Rating: R for heavy-duty romance stuff and some old-fashioned violence.
Disclaimer: I own Gwen/Gwyneth, Aidan, Mab (well, this incarnation of her, anyway), Sorscha, Auria, Gannon, and Dielo. Everyone and everything else is owned by God ... ahem, I mean Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.
Distribution: Knock yourself out. Just ask first, so I can peek. :)
Spoilers: Up to and including "The Body." I'm also going to toss in the whole Dawn-raising-Joyce thing from "Forever," not to mention the bit where Spike is absolutely adorable, sweet and unselfish, to the surprise of everyone else. However, let's just forget that after-sex convo between Xander and Anya, 'kay? (But wasn't that just the most romantic thing out of Anya? Aww ...*g*)
Feedback: Are you kidding? I love me some feedback. Why do you think I write fanfic? ;) (Well, mostly because it's fun, but feedback makes me feel all warm and squishy inside.)
Author's note: This is based on an idea I had when I somehow managed to watch Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn (where the title comes from), and Merlin all in the same day. Oh, and to the person who asked me a while back if I had Xander naked in every story I wrote ... apparently so. ;) Oh, and no worries, I'm still working on "Dry the Rain."

Never Run from Anything Immortal
Chapter One: Interlopers
by Troll Princess



The young women and men standing outside the small pub in London were positive they had seen a ghost. A pale, perfect female ghost.

She sped past them on foot, running as fast as her feet would carry her. Her long white hair whipped out behind her like a banner, tinged a faint purple in the moonlight. She was moving too fast to be human. No one seemed to notice.

"You all right, miss?" one young man called out, putting aside his beer and trying to block her way.

She dodged around him and kept going.

They watched her race past, a few of the men fixating on her slim body, and then waited patiently for the evil fiend they were sure was not far behind.

Any evil fiends in the area had obviously gone to sleep long ago, because the woman who rounded the corner couldn't possibly be the person the girl was running from.

The woman, whose dark auburn curls swirled around her head in a glossy halo, could have been a goddess. She walked like slowly, gracefully, examining the patrons of the bar like funny-colored insects. Her black silk dress pooled at her feet like molten onyx, shimmering in the light pouring from the front window of the bar.

And behind her, in the air, trailed a cloud of fireflies. Or at least, they looked like fireflies. They hummed. Fireflies did not hum.

She stood before the crowd in all of her glorious splendor, and in a voice that sounded vaguely like hot air escaping from a manhole, asked, "Have you seen a rather pale girl run past here?"

A burly bodybuilder-type stepped forward. "Why do you ask?" Ah, one of those blokes. Defensive to the last.

The man who'd tried to stop the girl stepped forward and asked with true concern, "Did you see what she was running from? She looked terrified."

The woman cocked a dark eyebrow and smiled. "Good enough."

The hum intensified momentarily, and a few of the bar's patrons ducked inside, suddenly afraid that the fireflies were really some bastardized breed of bees or wasps or whatever that glowed due to radiation exposure, or some other rot. The cloud moved closer, and it was only then that the patrons noticed that the fireflies looked rather like ... faeries?

The goddess waved a hand in the air and said, "Dispose of them."

And with that, she walked away, leaving her subjects to do their dirty work. After all, she certainly didn't want to see it.

When the pub was found not long after, there wasn't a single living soul on the premises. Or in the surrounding buildings, either.

After all, when Queen Mab wanted something, it was done, and it was done well.



Two months later -- Sunnydale, California

Willow. Such a perfect name for the girl.

He watched from the shadows outside her dorm, through the windows tinted rose from the interior light. From the ground, the view was awkward at best -- the auburn hair that glinted like tainted gold in the sunlight grew dark and shadowed after sunset, and was basically the only part of her he could see clearly. Occasionally, a hint of a light blue short sleeve or a fluffy pink robe invaded his vision, but mostly, it was that unmistakable red hair.

Beautiful. Just like her ancestor.

His dragon green eyes shimmered in the moonlight as he drifted from shadow to shadow, trying to get a better view of her. Gwen would have his head on a pike if she found out he was here, stalking the Fourth like a common mortal. But he couldn't resist.

She called to him like the scent of blood on a battlefield. Her mere existence in this realm was a beacon to him. The Hellmouth's darkness only served to amplify a beacon that would have been a simple annoyance otherwise.

Well, the Hellmouth, and her association with the Slayer.

Willow -- and the name rolled so well off the tongue, as well -- leaned out her open window for a moment that seemed to drag on forever. She inhaled deeply, absorbing the rich scents of the lilac bushes below and the fresh-cut grass on the campus grounds. He buried himself deeper in the shadows as she bent her head back, eyes closed, a sweet half-smile on her face, and whispered to the harvest moon above.

Just watching her made him wish he could reveal himself to her now.

Not that he could, of course. Lovely little prophecy and all, he had to resort to a felony. Well, sort of. He wasn't quite sure what stalking amounted to in the courts these days. His grasp of the American legal system was limited to when he'd had to defend himself against some bogus parking tickets.

