Title: The Cold from Hell
Author: JR
Email: JRR42@yahoo.com
Rating: PG-13
Episode spoilers: Up to season 2. Season 3 ain't happening here.
Status: Complete
Archive: Unless I've already given permission, please ask first, I usually say yes.
Series/Sequel: The listings here are getting a little long, so how 'bout we just start calling this the 'Hell Series'? This is story # 5.
Warnings: Nope. Not this time.
Disclaimer: Angel, Willow, et al, are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the WB. All characters are used without permission. This story is not intended to infringe upon any copyrights, nor is any profit being made from it.
Thanks: As always, to Heather T., and to Marius.
Notes: This is the second in a planned 3-part arc of "fluff" stories covering Angel and Willow's changing friendship.
Archive summary: Second of three vignettes about Angel's re-adjustment and his expanding friendship with Willow.

The streets of Sunnydale were nothing but a blur as I raced through them with my vampiric speed and swiftness. Taking shortcut after shortcut, I leapt fences and crossed through backyards. Anything that would save precious time in getting to my destination. As I ran, my mind kept replaying the phone conversation that sent me on this frantic journey.

"Hello?"

"Ah...yes...Angel. T-this is R-rupert Giles," the Watcher stammered in that incredibly British way of his.

"Giles," I acknowledged. "What can I do for you?" The phone call had raised my curiosity simply because it was such a rare occurrence anymore. After everything that had happened between us, we both found it easier to keep a polite distance from each other, at least for the time being.

"I...uh...well, y-you see...I'm looking for Willow. Would she h-happen to be with you, by chance?"

My heart skipped a beat as soon as the librarian mentioned Willow's name, but then to hear that he was looking for her...

"No, she's not here. She told me yesterday that she'd be working with you guys at the library tonight, so I'm not expecting her. Why?"

"Well, she's an hour and a half overdue, and t-there's no answer at her home."

At that moment, as impossible as it may seem, it actually felt as if my body temperature dropped an additional couple of degrees as fear began pulsing in my veins. Willow's safety was my sworn responsibility. If anything had happened to her... That thought was so terrifying, I couldn't even finish it silently.

"Giles," I spoke rapidly as I reached for my leather jacket in deference to the cold front that had been chilling the normally-warm California air for the past few days. "I'm going to her house. If she's not there, I'll head for the library. I'll call if I find anything." Not waiting for an answer, I hung up and headed for the door at a dead run.

Ninety minutes, Giles had said. That would have been just before sunset. The Watcher often set meetings at that time so it would be safer for the kids to get to the library. But what if Willow had been running late?

Vampire activity had been at an all-time low recently. Well, low for a town situated on a Hellmouth, anyway. In keeping the bargin Spike made with Buffy, he and Druscilla had moved on to another city, and most of the fledglings either followed Spike out of town, or were hunted down by what was left of the Slayerettes. Fleeing or staking, the results were indisputable. For the first time in years, the streets of Sunnydale were remarkably vampire-free.

If there's one thing, however, that I've learned by living here for two years, it's that vampires aren't the only dangerous creatures hanging around the Hellmouth. As a result, I prayed silently for Willow's safety to any force that would listen the entire way to her house.

The two cars in the driveway were noted in passing as I all-but-flew up the front walk. Alternating between ringing the bell and pounding on the door as I waited, but in spite of the lights burning in the downstairs living room, no one answered. The unnatural stillness of the house left me wondering whether or not something disastrous had happened to Willow's whole family.

Realizing the futility in beating on the door, I moved off the porch and headed for the side of the house. Climbing the tree outside Willow's room left me with a conflicted feeling of deja vu. I'd done this before, several times in fact, both as myself and, more sinisterly, as Angelus. It was by force of will alone that I put the latter, uglier memories out of my mind in order to concentrate on the matter at hand.

