Disclaimer: Angel and his respective adversaries belong to Joss Whedon and Co., and all of 'Charmed' belongs to Constance M. Burge; I'm just using them for the moment
Feedback: I'd like that, believe me
Sent to the Witch
An hour or so later, Paige and Leo were sitting in a hospital room, looking anxiously at Piper as she lay on the hospital bed, the machine beside her beeping regularly the only sign that she was even still alive.
As soon as Leo had arrived, he'd wanted to heal the injury on Piper's neck from where Angel had attacked her, but Paige had been forced to stop him; she wasn't sure whether or not their Whitelighter abilities could restore the blood Piper had lost, but she'd prefer that Leo just healed the worst of the injuries and get Piper to a hospital rather than heal the wounds completely and have to come up with another explanation as to why a healthy woman needed a blood transfusion when they learned that the blood was still gone. Piper had been given a blood transfusion once they'd had time to explain the situation, and her condition appeared stable, but that still didn't seem to comfort her distraught half-sister.
"Damnit…" Paige muttered to herself, after nearly ten minutes of silence since they had been allowed into the room. "How could I have let this happen?"
"Paige…" Leo said, reaching over to place a hand on her shoulder, "it wasn't your fault-"
"Then whose was it?" Paige asked, looking harshly at him. "I was the one who invited him in, Leo. I was the one who trusted him. I was the one who didn't bother trying to find out if there was some way we could keep him out…"
She sighed and stared back at her sister, clenching her fists resolutely as she stood up. "That's it; he's going down."
"Uh… Paige?" Leo said, looking at his sister-in-law nervously. "I really don't think-"
"DON'T," Paige said, looking harshly at Leo. "This is my mess; it's time I cleaned up the trash. Don't talk me out of it, OK? I'll call you if I need you."
As his sister-in-law orbed out, leaving him standing alone in the room, Leo swallowed nervously and could only pray that Paige knew what she was doing…
In a distant apartment, the only sources of modern comfort the single lightbulb and the fridge containing packets of blood, Angel sat slumped in a chair, an empty bag of blood in his hand, staring blankly ahead at nothing, trying to tune out the taunting voice of his sire as she walked around him.
"She'll be hunting you soon," Darla said teasingly, running her fingers along Angel's left arm seductively as she walked past him, before leaning over to say her next sentence in his ear. "She wants to kill you…"
"Leave me alone," Angel grunted, holding up one hand in a half-hearted gesture to ward Darla away. He just wanted to be alone right now…
"What did you think?" Darla asked, walking around in front of Angel to look at him critically. "Did you think she would understand? That she would look at your face... your true face... and give you a kiss?"
Angel just turned his head; he knew what his sire was trying to do, and he wasn't going to rise to the bait.
Unfortunately, Darla wasn't willing to let him off that easily.
"For a hundred years you've not had a moment's peace because you will not accept who you are," she said, as she walked towards him with a harsh glare in her eyes. "That's all you have to do. Accept it. Don't let her hunt you down. Don't whimper and mewl like a mangy human. Kill! Feed! Live!"
And that was it; Angel had been pushed to his limit. Jumping up, Angel grabbed Darla by the throat and thrust her against the wall, grabbing both her arms with his available hand and pinning them above her head as he glared at her.
"Alright!" he roared at her in frustration. "You win! I want it finished!"
Then he dropped her to the ground, turned around to the door of the apartment, and stormed out, leaving Darla smiling after him.
"That's good," she said, calling after him. "You hurt me."
She chuckled slightly. "That's good, too."
She just hoped that he would go as far as she hoped he would…
Standing in the middle of P3 (Fortunately closed for the night; Paige had made up some cock-and-bull story about a drainage problem that she was getting checked over to get everyone cleared out when she'd arrived), a sharpened stake clutched tightly in one hand, Paige stared around her, her fingers flexing slightly as she held the stake in her hand.
She wasn't sure if this was where Angel had hidden himself, but she knew that the odds of him being here were good; if he wanted to kill them, she was the only one in a fixed location that he could reach. Piper wasn't an option- the hospital was too well-protected, and Leo could probably get her out of harm's way if the need arose- and Phoebe was with Cole, who could probably fry Angel with an energy ball before he even got close to her sister.
That left her for him to hunt, and this was the most likely location for her to look for him.
"I know you're there," Paige said, deciding she might as well test her theory. "And I know what you are."
