Chapter Five
Darcy gagged and tried to take another breath in. This time it worked. She smiled. Finally, she could get out of her vampiric face and back into her human one again. She sighed in relief and started coughing desperately. Maybe she should wait awhile.
"Are you okay?" Willow asked her solicitously.
Darcy nodded slightly. It still freaked her how much Willow could still sound like, well Willow, when she was in Angel's body. Come to that, the whole situation was freaking her out. She took the glass of water Angel held out to her and sipped at it gratefully. The freshly bathed Swift looked up at her in concern.
"So where are we at?" Gunn asked, digging into the cold Chinese.
Cordelia shuddered in disgust. "How can you eat that?" She asked him.
Willow giggled. "It's not as bad as the sight of Xander eating crumpets!" She and Darcy burst out laughing.
"What's so bad about crumpets?" Angel asked.
Darcy grinned at him. "Nothing," She rasped. "But Xander eats them raw!"
Angel and Wesley both went pale and Willow and Darcy started laughing again at the look of abject horror on their faces.
"So what caused this?" Cordelia asked with a wave in Angel and Willow's direction as soon as Darcy and Willow had sobered up.
The smile faded fast from Darcy's face as she caught sight of the expressions on Willow's, no Angel's, no Willow's - her head hurt - no Angel's... on her friends faces. She glanced up at Wesley.
"It's not a demon." He informed them. "Other symptoms would have begun to manifest by now."
"And so far the only spell that fits is too generalised." Darcy added.
Fred frowned. "I still think it could be the answer." She told Darcy.
"What does it do?" Willow asked them.
"It was designed to work on humans." Darcy told her. "For use in combat. It gives a metaphysical shove to the soul, and stops the soul from re-entering the body, the idea being that without a soul present, a human is dead." She looked around to see if they were all following. "The only problem with it is that it expends way too much of the caster's energy and they wind up dead as well, so it doesn't get used very often."
Cordelia frowned. "So why did you rule it out? I mean, Wolfram and Hart would probably do anything to get rid of Angel's soul."
Darcy bit her lip, searching for the right words. "It's not a spell that would send a soul anywhere. It would just push it out. The soul wouldn't go anywhere. It would just hang around, unable to go anywhere."
"But if Wolfram and Hart did use it on Angel, and his soul was given a big enough push, then it's possible that it could have switched with Willow's" Fred argued.
"There's an awful load of ifs in that scenario and why Willow? Why not someone else closer to him?" Darcy asked her, not noticing the pained look that briefly crossed Willow's face.
"Because Willow performed the soul restoration." Angel said. "That had to have created some kind of link between our souls, right?"
Wesley nodded. "That would certainly create a bond between the two of you."
"Which means that this could have been the spell used after all." Darcy said thoughtfully, biting her lip again.
"So how do we break it?" Gunn asked with his mouth full of food.
Darcy winced. "I don't know if we can. The spell is designed to stop Angel's soul from crossing back into his body, and if we were to attempt the spell again, this time on Willow, we'd have no guarantee that it would work or it could backfire horribly and whoever cast the spell would die."
Angel grabbed Willow's hand. "That's it. We're going to see Wolfram and Hart!" He told her, trying to drag her out of the building. He mentally cursed his human strength and tried harder.
"Uh, Angel?" Willow said, resisting all his hardest efforts. She frowned, realising just how weak her body really was.
"What?"
Willow looked pointedly at the clock. "It's two in the morning Angel. No one will be there."
Angel frowned unhappily at the hapless clock.
"Why don't we reconvene at ten tomorrow morning?" Wesley suggested. "Angel and Willow can pay a visit to Wolfram and Hart and the rest of us can work on a way to reverse the spell."
Wesley's suggestion was greeted with relief from the majority of the group and Cordelia and Gunn quickly left to go home. Fred started backing towards the elevator.
"Are you sure you don't want my help researching something first?" She asked anxiously.
Wesley smiled at her. "We'll be fine." He told her. "I'm about to leave myself."
"Okay." Fred grinned. "G'night!"
"Night." Wesley began to pack his stuff up as Fred headed up the stairs.
"If it's okay with you guys, I think I'll stick around a bit longer." Said Darcy, crossing to the bookcase in Wesley's office. "I want to see if I can find anything that might help."
"Aren't you tired?" Willow asked.
Darcy grinned at her. "Nah, I just had a couple of hours of really good sleep. I could stay awake for days!"
"If you're sure?" Wesley said, on his way out. "It would be a big help."
"I'm sure." Darcy assured both of them. "Now get some rest, the pair of you!"