With a small leap, I jumped from my perch in the tree to the more stable concrete of the balcony by Willow's room. None of the lights in the room were on, but that could mean anything. Stepping forward, I placed my hand on the glass panes in the door to remove the slight glare caused by a distant streetlight and peered inside.

My vampiric sense of sight easily cut through the darkness pervading the room. Working from memory, I looked to see if anything seemed out of place. With the exception of the unmade bed, everything appeared to be normal.

Just as the fear began creeping back, a slight movement from the bed caught my attention. She was there! A wash of relief flooded me as I softly tapped on the glass.

At the sound, there was another, more pronounced jerky movement in the thick nest of blankets haphazardly covering the bed. Despite the noise, however, Willow failed to wake completely. Needing to get her attention, I kept knocking, but not so loud as to be overheard by nosey neighbors.

Long minutes passed before Willow finally sat upright. It was clear to see that she was disoriented, but nevertheless, she did her best to identify the source of whatever had pulled her out of her deep sleep. I gave the window one more tap to draw her gaze in my direction.

There was a distinct weariness in her movements as she literally crawled out of the warm confines of her bed. Standing up seemed to sap what little energy she possessed, but she did manage to make it across the room -- albeit rather unsteadily. I couldn't possibly miss how glassy her eyes were, nor the redness of her nose as she surreptitiously wiped it with a crumpled tissue.

"Angel?" she asked in a weak, nasally tone.

"Open up, Willow." There was a lingering hint of desperation in my voice, one that I didn't even bother to disguise.

"Come on in," she invited as she turned the lock. The invitation was a necessity, not a formality. This was my first visit to Willow's since she and Buffy cast the spell to bar me from entering their respective homes.

I barely cleared the threshold before I pulled Willow into my arms. All the fear and uncertainty that rose up as I made my way across town started to ease away as I held her, reassuring myself of Willow's safety. After a moment's hesitation, I felt her arms circle loosely around my waist. Even through the layers of clothing between us, I could still feel the heat of her fever.

"What are you doing here?" Willow questioned as she withdrew from the embrace.

"Giles called me..." I started.

The words apparently triggered Willow's memory. Watching her face, I was bemused as her expression changed flawlessly from confusion to realization, and then finally into self-recrimination.

"The library," she all but groaned as she slowly moved back towards the recently abandoned bed. "I should call..."

"It's okay. You just go back to bed and let me handle it."

Willow was halfway to the mattress when she stopped suddenly and turned in another direction. Puzzled by her actions, I couldn't help but ask where she was going.

A pretty blush crept up her already fever-flushed cheeks as she whispered her embarrassed reply. "Bathroom."

Grinning at Willow's modesty, I reached for the phone that sat next to her computer.

If anything, Giles sounded as relieved as I felt when I explained the situation to him. The Watcher's inquiry of whether or not he could help in anyway coincided with Willow's return, so I relayed the question.

"Thanks anyway, but I should be fine...after I've slept for about a week or two." That said, she slipped back into the heavy layers of blankets.

With Willow back, I brought the conversation with Giles to a swift end, promising to call if either of us needed anything. I half expected to look over and see her fast asleep, but as I returned the phone to it's cradle, Willow's fever-bright green eyes were following me sleepily.

"I'm sorry that you had to run all the way over here," she apologized. I almost laughed at her choice of words, wondering if she realized that my speed as I made my way across town would have made an Olympic sprinter proud.

"No problem. I'm just glad you're okay. So...not feeling well, I take it?" The question was unnecessary, but it was the only thing that came to mind at the moment.

"Yeah. I wasn't feeling too great last night, and the only thing that kept me going through classes today was knowing that once I got home, I could crawl into bed and sleep for a few hours. I didn't think I'd sleep so long, though." Her short monologue was punctuated by a steady stream of poorly disguised swipes of the tissue to her nose.

"Don't you think that your body might be trying to tell you something," I scolded as gently as I could manage. "If you slept that long, your body probably needed it to fight whatever bug you picked up."

