Rating: NC-17/FRAO overall, this part PG-13 or R for what might be considered disturbing imagery
Summary: Takes place some time after the end of So Many Steps to Death. Willow is trying to cope with being on her own, and not doing a very good job of it.
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters and claim no responsibility for anything other than this story, from which no profit is made.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Lisa, Elisabeth, and FemailoftheSpecies for the betas. But, of course, all mistakes are mine.
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~Part: 1~
Sad songs always depressed Willow. And w hen her mood was as black as it was tonight, depression was actually an understatement. She really ought to know better than to listen to the blues when she was already this low.
Holding the blade of the paring knife to her wrist, she slashed it quickly across the flesh, lengthwise down her arm, cutting deep. The pain flooded her body, forcing her to bite into her lip to contain the scream that threatened to claw its way up her throat. But she embraced the pain, dropping the knife and running her finger along the red line on her arm. The pain continued, filling her up, making her feel whole, and she suddenly thought of Buffy. Buffy, who had been willing to do anything—even sleep with her mortal enemy—in order to *feel* something.
She hadn’t understood at the time, couldn’t possibly have, but she did now. Unless you’d had something torn from you, something you needed, treasured, then how could you understand the emptiness...the void inside. Nothing filled it. And as she watched the blood run freely from the cut, over her arm and onto the floor like a syrupy waterfall, Willow finally understood.
Feeling something was the only way she could convince herself she was alive. And these days, feeling something mostly meant pain.
Living meant pain. Dying meant pain. Feeling meant pain. It all hurt. And try as she might, she could never make it feel better.
As she watched the cut on her arm heal seamlessly—they always did these days—she acknowledged the irony with more than a little bitterness. How many times had she and Spike argued about him turning her? Now she was immortal, eternal, and he was gone, another casualty of the plague called Sunnydale.
She closed her eyes, bringing up a picture of him in her mind. Handsome—some might even say devilishly so. Impetuous, imaginative, exasperating, kind, funny. So many words described him, without even coming close to the heart of him.
God, she missed him so much. What fun was eternity when she had to spend it without the only person who would make it bearable?
~~~*~~~
At first there was nothing. Eternity could have passed in the blink of an eye, and neither of them would have known. Time had no meaning where they were. Life, and light, and space were the same: words they used to know that meant nothing to them now.
And then suddenly there was pain; the pain of the last moments of their lives, made unbearably real once again, and they screamed for what felt like hours. Or seconds. In this strange world of nothingness it was impossible to tell.
A colorless whirlwind surrounded them, and they reached for each other, because there was nothing else real to reach for. Their previous hatred was forgotten in their need for something solid, although each was ready to bring it back to life when circumstances changed.
Just as suddenly as it all began, it was over. And when they saw where they were, and who they were with, Spike and Xander spoke the same, single word, which seemed to sum up their feelings quite nicely.
“Fuck.”
~~~*~~~
“What the hell?” Xander asked, looking around at the faces of the people in the room with him. Some held shock, some anger, and some curiosity.
Spike realized he was still clutching Xander and immediately let go, stepping away from him as quickly as he could. Xander ignored him, and Spike set to studying the others in the room with him.
Looking towards the large window that ran the length of the office they were in, he was surprised to see the sun outside. That was nice—must be more of that special glass, like in the car that Giles had loaned him when he had helped Willow escape from the Council. He’d love to get a little bit of that for himself. The thought of making love to Willow while the sun warmed their bodies was new and exciting.
Willow. Where was Willow? How much time had passed? Days? Months? Years, even? Did she think he was gone? Had she gone on with her life? Sudden fear hit him, and he studied the faces around him, trying to somehow gauge how long he’d been gone.
“Xander? What the devil?” A prim British man who could only be a Watcher seemed to be taking a page out of Giles’ Stuffy British Watchers handbook, and any minute now Spike expected him to pull off his glasses in an attempt to clean them. Except that he didn’t have any glasses on. In fact, he seemed to have some sort of ‘rough and rugged’ thing going.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Spike agreed, his eyes fixing on his sire. “What the hell did you do, Peaches? Not that I’m not glad to be back among the nearly living again. But I could have done without the side order of excruciating pain.”