Actually, Gwen had done most of the defending. And a great deal of the following browbeating and guilt-tripping. Apparently, he still owed her a winter wardrobe, whenever it was that they returned to a climate that even had a winter.

Willow moved away from the window, and he felt safe enough to wander out of the shadows that the trees in the quad afforded him. Whispers came from the girl's dorm room, two female voices speaking quietly and then laughing softly. He thought he heard clothing being removed.

And an instant later, the window abruptly slammed shut.

No one had been standing by it.

Aidan Blackwood frowned. Now, that ... that was something that caught him unawares. The Fourth should not be that strong already. Nowhere near that strong.

It was a fairly safe bet that this would not go over well with Gwen.



Gwen stared at him as if he had lobsters crawling out of his ears.

Aidan had heard the saying in some old Christmas movie, and when the occasion suited, it came to mind. This, unfortunately, was one of those times.

"You're joking."

It was all she said, and not even with the tinge of humor he had hoped for. Pity. He had hoped for a night without a loud, rambling rant to silently suffer through.

"Of course I am, love," he said as he shed his leather jacket and tossed it onto the nearest chair. "Tonight, for fun, I decided that I would tell you a very funny story about the Fourth and her deep involvement in witchcraft. I barely finished the story without a round of hysterical guffaws."

He plopped down in the blue wraparound in the corner, getting himself comfortable on the other end of the couch as Gwen struggled to regain her thoughts. Bloody hell, did he love this couch. And most of the other things about this particular flat, as well. They'd been looking for an apartment with four walls, a ceiling, and a floor, and had succeeded much better than they had in some larger cities.

Finally, after an agonizingly long moment during which Aidan was sure he was about to be verbally skewered, Gwen did what she always did when she wanted to refrain from a long-winded yapping session. She closed her eyes, took a deep, cleansing breath, and dragged both hands through her waist-length, white-blond hair from root to tip.

"Well, we knew she dabbled," she finally said.

"Of course."

"But strong enough to telekinetically close a window from across the room?" Gwen's lavendar eyes darkened as her annoyance grew. "Hell, most witches are lucky if they can get past lifting a pencil up in midair!"

And with that, she began to pace. Aidan groaned as he closed his eyes to the world ... or, more aptly, to the room he was in. Gwen pacing was never a good thing. With some people, it served as prime venting. With Gwen, it only got her dander up.

"She has had extensive practice, love," he said. "Living on the Hellmouth, hanging with a Slayer ... should be bloody lucky the Watcher files say she's only a level five."

She laughed at that, a disgusted snort he was all too familiar with that said, in not so many words, that she was surprised his mother had had any children who lived. "The Watcher files are a joke, Aidan. Ten pounds says she picked a number out of thin air just to shut them up."

"True," he said. She had a point, and looked as if she knew it. "Last time I spoke to 'em, they asked me for scale samples."

"What did you tell them?"

"That they could take their request and stick it in a few very uncomfortable places. Even made 'em a list."

Gwen quieted momentarily, then sat down beside him, staring thoughtfully at the opposite wall. "Why didn't I say that?"

"Because, love, if I'm guessing right, they asked for horn shavings, and you snuck into another room and gave them a bag of frozen white chocolate flakes that you dusted with silver glitter."

She squirmed and burrowed deeper into the couch. "It was mozzarella, actually," she muttered, then tried to change the subject. "What about the Third?"

"She went out bloodsucker hunting a few hours earlier. I lost her on Revello Drive."

"She lives on Revello Drive, moron."

Aidan frowned. She should know better than anyone that his kind did not do surveillance well. They barely managed sitting still for long periods of time, for crying out loud. "I was hungry. I needed a steak."

"So where is it?"

He smiled as he said, "I ate it in the car on the way over here." Her responding gag made his smile grow. He couldn't help it. He loved getting on her nerves. It was better than Disneyland. "So, when do we start this?"

"Tomorrow," Gwen said. "I'm sneaking into a poetry class with the Fourth."

"Poetry? You hate poetry."

"I hate reading it. Writing it's not so bad. Any moron these days can string a bunch of meaningless phrases together and call it art. I can pass. And as I pass, I prophecy." She smiled and spread her arms out wide like a game show hostess displaying a Winnebago. Of course, what she had on hand to display was infinitely better than a Winnebago.

She had the occasional prophetic vision on her side. He had the world's worst case of halitosis. When they'd been handing out things on the other side, he must have made a bloody wrong turn somewhere. It was unfair, it was.

Here they were, having to save their respective asses, and all they had to go on was her visions, his pyromania breath, and four innocent mortals who had no clue what they were about to get involved in.

Gwen recognized the look on Aidan's face, the sadness, the unfairness of it all reflected in those odd green eyes of his. Immediately, her hand slid across the couch to grab his, and their fingers intertwined, until the only way to tell them apart was the paleness of her skin against the golden brown of his.

"How can you be sure this will work?" he asked softly.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead, then bent down until their foreheads rested against one other. "It has to, love. It's the only chance we have left for survival, isn't it?"

He nodded gently. She was right. If they screwed this up, they'd be dead, good and proper.

And so would the Four.