"I guess you're right," she admitted before breaking down into what sounded like a rather painful coughing fit.

I wondered, briefly, whether or not the noise would bring one of her parents running to check on her, but I didn't hear anybody else moving in the house. That was odd, considering the two cars in the driveway and the lights blazing downstairs. "Willow, where are your parents?"

"They're at a dentistry convention in San Diego," she answered simply.

The idea that these kids -- not just Willow, but Xander, Cordelia, and even Buffy -- were left alone so often still blew my mind. Sure, most of them were seventeen now, but this wasn't exactly a new development for any of them. All of them had managed alone on and off for years now. That they had all turned out so well (especially growing up on a Hellmouth) was a combination of sheer miracle and strength of character.

Instead of pondering things I couldn't help, I decided to focus on something where I could. Willow was, indeed, sick; but she didn't have to be alone. As insane as it sounds, I decided to do my best to become her nurse.

Sounds great in theory, doesn't it?

The truth of the matter was I had no idea what to do. Vampires don't, as a rule, feed off the unhealthy. Put simply, their blood tastes -- I don't quite know how to describe it...sour? -- like sour milk tastes to mortals, I guess. Still, that knowledge would come in handy for reference.

Walking over to the bed, I carefully sat down next to her nearly blanket-mummified body. As I reached out a hand towards her face, I could feel the heat coming off her in waves. A single touch to her cheek with the backs of my fingers merely confirmed what I had sensed from a distance, that Willow's usually petal-soft skin, was hot and dry to the touch -- a good sign of dehydration. With very little distance between us, I could actually hear the slight hitch in her breathing caused by the congestion in her lungs.

Okay, so I had a basic understanding of what was wrong, but then the question changed to what should I do? While I knew what the signs of illness looked like, all my experience at actually *treating* the symptoms was more than two centuries old. Well, some things shouldn't have changed, even in that large span of time.

"When was the last time you ate or drank anything?"

"Uhm, I had some toast this morning, and some orange juice when I came home from school," she sniffled.

"Why don't I get you something to drink?" I asked, standing up to head for the door.

"You don't have to do..." she protested in a nasal tone.

"No, I don't, but I want to," I insisted. The sound of Willow blowing her nose accompanied me as I moved down the stairs.

It had been a while since I was last in the Rosenberg kitchen, so it took me a few minutes to re-orientate myself. Eventually, I not only managed to remember where the glasses were kept, but I also scrounged up a can of chicken soup, the twentieth century cure all. I had my doubts as to whether or not it would actually help Willow get better (after all, people believed that Castor oil would cure any ill when I was a boy, and it was leeches a few hundred years before that).

Finding the can and a pot to heat the contents in was the easy part. Granted, I don't have much culinary experience, but even an idiot can heat up soup. No, the hardest part was trying to figure out how to open the damned thing. It took a few attempts, but I finally figured out how to work the machine suspended from under the kitchen cabinet. I'm just grateful that nobody was there to see me grappling with it. When the soup was heated, I brought everything upstairs on a tray that I found on the top of the refrigerator.

"I was just going to come looking for you," Willow called as I used my back to push her bedroom door open.

"Sorry I took so long. I just thought you might be hungry."

"Oh Angel!" she exclaimed when she saw the tray. "You really didn't have to do this."

Of course I did.

It was like something out of a ballet the way Willow managed to simultaneously eat and balance the tray (albeit rather precariously) across her folded legs. Afraid that any movement on my part would cause the tray to slide from it's uneasy perch, I'd wheeled the chair by Willow's computer over near her bed. Straddling the seat, I leaned forward so that I could rest my arms against the chair's back as we talked.

"Have you given any thought to patrolling with us again?" Willow asked in a completely conversational tone while she blew on a spoonful of steaming soup.

This was a sore subject between us, and Willow knew it. While I escorted her from place to place at night, I never went any further than the doorways of wherever her destination happened to be at the time. I stayed away from the Bronze because of the crowds, her house to avoid her parents, and the library...well, I just wasn't ready to deal with the expression on both Giles' and Xander's faces, yet.

