FanFiction Archive

Those Fateful Words

"You can come with us, Angel."

Those were the first words she ever spoke to me. The day the Slayer and her friends closed the Hellmouth. Those fateful words...

I knew from the moment I saw her that I would have her. No, I take that back, I knew that my demon would want her the first moment I saw her. That sap Angel was attracted to the heroine of the piece, but I knew that Willow was the one I wanted. I read in her face that her heart wanted Xander, but I was determined to make her brain want me. Not that I'd turn her insane like I did my Dru; I 'm not prepared to risk losing Red to someone like Spike.

If the truth be told, it's me who's lost my mind, not vice versa. Her flaming locks... they, they do something to me. Something I know Angel never felt with Buffy. Maybe he thought he did, but knowing what I know now, that just wasn't possible. Sure he lost his soul, but I'd bet anything that was more to do with the fact that it had been 'two hundred and change' years, as the Slayer would say, since he got his rocks off with a girl.

The night after Buffy sent the Master back to Hell, I sat and watched in my slightly-less-than-human body as Willow flirted with Xander at the Bronze, feeling her inner sadness that he couldn't look at her as anything other than a best buddy pulling at my heart-strings.

At the end of the night, the good side of me offered to Walk Buffy Home, whilst the bad side of me so wanted to be doing even badder things to Willow. Angel won out, though - as he always did before... but I'll get to that.

Anyway... on to the good stuff! Once I'd made sure Buffy was home safe, I headed on over to the Rosenberg residence. It wasn't all that hard to find out where Willow lived - that time Buffy accused me of having read her diary but I'd told her that her mother had moved it when she'd been cleaning...? I lied.

Once I'd arrived at chez Rosenberg, I lurked in the shadows, working out where her room was.

And then I saw her.

Sitting at the window, brushing her long red hair, seemingly not a care in the world. How would she feel if she knew a monster was watching her...? I waited for her to move away from the window, before edging nearer to the house.

I climbed up the trellis at the front of her house, hanging on with my feet as I edged her window up as silently as I could. Then, well I would say holding my breath if I had any to hold, I made a leap of faith off the trellis and onto the sill, slipping my feet through the small gap I'd managed to open and easing the window up the rest of the way.

I wasn't meaning to wake her up - I was just going to leave her a drawing, but a twig or something must have hit the window, and Willow stirred in her sleep. Then, out of nothing, it was as if someone had suddenly switched a light on in her mind, and she woke up with a start.

"Angel...?"

"Hey Red," I said softly, my voice coming out of the shadows.

"What are you doing here at this time of night? I thought you'd be with Buffy..." she trailed off, looking worried as she got out of bed.

"I'll tell you, but you need to invite me in first..."

"Oh... okay," she said as she opened the window. "You can come in..."

I didn't mean for her to see me in game face, but the open window blew the curtain in, bathing us both in the soft glow of moonlight. She shrank back, but I was too quick for her, and caught one of her hands in both of mine, pulling her closer to me.

"Don't be frightened, Willow. I know I might look frightening, but the last thing I want to do is hurt you." I took one of her hands in mine, and lifted it up to my face, feeling her flinch as her fingertips skated over my vampire features. "Truth is, my body wants Buffy, but my heart and mind want you."

I heard her take a sharp intake of breath, and caught a fleeting sniff of her scent on the breeze - maybe she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

"Angel, I do like you, but this can't ever..."

"Don't say that. It can. Buffy doesn't need to know... it's not like it's a good thing for Buffy and I to be together - but you and I... that's different. You're not the Slayer."

"I know that, but..."

"But what...?"

"I don't know... I guess I just never thought about you like that, you know I don't want to hurt Buffy."

I squeezed her hand, trying to be reassuring. "I know you don't want to hear this but I need you, Willow. Will you at least give me a chance to prove how I feel?"

"Umm... I guess..." the redhead hesitated, shuffling over in her bed to allow me more room.

I slid my shoes off, placing them gently on the floor underneath the bed, before inviting Willow to rest her head on my chest. She hesitated at first, before relaxing into my arms.

"Feel good?"

"Mm-hmm..." she replied sleepily.

"What ya thinkin'?"

"Just that I never imagined myself in this situation with you. Xander, yeah... millions of times. But never you. You're Buffy's."

"Correction. Angel is Buffy's. I'm not Angel." My demon growled at having to mention his alter ego. See, I told you she did something to me... I could flit between souled and unsouled at a moment's notice.

"Hey Angel... us! Slow down a minute, I'm confused here!"

"I'm sorry. I just... it's difficult for me to handle this, and I know it is for you as well." I sighed, allowing my human persona to regain control.

~

A few minutes passed, and Willow began to feel more comfortable around Angel/Angelus, whoever he was... she was actually growing 'used to', if that was the right phrase, the vampire's fixation with her. She still wondered why her and not Buffy, but figured all that would be explained to her in good time.