Xander looked around, his mind putting the pieces together as he quickly figured out what was going on. He recognized Angel and Wesley, and figured the other guy must be Gunn. The lady with the long hair would be Fred—Willow had mentioned both Fred and Gunn the last time she’d been in Los Angeles. But the green guy? He seemed non-threatening enough, if you discounted his wardrobe, and the blood red color of his eyes, but with demons you just never knew. “So, uh, I think I’ll be going now. Somewhere. Not sure where, but...” he inched his way towards the door, the nearly nonsensical words still streaming from his mouth.
The door opened just as he was about to grab the handle, and he was suddenly face-to-face with Harmony.
Harmony the vampire.
Harmony the evil vampire. Yes, she was stupid, but still, evil. He let out a short but—he assured himself—very manly squeak of surprise and quickly stepped back towards the rear of the office. Which, he noticed belatedly, was made entirely of windows. And it was daytime. As none of the vampire-type people in the room had done him the courtesy of bursting into flames, he knew something was seriously wrong.
“Maybe this is hell?” he wondered aloud. After all, it always had been his idea of hell to have to spend eternity with Spike and/or Angel. And now, here he was stuck with *both* of them. “But I died saving the world, damn it! Doesn’t that count for *anything*? I mean, I never went to church or confession, and yeah, I had a lot to confess, but—I died saving the world! That should give me some points on the positive side, shouldn’t it?”
“Shut yer yap!” Spike snarled, his thoughts still lingering on Willow. How soon could he get to her, he wondered. Should he call first, or just show up? He didn’t want to kill her with shock.
“But—but the sunlight. Coming in the windows. And no dusty vampires.” Xander seemed unwilling to just accept the change in reality as he knew it, and move on.
The woman with the long hair tried to approach Xander, but he began backing away so she stopped. “It’s the necro-tinted windows,” she told him, speaking quietly, a soft southern twang slipping out as she explained. “They let some parts of the light spectrum in, while keeping the harmful parts out. It’s really quite fascinating the way it works.”
Xander sensed that she was going to burst into a full-length Willow-type babble, but then she stopped herself and held out her hand, instead. “I’m Fred, by the way. Winifred Burkle. But everyone just calls me Fred.”
She seemed harmless enough, and Xander actually remembered Willow mentioning that Fred had been a genuinely good person. He thought that they had even traded emails for a little while. So, instead of stepping even further away from her, he reached out to grasp her hand.
And missed.
He tried again, watching in horror as his hand went right through hers. “What the hell...”
The others were all paying attention now, and he tried again. Finally, frustration got the better of good manners and he ran his hand right through Fred’s abdomen. “Sorry,” he apologized, “but I just...”
“It’s okay,” she told him, reaching for his shoulder and meeting nothing but air. “Wow, this is...I’ve never seen anything like it before.” The look in her eyes made him wonder if she was actually seeing him, or just the mystery he represented. Suddenly, he was a little glad that she couldn’t touch him.
Spike, not to be outdone, leapt towards Angel, full game face on. When his progress led him straight into Angel’s desk, he looked right up into his sire’s smirk. “Bugger.”
~~~*~~~
Willow sat in a deck chair on her back porch, listening to the sound of the waves as they broke across the rocks that lined the shore far below.
One of the things that had convinced her to buy this house had been the view. She spent many evenings here, listening to the sound of the water, and watching as the sun disappeared below the horizon. There was something hypnotic about it, and sometimes an hour would pass in the blink of an eye.
The small software company she worked for didn’t mind that she worked from home, as long as she kept sending them new games every six months. What they didn’t know was that their best-selling “fantasy” game was, in actuality, based on Buffy’s life. But what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. And it certainly made life a lot more comfortable for Willow.
Financially-speaking, at least.
Willow had wandered a little after Sunnydale fell, aimlessly, without purpose or hope. Thoughts of Spike—and occasionally Xander—haunted her, filling her dreams with memories of better times. She would wake with a smile, the residue of her dream making her happy for a moment. Then reality would come crashing back down on her, and the tears would begin to fall. After a while, she began to wish that she could sleep all the time.
When her depression had become too much, she decided to visit Dawn and Buffy for a bit. But Buffy’s choice of consort left a bit to be desired in Willow’s opinion, and after she and Buffy had argued about it twice in as many days, she decided that it was time to move on.
Faith had invited her to stay in Cleveland, but Willow was a California girl at heart, and the thought of those long, cold winters put an end to that idea before it had even begun. She visited for a few weeks, helping out as needed, but before long she was on her way again.