"Willow, we both know that there isn't much happening occult-wise in Sunnydale right now," I obfuscated. "I just need some time to get my bearings again."

"What you need is to quit thinking that you won't be welcomed back by everybody." Damn. She'd read me like a comic book. "I know you lurk around whenever I go patrolling with Giles or Xander." I was shocked that she'd been aware of my presence, and my reaction must have shown itself in my expression. "I can almost...*feel* you...watching over me."

Nope, I was wrong. Shocked didn't even *begin* to cover how surprised I was. My mind raced backwards, trying to determine when and where she'd spotted me, yet I was unable to pinpoint any particular occasion.

As if sensing my emotional upheaval, Willow blew on another spoonful of soup as she unobtrusively offered her advice. "It just seems to me that if you're going out there anyway, you might as well be among friends, y'know?"

But that was the problem: I just couldn't believe that these people considered me 'a friend.' Hell, I still had trouble accepting that Willow might actually want to spend time around me, let alone Giles, Cordelia, or Xander. I could feel those green eyes piercing straight through my soul as I thought over the matter.

My sudden realization was both swift and unsettling, but then again, the truth often is. My decision was one that hit me with the force of a blow to the gut. Simply put, I would rather face Giles' and Xander's disapproval rather than disappoint Willow any day.

"All right." I caved. "As soon as you're feeling better, I'll go back to the library with you."

"Cool. So, have you heard anything on the vampire grapevine about why things are so quiet around here lately?"

She may have changed the subject, but the small grin of satisfaction remained on her face long after she finished her soup.

After I took the tray back downstairs, I retrieved some strange looking cold medicine -- hey, it was green, I mean *really* green -- from the bathroom. While I was searching through the mirrored cabinet, I came across a box containing one of those digitized thermometers. Being undead and all, I'd never seen one up close before, and Willow agreed to demonstrate it's use for me. Of course, she also wanted me to take my own temperature, 'just out of scientific curiosity,' she insisted.

What a dichotomy we made that night. On one hand, there was Willow checking in at a toasty 102, and on the other, there I was, barely making it to room temperature at a chilly 65 degrees. Since we had no basis for comparison, there was no way of knowing whether or not that number should have been considered 'normal' for me.

Although Willow kept insisting that I didn't need to stay any longer, I wanted to make sure that she didn't need anything else before she finally went to sleep. Willow warned me that the cold medicine would quickly make her sleepy. Actually, I think her exact words were "instant coma," which, as it turned out, was a more apt description. She barely had time to get settled before her eyelids began drooping sleepily.

Wanting to insure that she would be warm enough, I actually ended up tucking the thick comforter under her chin. Once we were both content with the placement of the blanket, I reached out to smooth down an errant lock of her long, flowing hair. The softness of it's silky texture was almost addictive, and without realizing what I was doing, my fingers began to gently stroke the top of her head.

"...mmm...feels good..."

Her words made me aware of my actions, but instead of stopping immediately, the satisfaction in her voice prompted me to continue. Wanting more of the comforting sensation, Willow's head nudged against my hand like a cat arching into a petting hand.

As the minutes passed, my back started to protest. I'd been sitting on the edge of the bed from the time I poured out the correct dosage of the medicine, but my awkward position made it necessary for me to all but twist around like some kind of circus contortionist. While Willow was close to the edge of the mattress on one side, there was more than enough room for me on the other half of her double bed.

I can't say why the thought alone made me hesitate. I mean, it wasn't like we'd never been that...close in the recent past. Hell, we'd even slept in each other's arms after she brought me back from hell.

But something was different this time.

"Willow?" I whispered just in case she had already nodded off to sleep.

"Mmm?" she replied without opening her eyes.

"Do you....want me to...stay...a while longer, I mean?" Great. Now I was sounding as flustered as Giles.

