplated whether to use this opportunity to spring in to his 'the dangers of a vampire-human relationship' speech, but once again he couldn't bring himself to start it. Despite not wanting to scare her, Willows flippant attitude to all of this was beginning to annoy him. It was time she learnt exactly what sort of trouble she was in.

"The muscle of the group may be dead, but that just leaves the brains which in my experience are always the ones you should worry about."

Willow perched on the edge of a crate with her arms clutching the laptop defensively to her chest; her face was a picture of intrigue and paranoia. He had definitely struck a chord. Satisfied that his message was getting through he continued.

"There are always six demons in a Hitikan sect. four worker ants who are strong but a little low on intelligence, one who is magically altered so that he can infect other beings and a leader. Actually sorcerer might be a better term."

Willow nodded slowly as she took it all in. Her hair had slipped away from her shoulders and she was unaware that she was giving him a full view of the fading bite marks on her neck. "I'm guessing by sorcerer you mean big evil that's going will be very difficult to kill without ending up dead yourself."

"The sorcerers have access to ancient dark magics, probably as dark as they come. Legend says that the Hitikans traded their souls with the god of a hell dimension in return for powerful magic that would help them survive a holy war."

As he spoke she carried on staring off into the distance. There was no fear on her face, in fact her face was unreadable, as though everything he was saying was just part of a dull documentary on television. "Do you think they'll be able to do it? Buffy and everyone, are we going to survive this?"

"Things are bad Willow, I won't lie to you. But Buffy’s defeated stronger enemies than this."

She started nodding again in a little world of her own. Behind her eyes, which were still locked on something invisible on the wall he could tell that her mind was turning rapidly. Just as he remembered she still let her thoughts and feelings spill out across her face. "I'm going to be here for a while aren't I?"

"We don’t know that yet."

If he wasn't mistaken there was a definite tone of sadness in her voice that made him feel guilty for bringing her there, away from her friends and family. It was for her protection, he knew that. But he couldn't help but feel like a bastard for suddenly marching into town, pulling her away from her normal life and out into the middle of nowhere. Although living in Sunnydale, things like this probably were her normal life.

Willow didn't see him again that day, in fact she didn't even look at him as she said goodbye and hurried back up the steps or when she returned the laptop to his room that evening. He was left not only feeling like a bastard for bringing her there, but guilty that she had to be there with him. He had to admit that he hadn't exactly put the people skills he learnt Working in L.A to good use.

In fact Angel had been mistaken, he also wasn't the only one feeling guilty. The truth was that she was happy to stay exactly where she was for as long as possible. Sure she was worried about her friends fighting this thing back home, but as Angel said Buffy had defeated worse. They would live through this even if she didn't.

~Part: 15~

The bedroom windows slammed open and a tidal wave of dark purple smoke came flooding out, dispersing into the pale yellow afternoon sky. Moments later Willow appeared in the middle of it, coughing uncontrollably as she tried to wave the smoke out of the room. Despite the desperate struggle for clean air she was still trying to keep the gasping to a minimum so as not to alert Angel to the fact that she had set fire to her room, again.

The first time his vamp fire alarm had gone off he'd come bounding up the stairs and burst into the room with his leather jacket wrapped round his head to shield himself from the rays beaming in from the skylight. He was probably expecting to have to save her from the clutches of a Star trek demon, which explains why he'd looked a little less than impressed when the smoke had cleared and he'd found her sitting in the middle of the room trying to pat out a smouldering scorch mark on the carpet with a large book.

So far it had been ten days since the Sunnydale half-kidnapping incident and seven days since she'd regained consciousness. Lord was this dull.

The first few days hadn't been so bad. There was the initial rush of everything that had happened. It had felt like her brain was been on red alert, just waiting to battle whatever was out to get her.

Then there was the five minutes of excitement at the new surroundings. While Angel did his nocturnal thing during the day she did a little exploring, after all Eva had told her to do whatever she wanted. However it turned out that ninety percent of the house was kept behind locked doors and underneath dustsheets.

