Apocalypse: Sunnydale, Part III cont.
Friday was market day. Today was Wednesday, and Angel wasn't even close to ready for the vendors his fields served. Once a week, Sherily and her husband Christopher came to the farm, and got tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro, and other produce and herbs from him to sell at the market for a cut of the credits. A sweet arrangement, usually...
But this week, the couple suddenly wanted more eggplant. Demand was up, they said. More profit, they said. A huge insurgence of vegetarian Mafah demons that had recently joined the community, they said.
Mafahs, apparently, liked eggplant.
Angel enjoyed nothing more than the idea of pleasing as many of the palates of his neighbors as possible, but the truth was, his eggplants looked like crap. They just weren't taking to the soil in these large numbers. He stood looking down at the pathetic vegetables, scowling and scratching his head.
He wondered if Mafahs got angry if they didn't have enough eggplant. All those clawed tentacles... and he was so out of shape...
The echo of a shout floated across the field to his ears. He looked up, shading his eyes, searching to see if he could discern the source of the odd noise. It wasn't children playing, and it wasn't the sound of someone in trouble or in pain...
It was an excited shout. It took a moment for the source to come up the hill into Angel's field of vision -- Jeremy. He was sprinting as fast as his gangly legs would take him, and waving his arms frantically, shouting, "DAD! DAD!"
Angel began moving out of the eggplant enclosure to meet his son partway. He watched the boy lope up the hill, and felt a little pang of pride at how much of a man he was becoming.
"DAD!" he shouted once more as he reached Angel, and then skidded to a halt, stooping over to catch his breath. It was almost a half of a mile to the house, and if Jeremy had sprinted the whole way, it was no wonder he was winded.
Angel slung his water bottle off his back and handed it to his panting son, who accepted it gratefully, and took a long, gulping drink. Angel waited.
"Dad!" he said finally, still, panting, "You have to come to the house. You have to come now! Aunt Willow..."
Angel felt his chest clench, "What happened, is she okay?" he asked, already ready to run himself.
But he noticed suddenly that Jeremy was grinning. He shook his head wildly, "No! I mean, YES! She's fine! Dad, they found my mother! She's alive! She's coming home!"
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Angel had experienced a lot of shocking things in his life, but nothing, not even the horrors of war and Hell, or the memory of Darla's fangs in his throat, compared to the utter sucking vacuum of astonishment he felt inside him as he ran with Jeremy back to the house.
The only thing that registered in his mind was a single, rhythmic cadence that drove him forward:
Buffy is alive.
He crashed through he back door and found Willow's standing as still as a statue inside the kitchen, her arm hanging limply at her side, the phone still clutched in her hand. Angel approached her slowly, and took the receiver from her. She stiffly turned her head to look at him, her eyes wide.
He held the phone to his ear.
"He... hello..." he said.
"Bloody Hell!" Spike shouted, "I don't want to talk to you, wanker! Put the Good Doctor back on!" He sounded far, far away.
Angel looked over at Willow, who had sunk into a kitchen chair and stared catatonically into space.
"She... can't come to the phone," he said.
"Oh, Felicity Kendall's underpants... Crying, right? Fine, then. I don't have much time before we lose the satellite feed. I wanted to tell you that we found our Buffy."
"Where..." Angel choked out, "Is she... alive?"
"Well, of course she's alive, you plonker! We found her in Alaska, escaping from a compound 5 miles deep in a glacier. Last place in the world we expected to find a camp. She's just got a touch of demon flu..."
The signal cut out. Angel found himself utterly unable to move, and so he stood, just listening to the static.
After what felt like an eternity, he hung up the phone and turned to Willow. She was staring at him. He could almost feel the tension in the air.
"She... she's... I can't believe it. After all this time..." Willow said.
Angel feel dizzy, and gripped the kitchen counter, staring back at her.
Buffy. Alive...
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It didn't take long for world of the MIA's return to spread like wildfire through the city.
75 of the last POW's had been found, more or less alive, in a compound built far below the surface of a glacier in northwestern Alaska. The Black Ops team had found someone, it wasn't clear who, wandering across the frozen landscape after having decimated the small contingent of guards and escaped with five others. All had died but this one, who found the team and led them back to rescue the remaining prisoners.
There was little doubt in Angel's mind who the escapee was.
He hadn't slept in the three days since Spike's phone call... he hadn't really fed, hadn't worked... he only walked endlessly through the city, his mind a fuzzy jumble of indistinguishable thoughts. He was hardly able to speak at all, and spent as little time at home as possible. He almost couldn't bear to look at Willow and the children. So, he stayed away.
