Apocalypse: Sunnydale, Part II cont.
The pounding on the door woke him from a peaceful, exhausted slumber. His eyes snapped open as the sound registered, and he was almost surprised to find Willow sleeping in his arms. he smiled, and for a moment, was overcome with a feeling of pure, unadulterated joy at the memory of what they had shared last night.
But only a moment. In the next breath, he remembered what had brought him here, in the first place.
Buffy was dead.
Angel was startled back to reality when the pounding resumed, followed by the shouting:
"Oy! Harris! Willow, are you alright, in there?"
Spike. Never before in the almost 200 years he had known the vampire, had he wanted to see him less.
Trying not to wake Willow, Angel reached for his clothes and got out of bed, dressing quickly. He quietly shut the door behind him, bolted down the stairs, and threw open the front door, enraged.
"WHAT do you WANT!?!" Angel snapped at him, "WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?"
Spike blinked. Of all the gruesome things he'd expected to find at the good doctor's house, the last was his squishy-hearted sire, all bed headed and in his jammies. Spike cocked a wry eyebrow at him.
"Well. Well, well, well." he said, and pushed his way past Angel. "It's about bloody time."
Angel reached out and grabbed Spike by the collar and spun him around.
"I asked you a question." He spat in his childe's face.
Spike leered at him, "I came to see WILLOW." he said.
Angel growled softly and clenched his teeth, "She's sleeping."
"No she's not." Willow said, coming down the stairs in her tattered old bathrobe, her hair carelessly pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her eyes were red and shadowed, and a bewildered expression framed her face.
Angel let Spike go, and both vampires stared at her.
"Hi Spike." she said softly, but sincerely.
A look angel had never seen before swept across Spike's face. He stepped forward and placed a porcelain white hand with black-painted fingernails on Willow's thin shoulder. He looked down at her sadly.
"I heard about the Council Vote." he said, "The Slayer..."
Willow nodded, tears immediately springing to her eyes.
Angel stood frozen, dumbfounded by Spike's genuine display of warmth and compassion. Willow seemed to bring out the best in everyone...
"Hey. Oh, there... don't..." Spike said, tensing noticeably for a moment as she grabbed him and began sobbing into his shoulder. He looked helplessly at Angel, but his tortured eyes were still trained on Willow.
Spike shrugged, and put his arms around her. He loved her, in his evil, soulless, demon way. She had always been kind to him... at least when he hadn't been doing his damndest to kill her... She'd always encouraged him and supported him, and had, strangely enough, become his friend.
"Oh, God. I'm sorry." Willow said, letting Spike go and mopping at her face, "I have to stop this. The kids will be home soon." Her eyes shot to Angel, who still stood by the front door. "Oh, god, Angel... what are we going to tell the kids?"
Angel finally shook off his stupor, and came to stand beside her, putting his arm protectively around her shoulder.
"I don't know." he said, and took her fully into his arms, where she stood quietly, held against his still chest.
Spike fidgeted uncomfortably. "Can I... is there... anything I can do?" he asked.
Angel looked morosely at him and shook his head. Willow had once again begun to cry softly. He looked off into space, leaning his cheek on the top of her head.
Spike nodded, saying nothing else as he left. Even he knew when to make a graceful exit. With the Slayer gone, and what appeared to be a new relationship growing between the Witch and his Sire, he figured they had a lot to work out.
Spike almost felt sorry for the poor, suffering bastard. Almost.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The afternoon was sunny and clear, when the community gathered for the unveiling of the memorial at the center of Town Hall Park. Beautiful oak trees had been planted, ad benches placed all around the monument, making it the perfect place to sit and remember all of those they had lost...t he heroes who gave their lives so that the world might remain theirs, and not become a branch office of Hell.
Angel stood with one arm around Willow, and held Rhea's tiny hand in his free one. Jeremy stood on the other side, proud and strong. He had shaken off Willow's offer to hold his hand, but as they stood there, listening to the speeches and the memories shared out loud by their neighbors, he leaned into her, laying his golden head on her shoulder, like the boy he truly was, talk or no.
