Title: Everlasting Moon
Author: JR
Email: JRR42@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13
Category: Drama
Summary: Six years after graduation, two old friends run into each other.
Distribution: No, not at this time. Will eventually be available at: www.angelfire.com/de/theparlor/buffy.html
Feedback: Hell, yes!
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mutant Enemy/Joss/WB and are used without permission. This story is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights, nor is any profit being made from it.
Thanks: To Carrie and Marius for their beta efforts. This is a beta copy of the story -- not the fully edited zine version. So any typos are mea culpa.
Dedicated to Marius for our 2am beach conversations on the meaning of life. See you at the Hawiian. I love you.
This one came from a comment DB made when asked to reveal a ‘weird quirk’ about himself. He answered that he ‘liked to dig his butt into the sand at the beach.’ Some of you list 'old timers' might remember the quote in question ;-)
This story originally appeared in the fanzine 'Angel's Heart' published by VisionQuest Press. For anyone interested, VisionQuest is set to publish 'Angel's Heart 2'. If you're interested in ordering or just more information, please email: vqpress@zeelandnet.nl

“It was a case, a real nasty one, too,” Angel recounted softly. “A man came into the office one night saying that he heard that we might be able to help him.”

As the vampire spoke, Willow turned slightly to look directly at him. Knowing that he had her full attention made continuing his story both easier and more difficult by turns. Putting aside his nervousness, Angel nevertheless pressed onward.

“This guy, Jim Johnston, well, his son had gone missing. Johnson insisted that the kid -- Tommy -- had been kidnapped. He’d even gone to the police, but the police didn’t buy it,” Angel said disgustedly. “Mr. Johnston isn’t exactly the richest guy in the world. He’s a minimum wage night janitor in an office building. As soon as police heard that, they miraculously concluded that Tommy must have run away, since there was no money, no ransom, and no motive. Besides, the kid had already been through juevie a couple of times. The cops played it off as just another runaway thirteen year old in a city full of ‘em.”

“I wasn’t going to take the case at first,” Angel admitted guiltily. “But Doyle came in and suggested that it might be a good idea if I did. Once the father was gone, Doy told Cordy and I that he’d been hearing rumors -- real low-key stuff -- about a demon-worshipping cult that had set up shop in L.A., so we decided to look into it.”

When Angel took a moment to pause, Willow kept herself from pressing him for more details. She knew that there was much more of the story forthcoming, and her instincts told her to allow the vampire to tell it at his own pace. It seemed like forever before he finally found both the words and the determination to continue.

“It took us four days to track them down. They were using one of those unused underground subway tunnels -- you know, the ones they build in case of future expansion?” Angel clarified, sensing more than seeing Willow’s nod of acknowledgement. “Doyle and I saw about thirty of them when we scouted out the place -- along with a dozen or so kids they were planning to ‘feed’ to the demon when its came for it’s tribute. I was all set to go in after them, but Doyle didn’t want to run in half-cocked, so we left and called for reinforcements.”

“Amy?” Willow guessed.

“And Whistler,” Angel supplied. “They were there by morning, so we decided to go in when they would least expect it -- during the day.”

“We pretty much went straight in the front door. Cordelia and Amy were supposed to get the kids out while Doy, Whistler, and I went after the cult members. Only it didn’t quite happen that way.”

The vampire retreated into silence, obviously reliving some memory of the events that he was describing. Willow was sitting so close to her friend, it would have been impossible for her to miss the tremor that raced through Angel’s body. In a simple display of comfort, the redhead reached out and placed her hand over one of Angel’s. Acknowledging the gesture, the vampire smiled slightly as she entwined her long, elegant fingers with his cold ones.

“We never really considered that the demon might already be there. You should have seen it, Willow,”Angel shuddered. “It was bigger than the Mayor was after he ascended -- and man, was it *pissed* off. As soon as it realized we were after its food, it just went crazy. It went after everything in sight -- us, the kids, even its own followers. It was total chaos down there,” the vampire’s voice began to take on a distant tone, softening to almost a whisper. “We were fighting the cultists, they were fighting us, and the whole time we were all trying to keep out of the path of the demon. Then...”

Sensing Angel’s distress, Willow squeezed his hand gently. When the vampire did not respond, she settled for running her only free digit, her thumb, back and forth over the cool open flesh of the back of his hand. Whether or not it had the soothing effect she was hoping for remained to be seen.