"Do you?" a voice said from behind her, and Paige tensed up.
He was here…
This was it.
Kill or be killed.
Swallowing, she turned to face his voice as Angel stepped out of the shadows of the club, his fangs bared and his forehead and face the inhuman mask of the vampire.
Apparently nonchalant at the stake in her hand, Angel just glared at her and shrugged slightly. "I'm just an animal, right?"
"You're not an animal," Paige said, shaking her head as she raised the stake slightly. "Animals I like."
Looking back at her, Angel just growled and tensed slightly, as though waiting for a signal to move.
"Let's get it done!" he roared at her, as he leapt onto a nearby table and jumped up towards the ceiling before Paige could even open her mouth to orb a chair into his path. Even as Paige tried to turn around to look for him, he'd jumped down behind her and kicked her once in the back, sending her flying into a table.
Remembering a trick she'd seen in a movie once, Paige lunged out behind her with her left leg, smiling as she felt it connect with Angel. She may not have superhuman strength, but she still was no slouch in the physical department; besides, his surprise at her ability to strike back couldn't have failed to be an asset. Grabbing the stake from where it had fallen (She'd released her grip on reflex after Angel hit her) she spun around again to face him, looking him in the eye as he staggered to his feet and growled at her.
The message was clear.
First one to move would lose.
Eventually, Angel broke the silence that had descended on the two of them, looking at Paige with an exasperated expression.
"C'mon!" the vampire yelled at Paige in frustration. "Don't go soft on me now!"
Nodding resolutely, Paige thrust the stake towards Angel…
And it hit the wall next to him, at least a foot and a half away from his chest.
Looking at the stake, Angel smiled slightly as he glanced back at Paige. "Little wide," he said simply.
Swallowing nervously as Angel looked back at her, Paige decided she might as well take advantage of this momentary lapse in the fighting to find out the one thing she really wanted to know.
"Why?" she asked Angel, trying to conceal the pain she felt as she looked at him. "Why didn't you just attack me when you had the chance? Was it a joke? To make me feel for you and then..."
She stopped herself; she couldn't go there. Instead, she turned back to glare at Angel, hate flaring in her eyes.
"I've killed a lot of demons," she told him bluntly. "I've never hated one before."
"Feels good, doesn't it?" Angel asked, shrugging as he looked back at her. "Feels simple."
Paige almost couldn't believe how… casual he was being about this.
"I invited you into my home and then you attacked my family!" she yelled at him.
"Why not?" Angel said, shrugging in an apparently offhand manner. "I killed mine."
Oh God… Paige thought to herself, stepping back slightly despite herself. She knew she should have expected it, but to hear it from his own lips…
"I killed their friends... and their friend's children..." Angel continued, as he stared at Paige. "For a hundred years I offered ugly death to everyone I met, and I did it with a song in my heart."
"What changed?" Paige asked, trying to stay calm. Maybe it was a foolish hope, but she wanted to know exactly what had prompted Angel's change of heart all those years ago…
Angel just shrugged casually as he looked at Paige. "Fed on a girl about your age," he said, as though it was no big deal. "Beautiful... dumb as a post... but a favourite among her clan."
"Her clan?" Paige said, growing more and more confused by the minute.
"Romany," Angel explained, looking at Paige as he continued to talk. "Gypsies. The elders conjured the perfect punishment for me. They restored my soul."
Paige blinked in surprise.
"That's it?" she asked, looking at Angel as though trying to figure out if there was something else she should know about. "What, they were all out of boils and blinding torment?"
Angel shook his head. "When you become a vampire, the demon takes your body, but it doesn't get your soul," he explained. "That's gone. No conscience, no remorse... It's an easy way to live."
Paige nodded thoughtfully as she listened. She had to admit, it did tie in with what Cole had told her and the others about Angel's kind of vampire, but what did the soul have to do with it?
Then she realised.
It meant that, now that he had his soul back, he could care about what he'd done…
"You have no idea what it's like to have done the things I've done... and to care," Angel explained, confirming her earlier theory. "All the memories, plaguing me no matter how hard I try to forget them… the faces of the lives I ruined or destroyed… I haven't fed on a living human being since that day."
"So you started with Piper?" Paige asked, trying to get herself back on topic.
Angel just shook his head. "I didn't bite her."
"Then why didn't you say something?" Paige retaliated, trying not to show how relieved she was to learn that…
"I wanted to," Angel explained simply. He didn't need to elaborate; Paige could guess what he meant.