Giles had offered her a place as well, but Willow had declined. There had been no way to adequately explain it; it had just felt wrong to her, in some indescribable way.
Willow didn’t know what would feel right to her, but somehow she sensed that when she found it, she would know it.
In the end she returned to California. Perhaps it was a return to the familiar that had dragged her back. Or maybe she had some purpose here that fate had yet to show her. But somehow she knew that moving here had been the right decision. And this small coastal town not far from the remains of Sunnydale felt like the right place. For now.
The sound of a loud knock on the door ripped her from her thoughts, and she wondered who would show up on her doorstep without an invitation. None of her neighbors would impose in that way; she found out quickly they all treasured their solitude just as much as she did.
A stranded motorist? Unlikely. Angel, or one of the Los Angeles gang? Equally unlikely.
The noise started again, and with a sigh she got to her feet, making her way to the door with a growing sense of unease.
She laid her hand against the wood paneling, trying to sense something about the presence on the other side, but without any luck. Time to open the door, she told herself, suiting her actions to the thought.
Her eyes widened with surprise as she took in the figure on the other side of the door.
~Part: 2~
“I never thought I’d see you here,” Willow commented, her eyes taking in the figure before her with more than a little surprise.
“Yeah, I know, I said I’d never set foot in the Sunshine State again, but what can I say? When Giles says ‘go,’ I pretty much have to git.” Faith craned her neck, looking over Willow’s shoulder to take in the sparsely furnished living room beyond the door.
“You going to invite me in?” she asked, her voice a little uncertain, as if unsure of the welcome she was going to receive.
Willow was silent for a moment. It would be rude to make Faith turn around and go back to Cleveland without at least finding out why she had been sent here in the first place. Yet, at the same time, Willow really didn’t know that she wanted company tonight. Maybe she could put Faith up at a hotel?
It was the uncertainty on Faith’s face that finally did Willow in. She still considered Faith a friend. And it saddened her to think that Faith wasn’t sure of the welcome she would receive in Willow’s house. Of course, Willow couldn’t really fault her for that, seeing as how even now she was being less than hospitable. Maybe Faith had a right question her welcome, after all.
Guilt was quite the motivator, she acknowledged, as she stood aside and let Faith enter her home.
Faith looked around, taking in the scarcity of furniture, or any other personal touches. The living room was on the left, a large room furnished simply with a couch and an oversized stuffed chair, with a small table between them. She headed in there, throwing herself into the chair without waiting for an invitation.
This was the Faith that Willow remembered, and she couldn’t help but smile just a bit as she sat down on the couch, hands folded neatly in her lap. “So,” she began, “Giles sent you all this way just to check up on me?”
Faith laughed, throwing back her head a bit, exposing the long, graceful curve of her neck. “That’s what you thought? No wonder you didn’t want to let me in.”
Willow flushed with embarrassment. “It’s not that I didn’t want to let you in. I was just a little...surprised. To see you. It’s, well, it’s been a while.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Faith said, shrugging. “Cleveland’s been hell. And then there’s the weather. At least when I was in Sunnydale I didn’t have to worry about slipping in anything but demon goo. But in Cleveland, even during the summer you have to watch your step. It can get damned cold there all year round.”
“Cleveland’s been keeping you busy? Anything big?”
Faith shook her head, the long mane of hair moving with the effort. “Nah, that’s why Giles thought it would be okay to send me here. Baby Slayers can take care of whatever comes up. Most of them don’t really need me around anymore.”
“So you’re here because...?”
“Because I thought you might want to take a trip to L.A. with me.”
“L.A.? What does Giles want you to do there? Couldn’t he call Wesley and have those guys look into whatever it is?” Willow suspected that Giles would never call Angel to ask for a favor, but surely he and Wesley remained on good terms.
“Nope. Wesley is part of the problem. Or,” she amended, “that’s what Giles is afraid of.”
Willow’s brow crinkled into a frown. “What does he think is going on?”
“He’s had what he calls ‘some disturbing news’ from L.A. The grapevine told him that Angel and his gang have gone to work for Wolfram and Hart.”
“The evil law firm?” Willow sat back on the couch, stunned by Faith’s news. “But...that can’t be. If Angelus were back, I’d know it. I’d feel it. And there’s no way that Angel would go evil. He just doesn’t have it in him. Giles’ sources must have it wrong.”