Willow smiled sadly down at him, and kissed him lightly on the top of the head, giving him a squeeze.
No one cried. Angel felt like all of the tears had already been sucked out of him over the past few years, until he had nothing left inside him. It was as though all of the color had run out of his world, along with his hope for Buffy's return.
He looked next to him, at his lover. She had lost weight in the past three months, and she took pills sometimes, to help her sleep. Every smile she gave him seemed thin and empty. He knew the feeling intimately.
At least they still had one another. In time, they knew the pain would ease, and they would still have each other to turn to. Of all of the horror of the past 20 years, at least they would come away with that.
Willow smiled up at him, her eyes also dry. He returned the gesture.
"Does anyone else have anything they'd like to say before we unveil the memorial?" Johnson Stewart, the leader of the Memorial Committee, said.
Willow gave Angel and Jeremy a final squeeze, and stepped forward to the podium. Angel put his arms around both kids and pulled them close to him. They were sad, too, but it was different. Their mother had been dead for them for most of their lives... she had disappeared the minute she left their lives, and Willow and Angel were now the only parents they knew.
She stood in front of the podium, and surveyed the huge crowd that filled the park. So many faces... and every one showed the scars of having the name of a friend or a loved one up on that wall...
"My name is Willow Rosenburg Harris... many of you know me from my work with the Healers, and with the Children's Farm. I have lived in this community since the first day it was liberated from Demon occupation. But I have lived in Sunnydale my entire life. I have watched the battles grow, and then fade once again, since this town was still a sleepy suburb built on top of a Hellmouth. I have been here from the beginning, and I, or someone from my family, have known and cared about every one of the people whose names are carved in this wall..."
She turned and searched the hundreds of names, until she came to the first that she recognized.
"Cordelia Chase." she read, "Cordelia and I went to high school together, from second grade on. We weren't friends... in fact, we couldn't stand each other. But we fought, side by side, anyway. Cordelia was beautiful and essentially, kind..." she smiled at Angel, "She was the only person I have ever known who was never afraid to speak her mind."
"Daniel Osbourne. Oz." she said, feeling her throat tighten a little, "He was... a werewolf, in the days when that was a dangerous thing to be. He lived his life with brilliant good humor, and a song in his heart... he was... my friend."
She went on, speaking about Xander, her childhood friend and eventually, husband... about his growth from a loud-mouthed, awkward youth to the smiling, stalwart champion he had been when he died. She talked about Giles, and all of the things he'd meant to her and her friends. She even listed Doyle among the long list of her friends and classmates who had disappeared or died, like Larry and Jonathan, Percy and Harmony, Riley and Forest... Tara...
There was only one name left on the list. Willow looked to where Angel stood, holding the children.
"Buffy Summers-Finn." she said, "She was... the Slayer. And my closest friend for almost twenty years. All of you knew her... or at least have heard of her... some of you..." her eyes came to rest once more on Angel, "knew her as well as I did."
Angel could barely hear Willow's words any longer -- he had found the well where his tears had been hiding, and they spilled forth once again, threatening to wash him away. Willow spoke about sleepovers and demon-killing, about shopping and exorcisms, about the children, and about how Buffy felt about the community, itself.
"In the end, she was an example for all of us. A woman willing to sacrifice anything, and everything to make the world safe for her friends... her children..." her voice broke, and tears began to stream down her cheeks, "Thank you, Buffy... for being my friend... for all of this... We will never forget..." She broke down, leaning hard against the podium. Angel asked Jeremy to watch Rhea, and ran forward to support her as she fell apart.
Carol Blue, the old Spinner who had first found Angel outside Buffy's decimated home all those years ago, stepped out of the crowd as Angel led Willow away. she lay one kind hand on his broad back, and another on Willow's thin, shaking one.
"That was beautiful, dear." She said, "She would have been honored. And proud, to see all that you have done with what she started..."