Willow herself was equally crippled by shock, but much clearer on the problems and confusion presented by Buffy's imminent return. She was overjoyed that her best friend was alive, and ecstatic for all of them that she was coming home.
But what would it be like, having her back again? Her absence had become like a living being, in its own right -- another member of their family, living among them. Missing her, remember her, and honoring her ghost had become central to the daily routine... to the passing of each season... to Willow and Angel's bond itself. Her return could have effects that Willow couldn't even begin to imagine.
She was closer to Buffy's ghost, now, than she had ever been to Buffy herself. When her corporeal body was home again, could anything remain the same for any of them?
Some part of her had become attached to this life...
There was little time to think about that now, and no way to predict it, anyway. In four days, they would find out.
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Angel found Willow in the study when he returned from the Farming Committee Meeting. It was a rare occasion to find her in that room without a fire blazing, a glass of wine on the table, and a book open in her lap. But tonight, she sat in the dark, simply staring into space.
He could see her clearly despite the utter lack of light, and could read many of his own fears and questions etched into her familiar features. He sat down beside her without turning on the light.
"Cad e mar ata tu, Sabia?" he asked, using his Gaelic pet name for her, hoping to bring her out of her stupor.
She blinked, but didn't turn to look at him.
"I was just thinking about the past..." she said.
Angel sighed, "Me too," he told her.
"Lumiere," Willow said, and the magickal hearthfire sprang to life, casting the room in a low, warm light.
They sat and stared at it.
After a while, Angel spoke, "I'm sorry I haven't been here for you the past few days."
Willow shrugged, "I understand. This is hard for all of us."
Silence settled over them once again. Then, Willow shifted a little, so she faced him in the firelight.
"I can't help thinking... why was it so easy for us to be there for each other when we thought she was gone, and now that we know she's alive, it's like the past three years never happened, and we can't even be in the same room anymore?"
Angel swallowed hard, "I don't know. I guess, with her alive, everything is more... complicated," he finally reached out ant took her hand, "What we have has always been simple. Straightforward. No mysteries, no enigmas, no..."
"Tragic ironic passion?" Willow offered.
He half-smiled, "Yeah, I guess. It's always just been us."
She nodded, "And now... now all of that will change," she said sadly.
With all of his heart, Angel wanted to lie to her -- tell her that Buffy's sudden reappearance in their lives meant nothing to him... changed nothing. But he couldn't. He hated to think that everything he and Willow had shared would disappear in the face of his first love's return. He hated to think he might have been using her to dull his own pain, but the fact was, they had been using each other.
"I don't know, Willow," he said truthfully, "I can't tell you what will happen now."
She clenched her teeth, absolutely refusing to cry, "We never made any promises to one another, Angel. This was always about right here, right now. This moment only, and no more. I never wanted anything else from you. So, when she comes... I'll understand, if you... and she... I mean, you should..."
Angel closed his eyes against the pain. He had been so happy, so content, for so long, this new heartbreak felt like a million shards of glass, ripping him in two. He bowed his head.
"It's never that simple between Buffy and me," he said, "I don't want to... just...assume anything. And I don't want to hurt you." A tear dropped out of his eye, "I love this life, Willow. Part of me doesn't want it to change. Part of me is terrified of seeing Buffy again. But I can't lie to you. I still love her. I always have. I never stopped, not even for a moment."
Willow nodded. All she felt was a dull, thudding ache in her heart -- she didn't think there was much of it left to break, after all of the others...and this was something she had thought about many times.
"I know," she said quietly, "There was never any question of that," she took a deep breath, and sat up straighter, "Angel... I think that... when Buffy comes back, maybe you should move back to the singles' quarters."
Angel started, taken by surprise," You do? Why? What about the kids?"
"They'll have enough to think about, getting to know their mother again. And I don't want Buffy to... to have to deal with... you know, us," she said.
Angel blinked away his tears. Once again, Willow was doing her very best to be brave and strong in the face of her pain, for him. Thinking straight... making logical choices. Something he thought he too, was once good at.
"Okay," he said, "I'll go."
"Just for a while. Until we figure things out," Willow added.
For the first time since they had been reunited, the silence that feel between them was an awkward one.
"Willow... this doesn't change the way I feel about you," Angel said after a moment, "You know how much I care about you."
She smiled sadly at him, "I know."
He reached out and touched her beloved face, "I owe you everything I have in this life. And for that, no matter what, I will always love you. You're a part of my soul, now... my family. And you will always be my friend," he said softly, and kissed her sweet lips.
She pulled him into her arms, "I love you too, Angel. That will never change."
They held one another long into the night.
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