Willow sighed happily and stretched in her bed before she opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling. For some reason it seemed higher, and clearer than usual. Willow shrugged to herself and sat up to stare straight into Cordelia's face. She yelped in surprise and grabbed her sheet up over her chest.
"I have seen your bare chest before." Cordelia informed her with an amused smirk on her face. "Are you ever gonna get up? Gunn's trying to set up a pool as to how long you'll sleep and Fred's busy working out exactly how well rested you'll be when you get up. Either that or she's trying to figure out how wormholes work again, and you know how that turned out last time!" Cordelia rolled her eyes and moved away from the foot of the bed to pick up some scattered clothing. "Jeez, I'd have thought that someone who's as anal retentive as you could put their clothes away at night."
"I felt weird last night." Willow defended herself, trying hard to remember exactly how she'd come to be in LA. The last thing she could remember was heading to bed, back in Sunnydale, and falling asleep with a headrush from running up the stairs too quickly. Willow considered mentioning her lack of memory to Cordelia but dismissed the notion, sure that it would come back soon and not wanting to make a fuss.
"So you're getting up?" Cordelia asked, wanting to make sure.
"Just gimme a minute to get dressed and I'll be down." Willow told her.
Cordelia nodded and headed for the door.
Willow waited until she couldn't hear Cordelia's footsteps any more, which seemed an incredibly long time, and jumped out of bed. She threw some clothes on, without really paying any attention, as she attempted to piece her memory back together and started to make her way down to the hotel lobby. It was only when she came within earshot of the group gathered in the hallway that she became aware that she was incredibly hungry, and she diverted her steps to the hotel kitchen.
It was there that Gunn found her two hours later, the evidence of a feast strewn everywhere.
"Holy crap, what happened!" He exclaimed.
Willow looked up from the bowl of waffle mix she was frantically beating and almost burst into frustrated tears there and then. "I'm so hungry!" she wailed.
"Huh?" Gunn was wearing a blank look that reminded Willow of Xander on his face.
"I keep eating, but I'm still hungry." Willow explained, beating harder.
"Right." Gunn stuck his head back through the kitchen door and bellowed. "Cordelia! Wesley? Guys, I found him!"
Willow winced. "Did you have to shout so loud?" she asked petulantly, putting down the bowl and advancing on the swiftly retreating Gunn.
As she got closer, she began to realise that she could hear her heart beating and attributed it to her hunger pangs. It was strange though, surely if she was hungry, her heart would be beating slower, rather than pounding away like a jackhammer.
Gunn finally managed to back himself into a corner and Willow reached past him to yank open a refrigerator she hadn't tried yet. To her surprise, she found it full of blood and realised that she must have stumbled across Angel's supplies. Shutting the door, she crossed back over to the other, now empty, refrigerator.
"There has got to be something to eat in this place!" she exclaimed, incredulous that after everything she had eaten she was still hungry. "Gunn!" She whirled back around to face him. "Have you got anything to eat on you?"
Gunn started and began to say something but seemed to decide against it as Cordelia burst through the door.
"What are you doing!" she exclaimed, her eyes taking in the sight of the wrecked kitchen.
"I'm so hungry and I kept eating and eating but I'm still hungry." Willow wailed.
Cordelia and Gunn exchanged a look loaded with meaning.
"Get Wesley." Cordelia instructed Gunn.
Gunn nodded abruptly and left the room with a look of absolute relief.
"Sit down." Cordelia instructed and Willow found herself obeying. Cordelia tossed a pack of blood into the microwave and set it on defrost. When the machine beeped, she poured the blood into a mug and set it in front of Willow. "Eat." She commanded.
Willow looked at the blood, revolted beyond belief that that Cordelia actually expected her to eat it. She started to push it away, but then the smell wafted up to her and teased her tastebuds. Despite her disgust, Willow found that she actually wanted to drink it. She battled with herself for a while, but then her overwhelming hunger got the better of her and she quickly downed it. To her intense surprise, it tasted better than she would have thought. Trying not to think about the fact that she had just drunk blood and liked it, she walked to the sink and washed the mug up, her hunger pangs appeased.
"Better?" Cordelia asked from her perch on one of the kitchen tables.
Willow nodded, her gaze on the floor.
"Angel, what's going on? What aren't you telling us?" Cordelia asked.
Willow looked up and looked around the cluttered kitchen, looking for Angel. "Huh?" she asked, when she couldn't see the gentle vampire.
"You see what I mean?" Cordelia walked over to Willow and placed her hand on Willow's forehead. "Are you sick? Under a spell? Whatever it is, you can tell us Angel."
Willow looked down at the brunette seer, registering for the first time that she was now taller than her old school nemesis.
Realisation came swiftly. "Cordy, I'm not Angel, I'm Willow!" she gasped and, not for the first time in her life, wished she could faint. She rushed out of the kitchen and into the nearest bathroom.
"Where am I?" she asked, searching for her reflection.
Around the same time that Willow was realising that she was trapped inside Angel's body, a very bewildered Angel was explaining to a sceptical Buffy that no, he wasn't Willow, he was Angel.
It took Angel some time to convince Buffy that he was actually Angel, and that he had no idea if Willow had done a spell which had gone wrong. After he had her convinced, he impressed upon the Slayer his need to call home and see what was going on there.
The phone rang and rang before the answer machine kicked in.
"Guys? It's Angel. You're probably not going to believe this, but I'm trapped inside Willow. Call me as soon as you get this message. I'm at Buffy's." Angel hung up the phone and it rang almost straight away. Hoping that it was the others, he picked up the phone straight away. "Hello?"
"Willow?" a male voice asked. "Is Buffy there?"
"Who's calling?" Angel asked, not wanting to hand the phone over to Buffy if there was a stranger on the line he could get rid of.
"Will, it's me, Xander. Are you okay?"
Angel mentally sighed. "I'm fine Xander. Buffy's right here, I'll put her on."
Rather than listen to Buffy explain the situation to Xander, Angel wandered into the living room where Dawn was watching cartoons.
"Hey," Dawn greeted him. "Want to watch cartoons with me?"
Angel considered the teenager in front of him. She looked hopeful, yet wary. As if she wasn't used to having much attention paid to her. She reminded him a lot of Willow back when he had first met her.
"Sure," he found himself saying and sat down next to her. "So how come you're not in school?" he asked.
"It's Saturday." Dawn explained.
Angel felt foolish. "Oh."
They sat in companionable silence until the cartoon had ended and then Dawn turned to him.
"So, you're actually Angel." she asked.
"Yep."
Dawn accepted this with a shrug. "Do you think that you could help me with my history homework?" she asked. "Only it's all about the world wars and we're supposed to interview someone who was there and you were there so I was thinking as you're here..." she trailed off, her expression once again bright and hopeful.
Angel thought back to his years in war torn England and then cast a longing look outside where the sun shone brightly. Then he looked back at Dawn and was once again stricken by her resemblance to a younger Willow.
"No problem." he agreed.
"Great!" the smile that Dawn bestowed on him was dazzling to say the least. "I'll get my stuff." Dawn got up and headed for the stairs.
"Dawn." Angel stopped her in her tracks.
"Yeah?" "Do you think that we could do your homework outside?" Angel asked her, "Only..." he looked out of the window again.
"Sure." Dawn smiled again.