“I know,” Faith agreed. “That’s what I tried to tell Mister Stuffypants. But you know how he is. Nothing would do but that I get on a plane and see for myself. And, since I was going to be out here anyway, I thought I’d stop by and see if you wanted to come with me.”
“Me? Why?”
“C’mon, Red. We can hang out in L.A.; do some shopping, order room service at a fancy hotel, and make Giles pay for it all. Doesn’t it sound at least a little bit like fun?”
“But Faith, you hate to shop.”
Faith grinned at her, and something mischievous flashed in her eyes. “Did you miss the bit where I said it would all go onto Giles’ expense account? THAT kind of shopping I can definitely get into.”
Faith’s mood was contagious, and Willow found herself wondering whether this trip to L.A. might actually work to alleviate the depression that had been growing stronger and stronger lately.
“Okay,” Willow agreed, flashing her friend a brief smile. “I’ll keep you company, but under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to at least buy Giles one present. After all, he’s going to be the one paying for all of this.”
After much hemming and hawing, Faith finally agreed to Willow’s terms. What she didn’t tell Willow—and wouldn’t, until it was too late for her to do anything about it—was that the present she planned to buy for Giles was something that would make him blush and stutter for days. And she planned on signing *both* of their names to it.
~~~*~~~
Life at Wolfram and Hart had developed into a dull, but tolerable, routine. Since neither Spike nor Xander felt the need to sleep anymore, they spent their nights roaming the halls and playing games like tag and hide-and-seek, while during the day they usually went their separate ways. Xander spent most of his time in the science lab, where Fred subjected him to all manner of tests and “cures.” Sadly, none of the cures actually worked.
Spike, on the other hand, made it his mission in life—such as it was—to annoy the hell out of Angel, whom he still blamed for his current condition. He figured that if Angel had never brought that gaudy bauble to Sunnydale in the first place, then he wouldn’t be in this predicament now.
“Don’t you have *anywhere* else you could be right now?” Angel complained, as he watched Spike take his shoes off, and then rest his feet on HIS couch, burying his toes into the crevices. “Surely there’s a secretary you could be sexually harassing, or an accountant you could be scaring the piss out of.”
Spike shrugged. “Sooner or later some killjoy spreads the word that I’m a bad egg.” He sent a pointed glance at Angel. “Once they know what to expect, it’s much less enjoyable. And since you’re the killjoy who spoiled my fun, you’re the killjoy who gets to keep me occupied.”
Angel’s eyes were again drawn to Spike’s toes, which were digging into his couch cushion in a way that made Angel want to strangle his childe. Were ghosts’ feet clean? Could non-corporeal toes leave dirty feet smell on corporeal cushions?
“Why the hell don’t you fall through the couch? It doesn’t make sense that you can touch some things and not others.” And in addition to the fact that it didn’t make sense, in Angel’s opinion, it just plain wasn’t fair.
Knowing how much it irked Angel, Spike just smiled. “Get your bird to look into it. I’m sure she could figure it out. ‘Course, you probably couldn’t understand her explanation, but that’s more a deficiency on your part than on hers.”
Watching Angel slowly come unglued was one of the small pleasures in life that Spike could still enjoy, so he rode it for all he was worth. “Maybe she could make a picture book for you, with a glossary for all of the big words. Think that might help?”
When Angel’s nostrils started to flare and his right eyelid began to twitch, it was usually a good sign that his limit had been reached. Generally at that point Angel would just stalk off, leaving Spike to find another target. But today he broke with tradition and asked Spike a question instead.
“Spike? Why haven’t you called Willow yet? Or at least, asked one of us to call her?”
“None of your business,” he snapped, glaring at Angel so fiercely that Angel knew he’d struck a sore spot. With a ruthlessness more commonly expected from Angelus, he pressed the point home.
“I could call her if you wanted me to,” Angel purred, getting up from his chair and stalking over to the couch. He stared down at Spike, who was looking quite a bit less cocky than he had just a moment ago. “Say the word, and I’d happily be the go-between for you two crazy kids.”
Spike jumped to his feet, and Angel stepped back out of reflex. They stared at each other, matching snarls curling both of their upper lips. “Don’t do it. I’m serious.” Spike’s voice was silky soft and dangerous, and he took another step towards Angel, who refused to back away.