For a while it had been easy to make the best of it. After all it wasn't often that there was so much free time in her schedule, time which she could easily have spent curled up in a moody little ball brooding over lost love and hopeless situations, Specifically the one that would be waiting for her if, no when she got back to Sunnydale.

Instead she chose the sensible option- throwing herself into the deep end of study and Witchcraft. Okay so there had been slightly more Wicca than study going on upstairs. Even the laptop that she borrowed from Angel every morning spent most of its time closed on the dresser.

It was amazing to her just how quickly she managed to sail through the chapters of the few very basic books that Cordelia had packed, although there a few that had to be skipped because of the absence of any magical tools or ingredients. But at least now she had got the mental magic thing down to a fine art. Floating pencils? Ha, kids stuff. Now even if something wasn’t even in her line of sight she could draw it to her just by picturing it in her mind, which came in handy in the mornings when she was searching for a hairbrush. For some reason fire out of ice was still giving her problems, as the current smoking singe on the carpet proved. Maybe it would be a good idea to leave that one alone for a while.

After repositioning the rug so that it now just about covered the two purple burn marks she slumped down on the bed, sending a cloud of ash from her clothes in to the air. These were the worst parts of the day, when she'd done all that she could possibly think of to do and then there was just nothing but a big hole of slow-moving time to try and fill. Great as it was to escape from Sunnydale and everything else she just wasn't prepared for how silent and still everything around her seemed to be. It was like she'd been removed from existence.

The only time she saw evidence of other life around her was for fifteen minutes every evening when she quietly leave her room with the laptop under her arm and creep down to the kitchen to make herself dinner. Like clockwork the moment she'd pressed start on the microwave, Angel would appear in the doorway. For some reason he'd always hover uncomfortably in the doorway like he needed an invite. By now he'd dropped the sharp and dark look and just gone for dark and casual. She preferred it; it made her feel less like one of his clients.

Then came the awkward conversation and for this they had developed a kind of ritual. She'd raise a dull, safe conversation topic and let him reluctantly talk while she nodded and agreed in all the right places. Her neck was beginning to ache from nodding through Internet newspapers archives, Hitikan Sects and the pain of trying to run a private investigation agency when you don't understand your assistants filing system. He had seemed kinda intense about that last one; it almost looked like he was going to show an emotion. As he spoke would keep focused on anything in the room but her, until she'd turn her back to the microwave and feel his suspicious eyes on the back of her neck.

Inevitably the conversation would die out and the two of them would just sit there. She'd eat her dinner in silence and he'd glare at the computer screen with his brow furrowed into what she'd come to think of as his apocalypse prevention face.

It was so obvious that he only appeared every evening out of some sort of courtesy. It seemed ridiculous that two people who had fought together to prevent at least four wacko attempts at ending the world could sit in a room together and act like a couple of strangers sharing a table in Starbucks. Okay, technically it had only been three times, he had sort of started one of them.

He always left as she finished eating, using either 'I've got a few calls to make' or 'I have something I need to look up' as a way of saying 'bye'.

"Willow!"

The sound of Angels anxious sounding hollering through the house made her jump up in panic. The room was still pretty thick with stinky purple smoke and she waved her arms madly in an attempt to clear the air as she ran to the door.

Angel was standing downstairs, only just visible in the shadows under the landing. His bare feet were just inches from the circle of light beaming through the skylight onto the dusty floor below. He was looking up at her with a mixture of concern and sleep, a black robe was thrown haphazardly over his shoulders and even in the shadows she could see that his neat spikes had turned into slightly clumpy bed-hair.

She flashed him the most innocent and welcoming smile that her weak acting talents could produce. It was instantly ruined by an attack of coughing which forced a gust of purple smoke out of her nose.

"Is everything okay up there?"

"Hmm". She nodded with a strangled squeak as she tried to force back another coughing fit.

