**********
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Angel, it’s just a couple of hours. I need to work
on figuring out what’s wrong with my program, and you
need to go do detective-y things with the gang. I’ll
be fine.”
Angel glanced towards Spike who lounged in a chair
across from the desk. “Leave her alone. I don’t want
you bothering her.”
“Yes, daddy,” Spike replied. He waited until the dark
vampire was gone before getting up and pulling a chair
beside the redhead. “So, what did you tell the great
Poof to make him think I’d hurt you.”
Willow mentally calmed herself before responding.
“You did hurt me, Spike. More than you can imagine.
I just told him the truth.”
“Truth? What the bloody hell are you talking about?”
“Did you ever wonder why Angel knew about you and
Buffy? It’s not like we could smell her on you or
vice versa.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know then?”
“I saw you. I went to the crypt to talk to you, and I
saw the two of you together. That’s the night I left
for LA.”
“Yeah, and right into the arms of my sire.”
“That happened later. You know how the bond works.”
Spike snorted in disgust. “Yeah, the bastard really
takes care of his childer, doesn’t he? Oh, wait, no
he doesn’t. He just takes care of you. I get treated
like some kind of mongrel while you’re down there
fucking his brains out every night.” Spike scowled.
“He won’t even look at me.”
“Maybe that’s because you’ve made it so clear that you
hate him.”
“I don’t bloody hate him.” Willow looked at him
pointedly. “Well, maybe I hate him a little bit. But
he’s still my sire.” Spike sat quietly for a moment.
“Anyway, you’re changing the subject. I still don’t
understand how you think I hurt you.”
Willow turned and stared at the blonde. “You broke my
heart, Spike. The night I saw you and Buffy together
was the night I’d decided to tell you that I’d fallen
in love with you.” Before Spike could respond, Willow
had scooped up her programming books and disappeared
into her and Angel’s bedroom.
Spike dimly heard the lock click, but he was still too
shocked to move. “She’d fallen in love with me?” he
asked no one in particular. “How the hell could the
chit have fallen in love with me?” But Spike received
no answer from the empty lobby. He continued to sit
in stunned silence for several minutes more minutes.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered as he finally stood. “I
need a drink.”
Angel returned to the hotel to find the lobby empty.
He panicked for a moment before realizing that he
could still feel Willow’s presence. He tried the
bedroom door and panicked again before a fully clothed
and obviously alone Willow unlocked it. Before he
could ask what had happened, Willow had launched
herself at her sire. She kissed him passionately, and
Angel found himself momentarily distracted from his
confusion. As the redhead finally drew back with a
wide grin on her face, Angel couldn’t help but return
her smile. “Wow,” he said. “I should do divorce
cases more often.”
Willow giggled in response before planting another
bruising kiss on the dark vampire’s lips. “I missed
you,” she said honestly.
Angel’s undead heart skipped a beat. “Really?” he
said, then scolded himself silently for sounding like
an overanxious teenager.
“Really,” she replied. Willow glanced over his
shoulder. “Hey, where did Spike go?”
Angel’s giddy mood took a sudden dive. “I don’t
know,” he replied sullenly. “He was gone when I got
here.”
“Probably out getting drunk somewhere,” Willow said,
frowning.
“Any particular reason why?”
“Probably freaked out that I said I had fallen in love
with him.”
Angel bit back his hurt and tried to pretend that his
heart wasn’t breaking. “It’s good that you told him,”
he said as impassively as he could.
“Maybe, but it’s better that I tell you. I love you,
Angel.”
“What?” Angel was sure that this was a dream, except
that he wouldn’t have been dreaming about almost
having his heart broken.
“I.Love.You.Angel.” Willow said slowly, sounding out
each part. “I think I have for a while, but after the
whole Spike thing, I was afraid of getting hurt
again.”
“I would never, could never, hurt you, Willow,” Angel
said softly. He hugged the redhead tightly for a
moment before chuckling softly to himself.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was trying to figure out how I was ever going to
recover from losing you. And now you’re saying the
words I’ve been dying to hear for so long and I don’t
know what to do.”
“You’ve been dead for a while,” Willow teased.
“I’ve been waiting a while to hear you say it. Say it
again.”
Willow smiled. “I love you, Angel. I’m sorry for not
saying so before, but I wanted to be absolutely sure
of where I stood with you and how I felt.”
“You’re saying it now. That’s what’s important. I
love you, Willow.”
Willow grinned at the dark vampire wickedly. “Prove
it,” she whispered. She squealed in delight as Angel
swept her off her feet and carried her back to the bed
to do just that.
**********
Spike wandered through the streets of LA aimlessly,
his mind still reeling from what the redhead had told
him. He couldn’t even begin to understand how it
could have happened. Sure, he had been nice to her
more so than the rest of the gang, but he’d also
repeated tried to kill her. Not that he would have
really killed her anyway. She’d have been his childe
that night in the dorm if not for those bloody soldier
boys. But she’d never given him any indication that
she wanted him. Hell, if she had, he might not have
gotten involved with the bloody slayer.
But how could she claim to love him when she spent her
nights in his sire’s bed. Spike stopped suddenly.
Willow had said she ‘had fallen in love with him.’
For all Spike knew, those feelings could have
disappeared when she was turned. Of course, she still
had the soul, so maybe those feelings would stay with
the soul.
But Spike wasn’t blind, either. He saw the longing
looks the redhead and his sire exchanged. Hell, he’d
heard them together dozens of times and had even
watched them once. It was obvious to anyone that
those two loved each other. Which left Spike, as
usual, on the outside. Spike sighed and brushed an
angry tear away from his face. He was so tired of
being alone.
Even being with the slayer hadn’t helped. If
anything, it had only made matters worse. She would
drop by the crypt for a quick fuck, then disappear in
silence or even worse, a cascade of cruel words.
Spike had given up trying to get her to stay, to care
about him eventually. But he hadn’t been able to give
up the sex. For just a little while, he would hold
her in his arms and pretend that he wasn’t alone. Now
Spike didn’t even have that.
His thoughts drifted back to the redhead once more,
wondering if she was still alone in the hotel. He
doubted it. Angel hadn’t planned to be gone for very
long. Which probably meant the two were busy shagging
their brains out while Spike wandered alone in the
dark.
Angel, his sire. What a joke. Angel despised him.
Spike would never admit it, but that fact cut deeply
than anything else. He, William the Bloody, favorite
childe of Angelus, other half of the Scourge of
Europe, had been reduced to a bloody charity case. He
doubted the dark vampire would have given him a second
thought if Spike hadn’t been so fucking helpless
because of the chip. Spike knew that the sight of him
was a constant reminder to Angel of what the dark
vampire had once been. And Angel hated him for it.
As for Spike, he didn’t really care about the soul
anymore. Sure, he missed the bloodshed and torture
he’d once shared with his sire. But the tenderness
that had once been reserved only for his fairheaded
childe was still there. Just being bestowed on
someone else.
And that was what Spike missed the most. He thought
about Willow’s comment that he hated Angel. Spike
supposed that’s how most everyone saw it. But surely
his sire knew the truth. How could Angel not know how
powerfully Spike was drawn to his sire? The dark
vampire had obviously explained the bond to Willow.
How could he then be so blind to its effects on the
vampire he had once called his favorite?
It didn’t matter anyway. Spike wiped away another
tear as he sank to the hard concrete of the empty
street and leaned against a building. They were back
at the hotel now, his sire and the redheaded witch.
Fucking, biting, loving each other. And Spike was
alone. Again.