Just because the soul was there now didn't mean the demon had gone…
"I can walk like a man, but I'm not one," Angel continued, sighing as he looked back at Paige. "A part of me wanted to kill you tonight.
Paige looked at her stake briefly, and then back at Angel. Putting the stake down on the floor, she walked towards him and tilted her head to one side, letting her hair fall to one side to reveal her neck.
"Go ahead," she said casually. She knew this was a risk, but she was prepared; if he did try anything, she could just orb out as soon as he grabbed her…
But Angel did nothing; he just looked at her in silence.
Smiling slightly at her theory being proved correct, Paige stepped back and looked at Angel.
"Not as easy as it looks," she told him simply.
"Sure it is!" a third voice said.
Spinning around, Paige found herself staring at a blonde woman in a blue top and black leather pants, smiling at her with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
"Aw crap…" Paige muttered under her breath, already knowing this chick was bad news.
In the hospital, as Leo stared at his still-unconscious wife, Phoebe and Cole still out on a search, he had never been more relieved to see Piper's eyes twitch open than he was now.
"Ugh…" she groaned, blinking her eyes rapidly as though to clear them as she stared at her husband. "Leo?"
"Piper!" Leo cried in relief, reaching over and grabbing her in his arms; he had never been more relieved than he was then that the only thing Piper was linked up to was a heart-rate monitor.
"Uh… last time I checked," Piper said, smiling at her husband weakly as he pulled back from her. "What happened to me?"
Leo swallowed slightly at that part; this was the bit he wasn't looking forward to. On the one hand, he didn't want to risk Paige having any more trouble to deal with…
But, on the other hand, Piper deserved the truth.
"You… you were attacked by Angel," Leo said, already wishing he wasn't in this position. "Phoebe, Cole, and Paige are out looking for him, but-"
"Angel?" Piper asked, looking at Leo in confusion. "It wasn't Angel; it was some woman called Darla."
Leo's eyes widened in horror.
"Darla!" he asked, staring at Piper, shock and fear etched on his face. "You're sure?"
"Uh… yeah," Piper said, looking at Leo in confusion. "Is that bad?"
"That's one way of putting it," Leo replied, as he quickly went over what he could do next. If he moved fast, he might be able to reach Paige and let her know about this new factor, but quite frankly he'd prefer to have a bit of back-up before going into a battle situation to try and stop Paige from killing a vampire who had apparently not done what they thought he'd done…
OK, so he was still a vampire; Leo would just prefer not to attack him until he actually tried to do something to them for real.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," he said to his wife, leaning over and giving her a brief kiss on the forehead before orbing out.
In the darkness of P3, Darla and Paige were facing each other with a resolute expression on their faces, each one waiting for the other to make the first move as Angel stood on the sidelines, the demon and the soul within him each clamouring for him to help the person the other side wanted dead.
"Do you know what the saddest thing in the world is?" Darla asked after a few moments, breaking the silence that had descended on the club upon her arrival.
"Bad hair on top of that outfit?" Paige retorted, indicating Darla's blue top and black trousers.
Darla chuckled slightly at that comment, but it was a dry, humourless laugh. "To love someone who used to love you."
Paige's eyes widened slightly in surprise as she glanced between Angel and Darla, realisation dawning in her eyes. "You guys were involved?"
"For several generations," Darla retorted, glaring at Paige as though to say Beat that.
To her credit, Paige didn't appear bothered; she just glanced over at Angel and shrugged nonchalantly.
"Well, what with you having been around since Columbus, you are bound to pile up a few ex's," she said casually, as she looked back at Darla. "You're older than him, right? Just a bit of advice; you should consider more make-up. You are looking a little worn around the eyes."
Darla didn't even seem to hear the taunt; she just smiled as she looked back at Paige.
"I made him," she told the young witch bluntly, as she turned to look at Angel once again. "There was a time when we shared everything, wasn't there Angelus? You had a chance to come home, to rule with me alongside the Source for a thousand years, but you threw that away because of her?" she asked indicating Paige in anger. "You love someone who hates us."
Paige's eyes widened at that comment.
Angel loved her…?
Then she shook her head and turned her attention back to the current confrontation; Darla was still talking, and she knew better now than to underestimate this woman, to matter how much of a basket case she was.
"You're sick," Darla informed Angel, who just stared back at her; either he wasn't paying attention to her ranting, or he just didn't care. "And you'll always be sick. And you'll always remember what it was like to watch her die."