"Angel and Angelus... they're two different people, but they're both me. Giles was right : I am an evil monster, when I lose my soul."

"Lose your s...?" Willow couldn't quite believe what she was hearing.

"The reason I haven't killed since I came to America is because I had a curse placed on me by a Romany gypsy clan. I killed a favourite daughter of theirs, and in payment for that I have to live each day with the faces of those I killed right there in my head. Every... single... day."

Willow gasped, reaching out to Angel. "That must be so hard," she whispered.

"That's not all," Angel continued. "The curse makes it so that if I ever experience true happiness, I'll lose my soul."

"So that's why you and Buffy haven't..."

"Yeah. No reason why I couldn't be with anyone else though : anyone who's not my soulmate."

"Oh, that's... oh!" Willow's face reddened.

"Now you're getting it!" he said, with a twinkle in his eye that made Willow's heart skip a beat.

"So, what I still don't get is why me? Why one of Buffy's closest friends?"

"It just happened that way. I can't explain it to myself, never mind anyone else."

"How long...?"

"Since Buffy killed the Master. You were so brave that night. I don't know if my sister could have acted the way you did."

Willow smiled up at Angel, before a look of realisation dawned on her face. "Oh! You were attracted to me because I was..."

"A fertile woman of child-bearing age. And you still are." A wide grin spread across the vampire's face.

Changing the subject rapidly, Willow said, "You have a sister?"

"Had, Willow, had a sister. She'd be long dead by now even if I hadn't killed her."

Willow giggled nervously. "Oh yeah, kinda forgot that one... you're about 240 years old, aren't you?" Suddenly she stopped and the tone of her voice changed to one of disbelief. "Killed her?"

"Little Kathy. I was her big brother Liam. I killed her along with the rest of my family."

"So... before, um, when you were still human, your name was Liam? Pretty name."

"It's Irish."

"Angel. If you want to tell me... if you think it'll help, I'd like to know about your past."

"I did some pretty awful stuff, Red. Like I said, I killed my family. I drained my father and sister, which broke my mother's heart. I may not have got on that well with them, but I do regret that. I met this girl once. Darla, her name was. I didn't know until it was too late, but she was a vampire."

"Darla..." Willow frowned, pensive. "That was the vampire you killed before Buffy staked the Master?"

Angel nodded.

"S-so... she made you what you are?"

The vampire nodded again. "Sired, is the technical term. Way back in 1753."

Willow's mouth gaped. "That means you're two hundred and forty four years old?!"

"Older than that, if you count my years as a human, before I was turned."

"Did you have any... friends, when you were turned?"

Angel exhaled heavily. "Well, there was Darla. She was my sire, so of course I had a bond with her. There were two other vampires as well, Drusilla, my childe, and Spike, who was hers."

"Childe?"

"Yes. I sired Drusilla, and she sired Spike." Willow stifled a yawn, looking uncomfortable. "I should go," Angel said.

"No!" she gasped. "Stay... please. I... I like being here with you. In a weird kind of way, you make me feel safe."

"Even though my demon... no, I don't want you to think of that..."

"Angel, look at me." she said. "I trust you. I know that if you even get close to letting your demon out, you're going to be able to control it, like you've already shown me you can."

She looked at me then, with such an expression of love and complete and utter trust. It breaks my heart to know what I did to her. It was bad enough that I abused her trust in me, but I had to see if what I believed that Xander felt was true.

~

I can't explain what attracted me to Angel... apart from the obvious things, of course; all I know is that he made me feel safe. How wrong could I have been? I trusted him, and he ripped my soul in two. He took the only guy I've ever loved away from me; and I'll never forgive him that.

Xander and I... we were soulmates. Or, to use the literal translation of the Gaelic phrase anam chara, we were soul friends. We'd grown up together, even "dated", if you could call it that, in kindergarten. We broke up when we were five because he stole my Barbie doll.

We meant everything to each other; which explains why I was so hurt when he started dating Cordelia. How could he even think of kissing someone who'd made his life hell, never mind actually doing it?

Maybe that's why Angelus turned him. He thought he was doing the right thing by me, making Xander pay for his crimes. He wasn't, but that wasn't the only cold, calculating thing my vampiric lover did. He also talked his way into my bed on that crucial weekend one month. If I'd have done my research, I'd have known that that was the last thing I should have let him do. You see, if a vampire tastes a woman's blood from... well, down there, he becomes obsessed with her. And also, if he feeds from her the next time they have sex - then the obsession becomes mutual.

So, there you have it. Not only was he obsessed with me, and I with him, but he also made me make the most horrible choice I've ever had to make - did I want Xander dead, or undead. Naturally, I had no choice. I wanted my friend with me, as well as my lover. I made the ultimate sacrifice - the life of my best friend, and my own life, for the happiness of myself and my lover. I told Angelus that he could make Xander a vampire - if he made me one too.

TBC...

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