Angel squinted through the harsh light as he tried to get a better look at her. "Is something burning?"

"Burning?" Darn. She pulled the door closed behind her. She could tell that his concern was rapidly evaporating.

"Are you trying the fire and ice spell again?"

"Uh, no," a volcano appeared in the room? Excess bong usage? "It was candles! You can smell the candles that I just, y’know put out”.

His eyes darted over the wisps of smoke that hung in the air between them. "Candles?"

"Lots of big candles?" She said with a hopeful smile.

Without him moving a single muscle on his face he managed to let her know that he had gone from concerned, to weary, to maybe just a teeny bit pissed off. It reminded her of the looks that Giles gave Xander every time he made a funny as the world was about to end. Generally a look like that was just a preview before the main lecture.

Before Angel had even opened his mouth they heard a slam crash through the house. It made her flinch, but Angel didn’t moved a muscle. He got a far away look in his eyes, like he was looking at an image of something in the back of his mind.

After a moment his expression relaxed and he focused on the room again, turning his attention back up to her, "You might want to use a few less candles next time, and try opening a window". He turned and disappeared in to the shadows down the hallway behind him, leaving Willow frowning down at the empty hall.

"Already thought of that", she mumbled in a voice that given an extra ounce of courage would have been a yell. Where was the lecture? If your going to give the stare you've got to be prepared to give the big talk afterwards. Not that she actually wanted to be lectured, its just that being ignored and dismissed wasn't much fun either. Maybe if she burnt the whole house down he'd actually notice she was there.

Stepping back into her smoky room she angrily slammed the door behind her. On most crappy vacations at least you know when your going to go home, but this could go for, well who knew? What is the average slaying time for a Hitikan anyway? Angel made it sound as though it was nearly impossible, but then he had never exactly been Mr. Bright side.

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes she held the palm of her hand out in front of her and whispered, "ingredior vi ventorum". Instantly a cool breeze rushed over her skin and there was the swishing sound of paper being tossed around the room. When she reopened her eyes the air in room was smoke free, although the room looked a little windswept.

After cleaning the purple smudge marks off of her face she made her way down to the kitchen to see who the visitor was, though it was bound to be Eva since no-one else had visited the house over the last ten days.

Eva's clear voice echoed off the walls in the artificial darkness of the house as she approached the kitchen door. Then she heard Angels much quieter voice brake in and for some reason Willow slowed down to a silent shuffle. It was impossible to make out exactly what he was saying but whatever it was seemed to bring out the crazy giggles in Eva who started snorting like a pig on helium. She froze behind the door. Hopefully Angel wouldn't be able to detect her over Eva's snorts.

Eventually Eva died down and took a deep-breath, "Well that's certainly brightened up my day. You should look out Angel, Los Angeles seems to be agreeing with you".

"As far as I can tell L.A isn't meant to agree with anyone, I think that might be what makes it so appealing to the tourists, they think it’s a challenge”.

Ignoring his deep sentiment, Eva sighed whimsically, "Ah the city of lights".

"Isn't that Las Vegas?" He replied sarcastically just as Willow was thinking the same thing behind the wall.

The microwave beeped again and Eva's cane began to tap across the floor. "So how is Willow today?"

For a moment there was silence before he casually replied, "she's fine".

"Poor girl, she must feel like a pigeon stuck in a coop up there all day".

"She's fine", he repeated. "When she wants to come down she does. Anyway she's keeping busy, I think she's on a solo mission to burn us both alive".

There he goes with the dismissing again. Talking as though she was a naught puppy that had peed on his favourite rug. Oh no, bad mammal reference.

"Weren't you two friends in Sunnydale?"

"Hmmm", he replied indifferently.

Behind the wall Willow slowly began to sidestep back along the corridor in preparation for making a believable entrance. Part of her wanted to just keep sidestepping back up the stairs, he wasn't exactly laying out the welcome matt.
The floorboards beneath Willows bare feet suddenly let out a loud creek like a rusty hinge. From the continued silence in the next room she knew that she hadn't gotten away with it, so straightening herself up and fixing another innocent smile to her face she casually walked in.