Aw crap… Paige thought to herself, as Darla turned back to look at her with a smile on her face.
"You don't think I came alone, do you?" the vampiress asked Paige, raising an eyebrow.
"I know I didn't." Paige retorted, as she raised the hand with the stake in it and raised it behind her head, as though preparing to throw it at Darla.
"Hmm… scary," Darla said casually as she looked at the stake in the witch's hand. Then, to Paige's shock, she reached behind her back and pulled out two old-fashioned Colt pistols, one in each hand; Paige had somehow never thought of demons using guns.
"Scarier!" the vampiress added, smiling wickedly at Paige before she spun around to fire a few bullets at Angel, sending him staggering back into a nearby wall.
Glancing over at Paige, Darla giggled at the brief expression of fear that had appeared on the witch's face.
"Oh, don't worry," she said, in a tone of such blatantly false concern that it wouldn't have fooled a two-year-old. "Bullets can't kill vampires. Can hurt them like hell, but..."
Paige wasn't interested in learning any more; she quickly orbed, Darla shooting at her even as she vanished. Reappearing behind a fallen table, Paige could only take cover behind it, praying desperately that someone would find her soon…
"So, wait a minute; you're telling me Darla attacked Piper?" Cole asked Leo as they stood outside P3; Leo had quickly found Phoebe and Cole, but hadn't bothered to explain the situation to them before he'd orbed them to close to Paige's current location, leaving him little time to explain his latest discovery.
"But does that really matter?" Phoebe asked, looking at Leo in confusion. "I mean, Angel's still who you thought he was; shouldn't we-"
"The fact that Darla was the one who attacked Piper is enough to make me reconsider," Leo explained, as he glanced over at Phoebe critically. "After Cole, I would have thought-"
A loud bang was heard from inside the club, and the three of them looked at each other in sudden panic.
"Did you just hear...?" Phoebe asked nervously.
Leo nodded.
"Gunshot," he said simply, as Cole and Phoebe grabbed his arms as he began to orb.
"So many body parts, so few bullets," Darla tutted to herself, her guns raised as she stared at the table that Paige was using as a shield. "Let's begin with the kneecaps. No fun dancing without them."
Squeezing the triggers, Darla launched off a few more rounds, Paige wincing as she heard the pool table take a few hits; she was going to have to pay for that in the morning.
Of course, the way things were going, it would be a miracle if she even saw the morning…
Then again, Paige thought to herself, staring at a stake lying on the ground where she'd dropped it earlier in her dive for shelter, maybe there's another way…
She didn't even stop to think; standing up, Paige yelled out "Stake!", watched as the stake turned into blue-white orbs, and hurled the orbs in Darla's direction, the stake reappearing just as it struck the female vampire in the abdomen.
YES! Paige thought, clenching a fist to punch the air in relief…
Only to stop as, much to her shock, Darla straightened back up once again, apparently unharmed from the stake in her gut.
"Close," Darla said, smiling as she glanced at the witch, "but no heart."
Grabbing the stake in both hands, Darla yanked it out of her body and tossed it aside.
The game is on…
At the back of the club (Leo had orbed them into a back room to avoid attracting attention) Leo, Cole and Phoebe had dived out of the back door while Darla's attention was occupied with Paige, and were crawling along the floor.
"We need to distract her, fast!" Cole hissed over at Leo and Phoebe. "I can't get off an energy ball in time at this distance; she'd shoot me before I'd even prepared a decent blast!"
"Right," Phoebe nodded, as she raised her head above the chairs to make her voice clearer.
"Paige!" she called out to her sister, praying she could get her point across before the blonde madwoman turned her guns on them, "it wasn't Angel who attacked Piper! It was Darla!"
Turning towards the voice, Darla let loose with a hail of bullets, forcing the three new arrivals to lunge to the floor for cover. Turning her attention back on Paige, Darla hopped up onto the pool table. Paige jumped up, grabbed the edge of the table and pulled, knocking Darla onto her back. Pushing the table away, Paige started to run for cover, even as Darla fired off a few rounds even lying on her back after being knocked off the table. Paige leapt for cover over another table in a dive roll as bullets practically surrounded her.