“Or what?” Angel asked. “What could you possibly do to me? You’ll haunt me? Been there, done that. Let’s face it, Spike, you can threaten all you want, but when it comes right down to it, you’ve got nothing.”
An angry silence filled the room, until suddenly Spike’s smile got bigger, his lips curving into a mocking smirk. “I could tell them about the cattle,” he drawled, watching with satisfaction as Angel’s lips flattened out into a harsh line. “That Fred, she’s a bit of an animal lover. Wonder what she’d think if I told her what you did to that herd in Montana. Bet seeing you wouldn’t make her knickers so moist anymore.” He paused to think for a moment, running his index finger along his lower lip. “Unless, of course, dear Fred has hidden depths. Maybe she’s into that kind of thing.”
Angel’s temper got the better of his common sense, and he took a swing that he knew would never connect, his hand flying through the vampire, while the momentum spun him around. He quickly regrouped, staring at Spike with impotent rage, as he tried to think of a comeback.
“I keep your little secret,” Spike offered, “and you keep mine. Deal?”
“What about Xander?” Angel asked, glowering. “How come he isn’t trying to get ahold of any of his friends? Did you threaten to tell all of his dirty little secrets, too?”
“Nah, I just had to appeal to his better nature. He knows that something here isn’t right. That someone is using us as pawns in their psychotic little game. We don’t even know if this is permanent, or if one day we’ll disappear again altogether. If Willow finds out we’re alive, only to lose us again, m’not sure what it would do to her. So, until we have some answers, he promised to keep mum.”
Walking over to the window, Angel looked out across the city of Los Angeles, wondering what it was in Spike that allowed him to care so deeply for someone, even without having a soul. Angelus hadn’t been capable of it. Most vamps couldn’t care less about their own kind, much less a human. But Spike’s strong protective instinct, so obvious when he was around Dru, had kicked in again. This time Willow was the recipient of his affection. One part of him thought that Willow was an exceptionally lucky woman.
The other part wondered how the hell he was going to get Spike out of his office, so he could get some work done.
~Part: 3~
The drive up to Los Angeles had been rather uneventful, with the exception of a couple of near-misses. Willow wasn’t sure whether letting Faith drive had been the right decision, but the car was rented in her name, so there really wasn’t much that Willow could do about it. Well, other than let out the occasional squeak or yelp when she thought that perhaps they might be in mortal danger. Faith ignored her squeamishness for the most part, although occasionally she glanced at Willow with what Willow suspected was amusement lurking in the depths of her eyes.
Of course, really it was only Faith who was in any serious danger, what with Willow’s immortality, but since she hadn’t shared that information with Faith yet—and wasn’t planning on doing so any time in the near future—she was able to rationalize it all so that it really was both of them who were at risk.
“So, how do we want to play this with Angel?” Faith asked. “Just in town for a quick vacation? Running an errand for Giles and just happened to be in the neighborhood?”
“Concerned about the rumors of your return to evil?” Willow added in helpfully.
Faith frowned, pausing to flip off a motorist who was only going 65 in the fast lane, and then smoothly cutting in front of them and speeding off. “I find that the truth usually works best as a last resort.” The sad thing was, Willow suspected that Faith wasn’t joking. “What else do we have?”
“I don’t even want to think about what that says about your psyche,” Willow admitted. “Besides, Angel’s not an idiot. I mean, we come to visit shortly after he takes over an evil law firm? He’s gonna know exactly who sent us, and why we’re there.”
“Maybe,” Faith conceded, turning on the cruise control and leaning back in the leather seat. ‘Only the best’ seemed to be the Slayer’s new mantra—at least while Giles was paying the bills. “But walking up to Angel and asking him if he’s evil seems a bit…simple, as far as plans go.”
“Why do we need a plan? Angel isn’t evil, and Giles is wasting his time,” Willow declared devoutly. She really did believe that, for the most part, although things did look a little suspicious.
“Then why are you going with me to check it out?”
Willow hesitated for a moment. There was always just that hint of doubt that plagued her. “Because I thought it would be fun to hang out with you and do some shopping,” she answered finally.
Faith snorted, giving her opinion of Willow’s answer.
“So, how’s Cleveland?” Willow asked, with an abrupt change of subject.
“Cold.”
The one-word answer set Willow’s instincts humming, and she wondered what it was that Faith didn’t want to talk about. “And the new Slayers?” she pressed.