"Mmm-humm."

Taking the muffled response as a yes, I toed off my shoes before getting up to make my way around the mattress. One of those thin cotton blankets was laying on the floor at the foot of the bed, undoubtedly kicked there when the extra layer proved to be too warm for the feverish girl. I picked it up, and after a small detour to turn off the bedside light, I settled into the empty space next to Willow.

A quick flick of the wrist flared the blanket into the air before it finally came to rest on the lower half of my body. It took a few moments of adjustment, but I finally converted an unused pillow to serve as a decent backrest. With that taken care of, I somehow managed to worm an arm under Willow's neck, gently urging her to settle against me.

Even asleep, Willow seemed to instinctively understand my intentions. Rolling on to her side, Willow squirmed around a few times before finding a comfortable spot on my chest for her cheek to rest against. Feverish heat radiated from her face straight through my shirt, warming me through the thick layer of cotton that separated flesh from flesh.

The deep, even rhythm of Willow's breathing indicated that she was getting some much-needed sleep, but I was in no particular hurry to leave. My fingers were drawn back to the softness of her hair, so I resumed the gentle stoking I'd abandoned just a few minutes earlier. Between the calming, repetitive motion and the soft sounds of Willow's breathing, I found a few rare moments of pure contentment.

It was exactly an hour before sunrise when some internal instinct woke me. Willow was still cradled against me, although her coughing spells and fever had made her sleep restless through the night. Luckily, the cold medicine kept her drowsy enough that she never once woke completely. I wasn't so fortunate, however. Her tossing, turning, and coughing kept me from falling completely asleep, but I nevertheless managed to doze on and off as the hours passed.

Almost dawn.

It was obvious that Willow wouldn't be going to school later. She was still feverish, and would need more sleep to recover completely. That left me with a decision to make.

With it's excessive number of windows, the Rosenburg house wasn't exactly vampire-friendly. Yet, if I left, Willow would be by herself, at least until the end of the school day. Even then, there was no guarantee that somebody would be able to come over to check on her. If I returned to my apartment, I would be trapped there until sundown.

Had I been able to draw breath, I probably would have sighed at that point.

As gently as I could manage, I extracted myself from Willow's sleeping grasp. She stirred slightly from the movement, but never even opened her eyes. My inherent ability to move silently served me well as I slid over to the side of the bed and shifted to a sitting position.

It didn't take me long to pilfer the comforter and sheets from Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg's room. The real challenge was in securing the heavy fabric over the balcony doors in Willow's room. Although the glass doors were covered by those thin plastic blinds, light that invariably trickled in through them. The bedsheets to fill in around the edges of where the comforter gaped. Between the blinds and the extra coverage of the bed linens, Willow's room would be a relatively safe haven for me.

The rest of the house would remain off-limits, though. With that thought in mind, I once again crept downstairs to the kitchen to grab the orange juice out of the frig. It was too bad that I couldn't prepare some kind of breakfast for her, but the kitchen had one of those skylight things in the ceiling. It was only when I walked by the toaster when the thought came to me. Mohammad and the mountain. Man, did I have my hands full on the return trip up the stairs -- orange juice, a toaster, a loaf of bread, butter, jam -- but I managed, nevertheless.

Willow was still asleep when I returned. For the most part, she was in the same position she'd been in when I left, with one adorable difference. At some point, she had maneuvered a pillow into the space I had occupied when I rested on the bed. Even in her sleep, Willow's arms were wrapped around the pillow every bit as tightly as they'd embraced my body such a short while ago. Somehow, that simple, unconscious action left me feeling incredibly... loved.

Since my designated sleeping area had been usurped by a pillow, I quietly pulled the computer chair over by the bed. As I settled into the chair, I purposely kept my thoughts from straying to my motivations for wanting to stay. Instead, I just enjoyed this opportunity to do something that was fast becoming the most important thing in my existence: keeping watch over Willow Rosenburg.

*finis*