“The demon was big, almost as big as the tunnel itself, so it didn’t have much room to maneuver. Eventually, all of its thrashing did some damage to the ceiling. I saw...I saw the ceiling crack...right over the spot where Whistler was fighting. I tri...,” Angel choked, forcing him to start again. “I tried, I swear, I did. I tried so hard...,” his eyes grew distant, an odd expression coming over his face as he remembered. “I ran...tried to push him...wasn’t fast enough.”

“It’s okay, Angel. It’s okay,” she soothed while at the same time, wondering just what had happened in that subway tunnel. Leaning over, Willow wrapped her free arm around Angel’s back. Resting her head on his shoulder, Willow did her best to offer what little comfort she could. She doubted that Angel would want to continue on with his story, but he surprised her. Having had a moment to pull himself together, his voice was considerably calmer when he next spoke.

“The ceiling was already collapsing when I got to him. We heard it...going, tried to run, but it all just happened too fast,” Angel recounted, shaking his head at what he perceived as a personal failure.

“You got caught under the debris,” Willow surmised.

“Debris?” Angel snorted. “No, debris would have been easy. What we got was a one-ton concrete support beam right on top of us.”

“Oh God, Angel!” Willow gasped. “What...how...?”

“I guess we got lucky, if you could call it that,” the vampire joked bitterly. “It took out the demon first and then broke into pieces. Big pieces, but pieces at any rate. A big chunk of it fell on me -- caught my hip and upper leg. Pinned me pretty well, too. If it hadn’t been for the other loose rubble underneath me...I...,” he trailed off, shaking his head at the possibilities. “I don’t...remember much...after that. At least, not for a while, anyway. Just kinda...flashes. Cordy screaming, Amy doing some kind of chant, a healing spell Cordy told me later. But they weren’t seriously hurt. Neither was Doyle.”

“And...Whistler?” Willow asked softly, not wanting to upset Angel anymore than she had to, but needing to know what happened to the friendly little demon.

“I...I remember looking over and seeing him lying there,” he recalled with some agitation. “I *thought* he was fine – unconscious, but fine -- at least, as far as I could see.”

“But...,” Willow prompted.

“I didn’t...from where I was I couldn’t see that his arm was caught under a huge section of concrete.”

“His arm?” She questioned.

“Yeah,” Angel moved in order to provide her with a visual. Grabbing his arm right above his elbow, he continued. “From about here down was completely crushed.”

“God,” Willow winced sympathetically. “Is he...did he...?”

“Yeah, he lost it,” Angel said softly, relocating his hand from his arm to the sand now that the demonstration was finished. “They had to...cut it off…completely in order to get him out of there.”

“Then he’s...?”

“Still around?” Angel finished for her. “Yeah, the son of a bitch is fine. Perfect, in fact,” he spat.

“Wha...?” Willow questioned in evident confusion.

“He’s a full-blooded demon, Will,” Angel explained somewhat abruptly. Although he was unaware he had used her nickname for the first time, the fact did not escape Willow’s attention. “They don’t live by the same rules we do. A little spell here, a little magic there, two weeks in a trance, and voile, one new arm, no problem.”

“You’re saying that Whistler can actually regenerate body parts?” Willow asked, totally awestruck by the revelation.

“There are a lot of things Whistler can do. You would, too, if you’d been kicked around as he much as he has over the years,” Angel supplied. “We should all be so damned lucky.”

“What about you?” Willow asked, after hearing the venom in her friend’s last comment. “How did you get free?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Angel’s eyes rolled heavenwards as he spoke.

“Come on, Angel,” Willow protested. “You can’t stop now.”

“They worked on Whistler first, getting him out and sending him off with Amy so she could help him with the spells he needed. Once they were done, Cordy and Doyle scavenged up some pick axes and went to work, but it wasn’t enough.”

“So what happened?”

“I kept passing out from the pain,” he admitted. “Then the next thing I knew, I was thinking that I was either hallucinating or in Hell again, because I heard this voice saying,” Angel paused, then began speaking with a hauntingly familiar cockney accent. “’Cor, well if this just ain’t the bloody textbook definition of irony. Talk about the pot and the bloody kettle. Concrete looks good on you, peaches.’”

“Spike?” Willow gasped in amazement.

“Spike,” Angel confirmed his childe’s presence with a sour look.

“I thought he was off in Europe with Drusilla again,” she puzzled.