Angel was watching the kitchen door expectantly and she avoided his eye as she breezed in giving them both a cheerful wave. "Morning”.

"Good afternoon", Angel replied turning back to the brown folder on the table in front of him.

Willow felt her confidence deflate a little as she hovered in the doorway. Eva came to her rescue.

"Pay no attention to the nocturnal misery over there, it's not like you can tell what time of day it is in this place". It was true; with the heavy shutters all closed there wasn't a ray of natural light in the room. It didn't make her feel any less stupid though.

Eva ushered her into the seat adjacent to Angel. It was probably the closest she'd been to him since he had been sitting next to her bed touching her arm ten days before. He looked a little more awake than earlier, she guessed that it might have something to do with the mug of blood that he was casually trying to hide from her view under the table. Maybe blood had the same zing effect on vampires as coffee did for humans.

“Now where was I?” Eva mumbled as she surveyed the room. “Ah, here we are”. She picked up a crumpled brown paper bag off the counter and shuffled over to the backdoor. As she walked she shook the bag, sprinkling a line of red powder in a line up the door. Then she threw the empty bag on the counter and fumbling in the pocket of her cardigan pulled out what appeared to be a tiny bottle of perfume. Closing her eyes she removed the stopper and whispered something so softly that only her lips seemed to move, as she spoke a single drop fell from the bottle and hit the ground. Instantly the air surrounding the door seemed to bubble and blur, as if a bucket of acid had been thrown at a wet painting.

The air in the room was began to feel warm and comforting. It felt like she had been trudging through the snow for days and was suddenly sitting in front of a large, open log fire wrapped in a furry blanket. Glancing over at Angel to see his reaction she noticed that he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to what was going on.

Eva’s eyes snapped open and the red powder gradually rose into a circle of mist before evaporating, then with a shudder the distorted air around the door shifted back into place. She turned to her audience and smiled, “So, what do you feel like for lunch”.

Willow wasn’t sure whether to applaud or not, “What was that?”

Eva waved her hand dismissively at the door, “That? It’s just a little protection spell I whipped up. Think of it as an extra kick version of a Vampire de-invitation spell. If you haven’t got a soul you’re not coming in-”

Willow stuck her hand out and waved it through the air around the door. A warm current of air seemed to be passing straight through her skin. Looking up she saw that Angel was still engrossed in whatever he was reading. Something like this probably didn’t faze him at all; it must take a lot for a guy like him to get excited about anything. Not that there were many guys like him out there.

“-And the best thing is the side effect. Some spells can leave something of a chill in the air afterwards but this makes everyone within a two-room radius feel like sunshine for about a half hour. All the main doors are done so you don’t have to worry about anything bursting in here and,“ She caught the rising alarm in Willow face and changed course, smiling reassuringly, “you’ll be fine tonight”.

“Tonight, what’s happening tonight?”

“I need to go into the office, “Angel answered without looking up from his reading, “If I leave at sunset I should make it back before midnight. If there are any problems you can reach me on my cell phone.”

If he hadn’t mentioned the possibility of problems then maybe it would have been a little easier to believe that there wouldn’t be any. That and the sudden addition of powerful protection spells didn’t really make her feel like having a night in alone.

As if reading her mind he went on, “If I thought there was any immediate danger I wouldn’t be leaving you alone. If something does attack the house you should be safe until I get back. Just try not to do any magic while I’m gone.”

Well that was reassuring and comforting and what the hell was that supposed to mean anyway? Why not just say, please don’t burn down the house with you’re towering incompetence while I’m out.

“So Willow, any thoughts on lunch?” Eva broke in cheerfully, clapping her hands.

“I’m not really all that hungry”, Willow mumbled, glaring at the table.