“Young.” Faith didn’t even bother looking over at her when she answered the question.
“Hmmm…”
“You studying to be a shrink, with all the questions and the ‘hmmm?’” Faith asked, an edge to her voice now, defensiveness making her words sharp and her body tense.
Willow’s eyes, when they met hers, were deep green, and innocent as a young child’s. “I was just curious. You know, about how things were going.”
“Uh huh.” Faith wasn’t buying the explanation, but unless she wanted to call Willow a liar, there really wasn’t much she could do about it.
“Thirty miles to L.A.” Willow read aloud from a sign as they whipped past. “Won’t be long now.”
~~~*~~~
At a little after three in the afternoon they pulled into a pay lot just north of the Wolfram and Hart building. Thirty stories of pure evil stared down at them as they approached the building, and Willow couldn’t help but shudder delicately as that evil called to her, singing a seductive tune that only she could hear.
There was no real chance she would give in to it, but the sense of it was disturbing nonetheless.
“You all right, Red? If you really don’t want to do this, you can go back to the hotel and hang out until I get back. That place is so fancy that I think they even have the regular cable channels, and not just the porn ones.”
Faith was teasing her; she could see the smile on her face. “I’m okay. It’s just…weird. Evil. I can feel it, you know?”
Real concern showed in Faith’s eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t realize it was like that. I’m serious about the hotel, though.” The offer was much more subdued this time, but just as genuine.
Willow shook her head. “I’m fine. Really. Let’s go in, okay?”
They pushed their way through the glass doors and stepped into a lobby that was beyond opulent. Fine artwork graced the walls, while their feet sunk into the rich, padded carpet. The furnishings were tasteful, and they also looked comfortable. Such a combination was hard to come by, and didn’t happen by accident. Added all together, they screamed, ‘expensive—but money well spent.’ Apparently evil paid well. Willow really wasn’t that surprised.
They located Angel’s office on a reader board next to the elevator, and with one last look around the lobby, the two visitors got into the elevator and headed up. When the doors went ‘ding’ and opened onto Angel’s floor, Willow was not surprised to see that this one was just as well appointed as the lobby was.
What *did* surprise her, when they rounded the corner, was the sight of Harmony at Angel’s reception desk. Harmony the vampire, who was wearing a deep blue office suit, and filing. Willow had never seen anything so surreal in her life.
“Maybe Angel *has* gone evil,” she whispered. “I can’t think of any other way to explain that,” she said to Faith, sliding her eyes in Harmony’s direction.
Faith’s raised eyebrows requested an explanation, but Willow just shook her head. “Tell you later,” she promised.
“Well,” Harmony announced, in her most sickeningly-sweet voice, “if it isn’t little Willow Rosenberg. And…” she looked Faith up and down disdainfully, “friend.”
Willow sensed Faith shifting slightly beside her, and although she was more than willing to watch Faith slay yet another vampire, if they were hoping to talk to Angel they would probably be better off if they *didn’t* turn his secretary into a pile of dust.
“Harmony,” she said, her voice just as sickeningly-sweet as Harmony’s had been a moment ago. “It’s always such a pleasure to see you. Love the suit. Do you think we could talk to Angel? We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d come by for a visit. By the way, do you know Faith? The vampire slayer?” Willow put extra emphasis on the last two words, watching as Harmony shivered just a bit. She’d probably already known that Faith was a slayer—vamps could usually sense them—but hearing it confirmed had added a hint of wariness to the blonde’s eyes.
Willow could tell that Harmony wasn’t buying the ‘just passing through’ explanation. People seemed to accept Harmony was stupid, but Willow was willing to bet that the vampire knew a lot more than she let on.
Opening up Angel’s calendar, she made a show of running a well-manicured finger down the page. “Just in town, are we? It’s such a shame that you didn’t call ahead to make an appointment. It looks like Angel’s schedule is awfully full today. Tomorrow, too, for that matter. Hmmm…” She looked up suddenly, catching the matching frowns on Willow and Faith’s faces. “Looks like he’s got some time free the week after next. Would that work for you?”
Faith looked at Willow, shrugged, then looked back at Harmony. Throwing back her head and opening her mouth wide, Faith bellowed, “Angel? Are you here? Angellll!”
