Intended Amnesia

Author: Jozzy

Summary: Sequel to "Betrayal by the Heart"

Spoilers: 2nd Season of Buffy

Rating: R for adult situations and language

Intended Amnesia

Part 1

The small red headed woman drifted down the street, moving in a different time than her peers. Her thoughts drifting into a past that was no longer clear to her. Struggling to sharpen the fuzzy memories of the two years she had lost.

Belle Rosenberg had selective amnesia. She could remember her life up until a certain point, when she had begun high school, and no further. Belle had no idea why she could not remember this time only that it left a large strain on her in the present.

Belle wasn't her real name...Willow was the name written on her birth certificate. But five years ago when she had moved to San Francisco, with no real idea of why she had come or who she was, Willow Rosenberg decided to change her name. Really it had been her mother's idea but Shiela Rosenberg would not disclose the reason for the change any more than she would tell Willow...Belle what had happened in those two years gone.

Belle could remember who she was before the No Memory Time and she knew that was not who she was now. Sometimes she wondered if that had something to do with her new personality. For some reason after two years the Willow Rosenberg who had entered Sunnydale High School was non-existent when she left for San Francisco two years later.

Willow had died and Belle had been born.

The slender girl/woman shook the disgruntling thoughts from her head and began to walk faster. She had things to do, there was no time to dwell on a past that didn't, in any real sense of the word, exist.

Belle had decided, after the first difficult year coming to terms with her illness, that she would make up for the No Memory Time by living her life ten times better than she had before. The girl who had once sat in corners, openly cowered away from opposition, and spent her life virtually separate from any type of real friendship was no more. She was now Belle the Beautiful, the Spontaneous, the easy going, the Open, the Friendly, she was the one everyone wanted to know. With a new persona firmly draped around her gaping wounds Belle had stepped into the world.

*******

The club was on fire. The desire and passion formed a barrier at the front door, contaminating any whom stepped through it. Belle loved it.

She loved being here at the Enlightenment, the atmosphere, the people in this pseudo gothic sometimes warped club was an experience one could find no where else. She had been coming here since she turned eighteen, sponsored by her first dorm mate.

The first time she had come it had been like coming home. For some strange reason the dark club reminded her of something from the No Memory Time. She would walk onto the dance floor and be swept up into a memory. Someone, a man, was holding her, his arms draped casually around her waist. They moved to the music, slowly swaying together thinking of nothing but the feeling between each other.

Belle didn't know if this was an actual event or a dream, but she was inticed by the sensation the Enlightenment's dance floor caused in her mind and body and could not stop returning to it. Almost every night she could be found there, normally with some dark figure adorning her like a bleak cape.

She was attracted to the tortured souls. The ones moving behind the scene, swathed in all black, making no move to join the mainstream life of the club. Those men called to Belle. She could spot a serious drifter from any where. There were those who tried to pretend, who thought that a little black and a depressed expression could get the red beauty to notice them. The fakes were, like most people in the club, black and white scenery. Only she and her man of the night were in true technicolor.

******

Tonight was no different, Belle was at the Enlightenment. Tonight she was dressed in a black leather miniskirt, a cream-colored camisole, and a dark purple corset over that. She moved to the front of the long line of those trying to obtain entrance. Stepping in front of the first person in line she smiled up at the bouncer. He returned her smile and opened the door. She entered the club at the chorus of many frustrated growls.

First to the bar, a drink before she began the search. Belle liked her drinks with a kick, usually something steeped in Vodka. But only one drink in a night. Her constitution was somewhat lacking, anymore and she would be drunk. Drinking was a form of relaxation for Belle, never therapy. She appalled the thought of living her life through a bottle.

With a drink now in hand she moved to a table at the edge of the dance floor. Watching the shuffling bodies she sipped from her glass. She saw no one of interest, yet. Perhaps a quick look at the back of the club would help her find her admirer for the night. She walked towards the rear of the club, a train of lusty stares in her wake.

*****

It seemed darker than normal. Belle could barely see in front of her. She wasn't scared, as any woman in college should be, of the masking darkness. She had never been afraid. She welcomed the night and the emotions it brought. The pulse it gave the very streets.

Turn one more corner then head back to the front, nothing and no one would be found here tonight. Only that wasn't the case. She did find something. A woman sitting on a couch her beau perched between her legs, mouth firmly attached to her throat.

Not wanting to interrupt there fun she moved into the shadows where she would not be detected by the couple. The voyeur in her keeping her from exiting the scene.

The woman began to shift as arousal moved down her spinal column, she arched suddenly and the mans hands shifted to her mouth, covering a scream. Belle watched, an eyebrow arching at the scene. A scene she had herself had starred in more than once in her life.

Suddenly pungent odor filled her nostrils, and her hackles rose. This wasn't right, something was off, the girl was in trouble. Fleetingly she thought of going for help, but discarded the plan at the thrill of sensation seeping into nerves. She darted over to the couple and with all her strength pulled at the man. He came away from his desert with far too much easy, obviously knowing of Belle's presence before her attack.

He was beautiful, but frighteningly so. Too beautiful, too perfect to be real, human he stood and captured the almost hero in his gaze. His eyes...there was something wrong with his eyes and...and she had to stop looking at him. The girl was already gone, fled when the attention had shifted from herself. Belle had to get away as well.

The man moved closer to her, drowning her senses in his overwhelming aura. She took a step back and he countered with a forward step of his own. They danced like this for some time. Belle closed her eyes, scrunching them together trying to escape the captivating stare. She felt a wisp of wind to her left and opened her eyes. The man was gone. She turned to leave the daunting place only to run into a human wall. It was the man. Now that she was no longer arrested by his eyes she noticed the rest of his face, particularly his mouth which was surrounded by a thick red fluid.

********

She closed her eyes again, the courage of moments before rushing from her system. The man chuckled and leaned into her space. Belle shook slightly waiting for the imminent pain. Nothing happened. There was a sudden suction of the air in front of her and then she was hit with a large amount of a gritty substance. She opened her eyes.

Gone was the dangerous stranger, in his place stood another man, taller, somehow even more perfect, a dark angel. She was not frightened of this man, in fact he seemed more terrified of her than the situation gave reason.

His mouth was opening and closing as if he wished to speak and no words would form. He looked at the ground, where a clump of dust now sat, and back up at her. His mouth opened once again this time a small grunt issuing out.

Belle moved to him, over the dust pile, and clamped her hand over his mouth. Taking one of his large hands in her smaller one she moved him towards the front of the club, towards the dance floor. She had found her partner for the night.

*******

They had danced for hours without speaking. Their bodies melting together and not parting until the club had closed in the wee hours of the morning. He had taken her back to his apartment. A dank little piece of squalor that she would have never entered if it weren't for the man.

They lay together for most of the morning. The gasp and groans of their activity the only sounds to be heard until right before dawn when the man, Belle had yet to learn his name, had gasped, looking down at her in wonderment, 'I love you Willow.'

She had slipped over the rim into deliriousness as this happened almost missing his statement. But when the sensations had died down she was left with this stark expenditure. She moved quickly out of the bed, gathering her clothes. The man moved behind her but she ignored him.

He knew her name, but she did not know his. She did not recognize him, had thought they were strangers. This could mean only on thing. He was from the No Memory Time. Some friend, lover even, from the two years she had forgotten. He was dangerous.

'Willow, please say something.'

'Stay the fuck away from me.'

She slipped out the door and into the light of day. The man did not try to follow.

End Part 1

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