“Yeah, join the club,” the vampire said with a raise of his eyebrows. “Turns out that Dru missed the West Coast or something.”

“So they were in L.A.?” Willow ventured in amazement.

“Tahoe, actually.”

“Then how did they know what had happened?”

“Apparently Dru had one of her visions,” Angel shrugged by way of explanation.

“And Spike came to help you because of it?” Willow said, amazed by Spike’s Samaritan act.

“Hardly,” Angel replied absently, remembering all too well how much his childe had enjoyed gloating over his sire’s misfortune. “From what I found out later, Dru threatened to leave him again if Spike didn’t help me. She thought he...owed me...for betraying...Angelus with that whole Acathla thing,” the vampire finished softly. Even after all this time, Angel still flinched whenever he was reminded of his lapse into soullessness.

“But he *did* get you out?” Willow clarified.

“Yes,” Angel confirmed, not bothering to mention that even with Spike’s vampiric strength, it still took the better part of a day to free him from the rubble. Nor did the dark-haired vampire bring up the extraordinary pleasure his childe took in furthering Angel’s pain with his repeated pick-strokes to break up the concrete.

“So you got out, and now you’re on the road to recovery,” Willow said cheerfully, as optimistic as ever. “I’m just surprised Cordelia didn’t say...wait, Cordy said...just how long ago did this happen?”

“About three months,” Angel mumbled, knowing full well that the petite redhead would go ballistic at the admission. She did not disappoint.

“Three months! And nobody told me? How could Cordy not...,” she raged.

“Willow,” Angel uncharacteristically raised his voice to get her attention. “Cordy didn’t say anything because I asked her not to...not to tell *any* of you.”

“Why?” Willow asked, her expression speaking volumes of the hurt she felt over Angel’s exclusion. Unable to cope with the disappointment he found in her eyes, Angel’s gaze settled upon the moonlit water. Knowing that Willow fully expected -- and deserved -- an explanation, the vampire gave into the inevitable.

“I...we...,” the vampire stumbled, uncertain as to explain the emotions he had been feeling at the time. “We...weren’t sure...I would...the injuries were so severe, Will. My back was broken, my spinal cord damaged, my hip was completely shattered and my leg...the bone was...well, it wasn’t pretty. We weren’t even sure I was gonna make it, and then, it was pretty iffy whether I’d be able to walk again.”

“Oh Angel,” Willow said compassionately. “I’m so sorry. But why didn’t you want the rest of us to know? We would have been there, we would have helped...”

“There was nothing any of you could have done,” Angel interrupted. What he did not want to admit, even to himself was that, at the time, he had doubted that any of them *would* have come.

“I would have helped, Angel. You should’ve known that,” Willow chastised. “I could have done some healing spells...”

“Amy did some at the beginning...,” he supplied.

“Amy’s never been really adept with the healing side of Wicca,” she reminded, before her face lit up. “If you’re still in pain, maybe I can try. I know a couple of spells that might help.”

“That might be nice,” Angel admitted. It was mostly a psychosomatic reaction, but since he began telling the story of how he was first injured, his leg seemed to throb with ever-increasing intensity. “Maybe tomorrow, that is, if you’re not...it you don’t have...,”

“We can do it tomorrow if you want or tonight if you need,” Willow volunteered. “I’d just have to run home and get some stuff.”

“Not tonight, Will,” Angel shook his head. He was already too tired to even contemplate the concept -- at least, that was what he tried to tell himself. In truth, however, somewhere deep inside, the vampire wanted a reason to see her again the following day, just in case she came to her senses about what had happened between them a short while ago. Now that his confession was out of the way, Angel let his thoughts travel back to more recent events.

Apparently, however, Willow was also remembering what had just occurred, because all of a sudden, Angel caught sight of an attractive blush creeping up her face. She must have felt him staring intently at her, for she steadfastly kept her eyes glued upon the rolling surf. The vampire was about to speak when Willow beat him to it.

“Look, it’s...getting late, or early, whatever,” she stumbled in her anxiousness.

“Will...,” Angel began, not quite willing to let her off the hook just yet. Not when he was uncertain what kind of repercussions the kisses they had shared were going to have on their relationship. Although the vampire was quite frankly curious to see if what had happened was simply a fluke or perhaps something more, he refused to gamble their friendship on exploring the possibilities. Unless, of course, Willow wanted to take that chance as well.