The uncomfortable moment came to an abrupt halt as Angels cell phone began to ring out in the hallway where his jacket was hung up. He ran out to answer it; she could hear the mumble of his voice talking seriously in to the phone.

"I wouldn't worry too much about him".

"Huh?" Willow said absently turning to Eva. She busy was concentrating on interpreting Angel’s conversation in the next room.

Eva paused as she hooked her cane over her arm and leaned back against the counter with a sigh of relief, "Angel, he's different isn't he? She pulled a silver box out of her pocket. Daintily slipping out a cigarette she gestured to Willow, “they don’t bother you do they”?

Willow shook her head and Eva flicked open her lighter with the casual ease of a long-time smoker. She looked wistfully out in front of her at one of the shutters as a thread of smoke rose toward the ceiling, almost as if she could see the view beyond. “Of course I don't know what he was like when he was living in Sunnydale, but I think that the big city’s been good for him”.

That wasn't quite how she'd put it. More like it’s turned him into an even bigger impenetrable block of ice, around her anyway. Eva obviously knew him a lot better than she did; they acted like old friends. The only person that she'd ever really seen him interact with was Buffy and even their relationship had seemed intense and tetchy.

Sometimes on long late night walks through graveyards Buffy would talk about when she an Angel were alone together and how he made every moment they had together feel magic, like any second could be their last. Being the hopeless romantic that she was she would to hang on to Buffys every word with a big dopey smile on her face, though it was always difficult to match Buffys description to the no nonsense, action-man Angel that she knew, and it was even more of a mental stretch now.

Her thoughts were broken by the return of Angel. He had a grave expression on his face, the kind of expression that only the bearer of bad news could wear. He held his cell phone out to her, "Its Giles, I think you'd better talk to him."

"What's happened?" She demanded ignoring the phone.

"I think you should..." But he tailed off, seeing the determined expression on her face just as he had done the night she had woken up. "There been an accident, Xander… You’d better talk to-"

He didn’t even have to finish the sentence. She ripped the phone out of his hand and pushed past him out into the hall.

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Willow shivered, pulling the blankets tighter around her body as a cool breeze swept through the bedroom. The room was freezing at night, more so with the window open. But thanks to her little failed experiment with the fire out of ice the room seemed to be stuck with a weird and sickening burnt hair smell.

Sighing loudly in frustration she flipped over in bed for the millionth time that night and flicked on the bedside light, flooding the room with soft yellow light. Sleep was so not going to happen tonight, not that it had really been happening on any other night since she'd arrived. Nights were the worst in this place. At least during the day there was always a something to do to take your mind off things, no matter how dull. But at night it was just four walls, lots of overactive brainwork and a big ol’ bunch of darkness and fear.

The days before leaving Sunnydale were beginning to feel like a day-dream, and maybe they were. After all who knows how she had gotten back to Giles place before Angel had taken her, maybe she'd just been there all along and her night with Spike had just been some pleasing fantasy cooked up by her brain to sooth the emptiness.

It was becoming difficult to hold on to the memories of that night. Occasionally, when sleep did occur there would be flashes; fingertips scratching across skin, the feeling of cold stone against her back and pale white flesh. For some reason the laws of the universe state that whenever you’re in the middle of a really good dream you always have to wake up, and this was no different. Reality would come zooming back into view and she'd be left aching and awake in a bed that suddenly felt twice as large than when she fell asleep.

Yep, life was sucking pretty hard. But at least tonight there would be no waking up with empty achy feelings, because tonight there was far too much stressing to do for sleep to be an issue. It had been easy to forget everything that was going on back home in her absence, but tonight reality had jumped up and smacked her hard in the face.

Xander had almost died, almost died trying to save her. Okay so that wasn't exactly how Giles had put it. It had been more like Buffy and Xander find lone Hitikan demon, Xander blazes in like a fool-hardy idiot with a desperate wish to meet his maker, Xander ends up with Mr. Pointy’s meaner big brother through his shoulder. The last bit had been chipped in by Anya.