The sound pierced the muted office noises, and everyone stared at Faith in shock. Harmony, in particular, seemed to be having trouble. Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, before she crossed her arms in front of her chest and let her blood-red lips curve into a pout. “Angel’s gonna be pissed at you. He hates it when he gets interrupted.”
For a moment Willow was afraid that Harmony might actually be right. The door to Angel’s office was yanked open and Angel’s enraged face peeked around the corner. “What the hell—” he bellowed, before stopping mid-sentence at the sight of Willow and Faith. His expression changed from annoyed to genial in the space of a second, and then he even managed a weak smile.
“Willow? Faith? What are you two doing here? Not that it’s not nice to see you. It’s just…unexpected. Come in, please come in.” He motioned them towards the door and into his office. “Would you like any coffee? Tea? Water?”
Angel was welcoming, but both women sensed a reserve in his manner, as if he saw their arrival as a cause for concern. Willow glanced at Faith behind Angel’s back, and saw that her eyebrows were raised in curiosity, just as Willow’s were.
“No, thanks. We freshened up at the hotel before we came over, so we’re both fine,” Willow replied, answering for both of them. Despite her earlier words to the contrary, Willow felt something disturbing in Angel’s manner, and now she wondered if Giles had actually been prudent in his worries about Angel’s change in circumstances.
“So, ah, have a seat. What brings you to Los Angeles?” Angel took his place behind the desk. As he looked at the two women sitting across from him, he couldn’t help but wonder why they were here. Had Giles sent them? He could see no other reason for either of them coming to visit. Neither was the type to just drop in without a reason.
Unless Willow knew about Spike and Xander.
Stranger things had happened. But since she hadn’t mentioned them right off, or read Angel the riot act for keeping her in the dark, he thought it unlikely that their continued existence was the reason for their visit.
The problem was, if the two of them stayed here, sooner or later someone without any common sense—probably Harmony—or someone with a vindictive streak—again, probably Harmony—would let the cat out of the bag, and from there he saw things spiraling out of control at breakneck speed.
“We want to know if you’re evil now,” Willow blurted out, then frowned. She shrugged weakly when Faith glared at her. “Well, mostly Giles wanted to know. So he sent Faith out. She thought I might want to go, too, so here we are.” Without waiting for Angel’s answer, she asked again, “So, are you evil?”
Angel felt his eyebrows lift so high that he wondered if they’d ever settle back down over his eyes. She certainly was direct. Age and maturity seemed to have cured her of her earlier shyness. Or perhaps it was simply the power he could sense running through her veins that gave her a boost of self-confidence. He could feel the demon rattling in its cage, eager for a taste of her power.
“Remind me never to invite you on a reconnaissance mission again.”
Faith might have whispered the words to Willow, but his sensitive ears picked them up easily enough. He smiled reassuringly.
“Relax,” he told the two women. “Seriously. I’m not evil. I just thought that we could do a lot more here by fighting evil at its source. Wolfram and Hart is evil. I can’t deny that. But this branch—well, we’re trying to change things. It’s slow work, and it doesn’t always go the way we hope it will, but…we’re changing the rules. No more evil clients. No more dirty dealings. People are coming to realize that we won’t turn a blind eye to evil like our predecessors did—or even actively participate in it. Slowly, but surely, things are getting better.”
It was the pep talk that Angel gave to himself every time he wondered if he had made the right decision. And on Willow and Faith’s faces he saw some of the same skepticism he himself had felt during his tenure as CEO.
“So, the Senior Partners are just standing by and letting you subvert the evil empire they’ve worked so hard to create?” Willow’s question was a logical one, and Angel wasn’t sure how to answer it, without telling her more than he felt she had a right to know.
Whatever reply he would have come up with was unimportant, since Spike chose that moment to walk through the wall and into the middle of the room, complaining, as usual.
“Hey, Peaches, that secretary of yours is getting more annoying every day. Do you know she actually tried to keep me from going into your office? It’s not like…”
Spike stopped speaking the second he saw Willow, his mouth hanging open in surprise. He felt as if someone had sucked the air out of his dead chest, and suddenly he needed it again. “Willow.” The word was said on a sigh, and he knew he sounded like a ponce, but was completely unable to help himself.
She was beautiful. Just like he remembered her. Her hair was a little longer, and her face a little thinner, but otherwise she was…she was the girl he had died for.
“Willow,” he said again, watching as her face hardened suddenly in pain and anger.
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