Standing up, Darla scanned the club for Paige, apparently unconcerned about the others; then again, right now not even Leo, Phoebe or Cole were really sure where anyone was in relation to them, and nobody was very keen on looking up and getting a faceful of lead. Even Cole's demonic healing powers might not be a match for vampire reflexes, and he was far from eager to find out how he'd last if he was shot in a fight.
"C'mon, Paige," the vampire said, looking at the half-Whitelighter's current hiding place with a wicked gleam in her eye. "Take it like a man!"
Then, before she could even hear him, Angel came up behind her and, a resolved expression on his face, plunged a leg from a broken table into her back. She is surprised and cries out in pain. She turns to look at her attacker.
"Angel?" Darla gasped weakly, as she saw her former favourite childe standing there, staring at her with a grim expression as her face and body collapsed into ashes, ending four hundred years of terror in a matter of moments.
Rising up from the floor to look at the sight before her, Paige could only stare at Angel as he glanced up at her, a blank expression on his face as their eyes locked. Then, after a moment's pause, he turned and walked out of the club, leaving Paige, Phoebe, Leo and Cole staring after him in surprise.
Eventually, Cole broke the silence, glancing down at Darla's ashes and looking around at his friends curiously.
"Anyone got a dust-pan?" he asked, smiling weakly in acknowledged of how poor the joke was.
The next night, the three Halliwells were sitting in their usual area of P3, sipping their drinks as they glanced around the club; Leo and Cole had taken temporary charge of the bar due to the normal barman being off sick, as well as giving Piper a chance to talk to her sisters. A few parts of the club still showed signs of the damage that had been done in their little fight with Darla at the end, and Piper's neck still itched where the vampiress had bitten her, but she was already almost completely recovered. The hospital had only checked her out a few hours ago, but that was mainly to make sure she didn't suffer a relapse all of a sudden.
"So… he was cursed?" Piper asked, looking at Paige curiously as she sipped at her drink. "With a soul?"
"Yeah…" Paige said, sighing as she sat back and stared up at the ceiling. "And the memory of everything he did when he didn't have one. Always blaming himself for over a hundred and fifty years worth of death and destruction… Yikes."
She sighed again.
"Miss him?" Phoebe asked, raising an eyebrow inquiringly. "I mean, I know you tried to kill him and all, but he gets that you're sorry for it, right?"
"Yeah, I think so…" Paige said, nodding thoughtfully as she sighed again. "I just wish I could apologise, you know?"
"Well, you've got your chance," Phoebe said, indicating a position behind Paige. "He's standing right over there."
Glancing around, Paige's eyes widened as she saw Angel standing at the door of the club, looking at her with his usual blank expression.
"Hi," she said to him, wishing it didn't sound so weak.
"Hi," he replied back, before indicating Piper and Phoebe with a jerk of his head. "I just wanted to see if you were okay. And your sisters."
"We're all good," Paige assured him, before looking at Angel inquiringly. "You?"
"If I can go a little while without getting shot or stabbed, I'll be alright," Angel said casually, before he looked at Paige with a more serious expression. "Look, this can't..."
"...ever be anything?" Paige asked, raising a critical eyebrow at Angel. "Why; because you're around two hundred and twenty years older than I am? Angel, my sisters are both dating guys old enough to be their grandfathers; why should I be the odd one out? OK, you're a bit older, but you're at least a bit more in touch with the world than Leo can be at times, right? Besides, if it's the vampire thing you're worried about… well, we don't really deal with vampires that much, and the way I see it, it's not like they're a major concern for us, right?"
Reaching over, she placed a hand on Angel's shoulder and looked him in the eyes.
"If you want us to give it a shot… I'm game," she said simply.
Angel looked back at her for a moment, and Paige briefly wondered if he was still going to tell her 'No'…
Then he smiled slightly and nodded.
"I'd like that," he said simply.
Grinning as well, Paige leaned in and kissed Angel, revelling once more in the taste of his lips as he raised his hands to clasp her shoulders, pulling her closer to him as theirs tongues began an intimate dance once again. The cool flesh of his hands sent a pleasant thrill running through Paige's body as she raised her own hands to clasp his shoulders, her mind reeling at the thought of finally having what she'd secretly been longing for since she first saw him.
Paige knew this wouldn't be easy; she still had to convince her sisters to let Angel stick around, to say nothing of how Cole and Leo would react to having a vampire who spread terror across an entire continent for over a century hanging around the house…
But, in the end, she would be with the man- or vampire, whatever you wanted to call him- that she had come to love.
And she wouldn't have it any other way.