Giles had assured her over and over again that the injury wasn't serious and that he was already sitting up in bed complaining about the hospital food, but it just wasn't making her feel any better about it. What would happen next time? There were still three more left to kill and who knew who else would get hurt and how badly before the end.

Without noticing it she'd managed to think herself into a panic. Tear streamed down her cheeks and a cold sweat had broken out across her body, making her shiver as the cold air touched her skin. Pulling the quilt tightly around her shoulders she got up and tiptoed across the dusty floor to the window. As she leant out to pull it closed, something caught her eye in the swirling black of the trees surrounding the house. Willow froze, staring directly at the spot in the distance where she'd seen it. Maybe it was just the dark playing tricks on her eyes, or maybe... Suddenly she saw it again, a glimmer in the trees like light reflecting off of glass. It kept disappearing as the branches swung back and forth in the breeze but there was definitely something.

The soft purr of an engine began to rise above the eerie rustle of the trees. She ducked behind the edge of the window frame, eyes still fixed on the spot in the trees where the light had now disappeared. Two bright beams of light came into view on the gravel in front of the house, closely followed by a car. Angel had returned, only this time in a Black Cadillac, which she assumed but be his own; it suited his look. He parked at the side of the house out of view and after a moment she heard the sound of the trunk being opened and then slammed shut; he then reappeared carrying a large suitcase in one hand and a plain brown box under the other arm. It looked like he was expecting their little vacation to last a while.

When Angel had disappeared beneath the window into the house she turned her attention back to the trees to where the glimmer of light had been. She was snapped out of it by three sharp taps on the door, followed by a curt sounding, "It's Angel."

That guy definitely still got his kicks out of sneaking up on people, maybe they should have got him a bell after all. "Come in."

He crept into the room quietly, as if he was scared of waking her, "Is everything okay in here?"

"Uh, I think so." It was weird to watch him in to her room, it felt unexpected. Though it was only about the fifth time he'd done it since she'd got there. "I'm fine, just a little cold."

"Well it might make things a little easier if you closed the window." He went over to close it, but just before doing so he quickly leaned out and scanned the area, having seen her at the window from the car long before she’d had time to duck.

"Don’t close it completely, its got to be left open other wise the room smells of burnt hair and cheese." Angel turned looking bemused "It's a little fallout from the spell I so badly failed at earlier. And you can't light a fire either because you just end up with burnt hair and melted cheese, which believe me smells a lot worse. So how was L.A?"

He folded his arms and leaned back against the window a few feet away from her. "Fine. I called Giles, Xanders been released from the hospital." It surprised him how casually she seemed to take the news; he expected a little bit of relief. Suddenly it occurred to him how alone she must be feeling right now, hundreds of miles away from her life, people she loves getting injured trying to protect her.

“That’s great” she nodded with a tight smile, thought she didn’t look up at him.

He bowed his head trying to catch her eyes, “You shouldn’t blame yourself for this, and Xander knows you’d do the same for any of them if they were here.”

“I’m okay really” she nodded again. “ I’m just having a few reality issues. I just never thought about this happening, people other than me getting hurt in all this I mean.” Taking a deep, tear-clearing breath she looked up at him with tired eyes. “I guess the world doesn’t revolve around me after all”.

"You didn't choose this it chose you, and no matter what happens no-ones going to forget that".

She smiled bitterly. "So this is what it feels like to be the chosen one. Buffys right, it really bites a big one." She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and forced out a chuckle, "You know what, don't listen to me. I know your right. It’s just been a long day."

He could tell that she was embarrassed, but he wasn't ready to be dismissed. "So apart from the big new big evil in your life. How are you settling in?"

"Excuse me?"

"Aside from the Hitikans laying claim to your soul and Sunnydale”, he replied casually, “are you settling in okay"?