Angel smiled sadly at her. "Thank you, Carol. For everything." he said.
The old woman smiled fondly at the handsome vampire, reminded once again of her own long-lost son. "Why don't you let me take the children to the Farm? The two of you should take some quiet time for yourselves."
Willow nodded, whuffling pitifully. "That's very kind of you, Carol... but only if it's not too much trouble."
Carol smiled. She liked these young people. They were very different from the pictures the stories painted of them... the mysterious souled vampire and the powerful Witch -- both fabled friends of the Slayer they had just paid tribute to.
But they were three-dimensional, multi-faceted people that couldn't be captured in any fairy tale. The way the vampire seemed to use his whole body to shield her... the way she leaned into him as if his arms were the only safe place in the world...
//Ah, to be in love again... But those days are long past, for me...//
She patted Willow and smiled gently at Angel, before walking away to find Jeremy and Rhea.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Angel entered the room quietly, in case Willow was asleep. But she simply lay in the bed staring forlornly off into space. She brightened a little when she saw him, and scooted over to make room for him to sit beside her. He did, and Willow lay her head in his lap.
"You know, the first time I met her, Cordelia was insulting me." Willow said wistfully, "I ran away. I was so... timid... small... But Buffy changed all that. She changed everything for me."
Angel thought about what she said for a moment. "For me, as well..." he agreed.
Willow turned over to look at him. "How do you mean?"
He looked off into the distance, remembering as he spoke. "When I first got my soul back, I flew Europe for America. I was... crippled, really... useless. I lived on the streets, just wasting away, torturing myself... waiting to die. Then this demon, The Whistler, came to me and said that I had a chance to make something of myself. To pay some retribution... to do some good... He said he had something to show me..."
"Buffy?" Willow asked, sitting up. She'd never heard any of this before. In fact, she never heard much of anything about the past, from him. He always said that all that mattered was now.
Angel nodded. "I saw her called. I saw her first attempts at slaying. I watched her for a long time before she came to Sunnydale."
"I didn't know that." She said.
"No one did. I didn't even tell Buffy until her 18th birthday."
"You've been in love with her for a long time." Willow said.
Angle looked at her. There was no bitterness or jealousy in her voice, only a clear understanding of the feelings that he and Buffy had shared for one another. It was a foregone conclusion, and no threat to her, at all.
He thought once again, for perhaps the millionth time, what an extraordinary woman Willow was.
"I have." he said, "But the first time we met, she almost killed me. She kicked me in the back... knocked me flat."
Willow chuckled. "How romantic."
Angel couldn't help but smile at the memory himself. "Yeah. It was."
"The first time you and I met, I called you mom."
Angel turned to look at her, and his smile grew broad, "You're grouchy when you've been knocked unconscious by a gas leak set up by an invisible girl..." he joked.
She whacked him in the arm. Then her demeanor became serious again. "That invisible girl might have been me if it weren't for you guys... Xander... Oz... Buffy."
Angel said nothing. He knew in his soul he would have been long dead, had he never known Buffy. He never would have seen all the wondrous, terrifying things he's seen, or experienced such a range of glorious emotion. Buffy had helped him to feel human, again. The greatest gift he had ever received...
They lapsed into thoughtful silence, quietly watching the minutes tick by, and thinking about all of their lost friends. The sun began to set, and Angel scooted down the bed, looking out the window as he took Willow into his arms.
"Angel?" She asked.
"Mm?" he said sleepily.
"Do you think she'd be angry? I mean... about us?"
The question took him by surprise. He opened his eyes and looked down at her. His love for Willow was an utterly different creature than what he felt for Buffy. But now, all these years later, he felt it might be all the love he would ever need.
"No. I think she would be glad we were still alive, and that we were taking care of each other... and the kids... I don't think she would be upset." he answered.
"She loved us." Willow said.
Angel sighed. Every detail of the world they lived in... every moment that they spent together... reminded him that she did.
"I know." he said.