“I’m sure you’ve got to be tired, Angel,” Willow interrupted him, still unable to meet his penetrating gaze. Her next words, however, made great inroads at relieving the doubts that were creeping into the vampire’s head. “Besides, I’m going to need to be well-rested if I’m going to do that healing spell tomorrow.”

A rare, mega-watt smile lit up the normally broody vampire’s face. Willow was standing up, using the open palms of her hands to sweep away the sand that clung to the back of her skirt. When she finally looked down and found Angel unconsciously staring at her as she brushed off her rear end, her complexion became even more red. She was not sure whether she was surprised, saddened or humored to realize that men behaved the same at eighteen or two-hundred-and-fifty.

Rolling her eyes, the petite redhead leaned down a little and offered Angel a hand. It was an offer that the vampire accepted with only a slight bruising of his ego. The truth was that Angel was simply incapable of getting up on his own, at least not with the sinking nature of the sandy beach. As it was, he almost pulled Willow down twice before she managed to work a shoulder underneath his arm.

When they finally managed to get Angel into an upright and vertical position, both witch and vampire stopped to rest for a moment. Willow’s face was a little red, but this time the cause was more exertion than self-consciousness. Shirking off his own embarrassment, Angel took the steadying arm Willow offered, not because he particularly needed her assistance, but rather just so he had an excuse to be close to her again, for however long it lasted.

“Where did you park?” Willow questioned for the sake of conversation.

“Back at the hotel,” Angel answered with a chuckle, at least until his companion began berating him for his lapse of sanity.

“You *walked* all the way out here!” Willow exclaimed, making a pointed example of staring at the awkward gait with which the vampire limped. “Are you sure some of that concrete didn’t fall on your head, too? My God, Angel, it’s like four miles between here and town! What were you thinking?” The vampire opened his mouth to respond, but Willow resumed speaking too quickly for him to get a word in edgewise. “My car’s just up ahead,” she prompted, “I’ll give you a ride back to your hotel.”

“Ah, would you mind stopping by the Hoya Street beach entrance? I...kinda...my shoes are there,” Angel noted.

“The things I do for you,” Willow said with mock severity. “So, ah, what’s it worth to ya?” she finished with a scheming little grin.

“Well,” Angel smiled, willing to play along. “Normally it wouldn’t be a big deal, but they’re my favorites, and you know what a bitch it is to have to break in new ones. It always takes months before I get them to ‘stealth mode’,” he joked.

“Oh, well then I’d say that I have a definite edge, then,” Willow teased with a raised eyebrow. “I’ll have to think about this. After all, how often do I get a vampire at such a disadvantage?”

‘Anytime you smile at me like that,’ Angel mentally sighed. At least until he saw the calculating expression that appeared out of nowhere on Willow’s face. It faded momentarily into a look that spoke volumes of her uncertainty, but the vampire was having too much fun with their little game to let her forfeit so easily.

“You have something in mind, I take it?” Angel hinted.

“Yes...no...no, it’s...no,” she finally concluded.

“What?”

“It’s stupid, Angel, I...I would never...subject you...,” she trailed off mysteriously.

“What is it, Will? You have a demon that needs taking care of? An ex-boyfriend you want me to bite for you? Your laundry? What?” By the time he was finished, Willow was giggling.

“Okay, okay,” she held up the hand not busy supporting Angel. “I just thought...maybe...no, you’d be bored...never mind.”

“Just. Name. It. Willow,” Angel demanded slowly.

“Would you...,” she paused, only to be spurred on by the vampire’s rolling eyes. “Wouldyoubeinterestedincomingtothepartywithme tomorrownight?” Willow finished in a rush.

“I’d be delighted to,” Angel answered honestly, truly looking forward to having the opportunity to see where this thing between them might lead.

“Really?” Willow squeaked, obviously shocked by the vampire’s hasty agreement.

“Really,” Angel confirm with a genuine smile. So what if he would have to reschedule his appointment with Joyce Summers tomorrow night? So what if it would cost him a fortune to have a suit chosen and delivered by the Personal Shopping service at Nieman Marcus tomorrow? So what if he would be forced to eat a rubber chicken dinner at the Sunnydale Country Club the following evening? So what if he was in for an entire evening of pity-filled looks and embarrassing question? None of that mattered.

In less than twenty-four hours, Angelus Kieran O’Brien would be going on his first date with Willow Ann Rosenberg.

And that was all that mattered.

Finis

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