"Well I was kinda hoping I wouldn't have to get settled", she stammered warily, unsure where the conversation was going. "But it's nice, the room and the rest of the place. I’m okay”.

He wasn’t convinced by her half-hearted act but chose not to delve any further; she wasn’t ready for that yet. “At least you’ve found and interesting new hobby to keep you occupied”, he said nodding down at the rug covering the burn.

“I’m just branching out a little. I think mystical arsonist has quite a ring to it. Though you might not want to look under there, from here the arsonist comment is all funny but in full Technicolor you might get the urge to start giving me the naughty puppy routine again.”

As soon as her brain registered what her mouth way doing her hand flew up to her mouth. “I didn’t mean, I mean puppy in the actual sense and not in the chained to a wall getting off on torturing you with lit matches sense and I really stopped making this situation easier a long way back right?”

To her relief he didn’t look uncomfortable at all, in fact there was a thin smile on his face that was threatening to break into a full-on grin. “Actually the way I was told it was more you giving me the bad puppy routine. But if it makes you feel any better I’m prepared to pretend you said kitten and forget all about it.”

"If it's not too much trouble", she replied sheepishly, though visibly more relaxed. Nothing like a deeply embarrassing conversation topic to break the ice and bring down the barriers.

"Actually there was a reason for me coming up here, if you don't mind me changing topic a little".

"Please, I'll even pay you to".

He took a step towards the bed, picking up a box of tissues from the table he had been leaning on as he did so. "I wanted to apologise".

Willow sniffed back the tail end of her tears and looked up at him, "What do you mean, why would you need to apologise?" Though a few things did leap to mind.

"Lets just say that it's been brought to my attention that I may not be the worlds greatest host".

She reached up and plucked a tissue from the box that he was yet to offer her, "Cordelia really gave it to you when you went to L.A huh?"

"Let just say she let me know that I was being less than friendly. Do you see me as a cold, anti-social control freak?"

"Only on your good days, the rest of the time your a real spaz".

For a moment she could have sworn that he was about to say something, but that he'd suddenly thought better of it. "I just wanted you know that despite appearances I am dealing with this, I swear that I won't let any harm come to you while you're here."

"I already knew that was the plan." She smiled as she reached up and took the whole box of tissues out of his hands. "And I know that this isn't so easy on you either, you've got this whole new life now and a business to run. Then suddenly along I come with my demon groupies."

"Well that’s what I do now, I help the helpless."

"And as someone who’s helpless but still alive I'd say you're doing pretty well so far. Though it would be great if we didn't make a big thing out of categorising me as helpless".

"I'll keep that in mind".

He moved away and closed the window, without protest from Willow this time, as she had been getting steadily colder as the conversation went on. "Oh and I thought you might like to hold on to this for the evening." He said sliding the laptop off of the side and placing it at the end of the bed before heading for the door. "I get the feeling that you need it more than I do, or at the least it'll stop burning the place to the ground."

"That sounds like a challenge".

Angel froze in the doorway and then flipped round to meet her smirk.

"Or maybe not".

"I'm sure there are other things you can challenge yourself with other than arsonry. I'll see you later". And with that he left her alone.

She resisted the urge to call him back; after all it wasn't like there was much more to say to him. They really had passed a big conversation milestone that evening and it was probably a bad idea to push it. But it had been nice to have company, even company she wasn't a hundred percent comfortable with.

Turning hr attention back to the laptop, she reached forward and pulled it towards her. As she did she noticed something underneath it, a folder about the same size. She picked it up and flicked on the light to examine it. It was the same manila folder that Angel had been looking at downstairs. She hesitated, torn between returning it immediately and taking a peek inside. Eventually the latter won her conscience over and she opened it tentatively, not quite knowing what private and confidential Angel Investigations secrets she might be about to see. Surprisingly she was met with a yellow post it note stuck to the first page baring her name in capital letters:

Laughing to herself at the two hundred year-old vampires inability to directly ask for help, she peeled off the post-it note and turned the page.

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