Wesley promptly left the building.
"I'm gonna grab something to eat." Willow told Darcy. "Do you want any?" She asked, knowing how much of a delicacy blood was for Darcy.
"Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass. If I have blood just after I've died I wind up craving it for weeks." Darcy told her, her nose already in a book.
Willow and Angel looked at each other.
"Hungry?" Willow asked. Angel nodded and they started in the direction of the kitchen. "Night guys." Willow called back to Darcy and Swift.
"Lilah Morgan, clearance oh-one-one-two-seven-seven-three." Lilah recited, standing in front of Files and Records.
"Good morning Miss Morgan."
Lilah placed the photographs of the two women that her people had given her on the desk in front of her. "What do you know about these two women?" She asked.
"One moment please." Files and Records' eyes flickered and Lilah could hear a faint rattling sound. Files and Records pointed to the brunette. "Summers, Dawn. Sister of the Slayer, Summers, Buffy. The Key."
Lilah frowned, she hated not knowing what something meant. "What about the red head?"
"Rosenburg, Willow. Known associate of the Slayer, Summers, Buffy. A powerful witch. Recently gave up magic. Performed a Soul Restoration on Angelus in March 1998."
"Damn!" Lilah cursed. "I thought the person who cast the Soul Restoration on Angelus was dead."
"The original caster died in..." Files and Records' eyes flickered briefly. "1910."
Lilah pursed her lips and folded her arms. She didn't know how this news was going to affect the spell they had cast on Angel. Maybe the witch was there to re-curse him. Perhaps she had locked down his soul so tight, nothing could disturb it. "Thanks." She said and walked out of the file store. One thing was certain. She was going home to sleep.
Willow busied herself with dragging a defrosted pavlova out of the fridge and dinging plates and forks as Angel sat down at the large table. Grabbing two forks she plonked the raspberry pavlova and herself down in front of Angel.
"Take it." She told him offering him a fork. "If you're anything like me, you're craving comfort food and raspberries are my ultimate."
Angel took the fork and tentatively ate a bite of the pavlova. He grinned at Willow. "That's good!" He told her, between mouthfuls.
Willow grinned. "Raspberries always are." Picking up her own fork, she dug out a large piece of pavlova and placed it in her mouth, waiting for the delicious flavour to explode on her taste buds. Instead, the creamy confection merely tasted of cardboard. She swallowed and sighed, getting up to find an alternative food source.
Angel watched as Willow opened his blood fridge, selecting a pack at random. He frowned as he suddenly realised how much his supplies had diminished in just one day.
Angel frowned as he realised how much his supplies had diminished. "Going through that a bit fast aren't you?"
"It keeps Angelus pacified." Willow told him shortly, tossing the pack in the microwave and punching the nuke button. She ran her hand through her hair and Angel realised exactly what caused his hair to stick up like it did
Angel looked at her, concerned. "How are you holding up with that?"
Willow turned to look him in the eye for the first time since she'd started making the blood. "I've started seeing your memories."
Angel winced again. Whatever she was seeing, it couldn't be good.
"Other than that, as long as I keep drinking the blood, he leaves me pretty much alone. There are certain times when he wants me to kill people. He really doesn't like Cordelia much, does he?"
Angel shook his head slowly, not wanting to tell her the reason why. The microwave beeped and Willow retrieved her blood. She poured it into a mug and hunted through the cupboards a bit. Finding what she was looking for, she squeezed a little of the raspberry syrup into her mug and stirred it with a spoon she immediately washed.
Plonking herself back down at the table she looked directly at him again. "So how are you holding up?" She asked.
Angel looked down at the pavlova, feeling guilty. "Actually… not too bad." He said. "This morning, I helped Dawn with her homework in the garden. Now I'm eating some sort of raspberry cake thing and I can actually taste it properly. And I have a reflection." He blushed. "Well, you have a reflection. And you blush a lot."
Willow grimaced. "I know. It can be so embarrassing."
"I think it's delightful." Angel told her.
They locked eyes and suddenly it was as though nothing else existed. Slowly, Willow leaned across the table and brushed her lips against his. Pulling away before he had a chance to react she stood up, looking at the top of his head.
"Thank you." She said before shakily walking away, leaving her practically untouched blood on the table.
Without thinking Angel chased after her and swung her round. Pulling her head down to meet his, he kissed her.
Willow couldn't believe this was happening. He she wanted to, she could have easily pulled away, so light was Angel's hold on her. But she didn't want to. God help her, she wanted Angel. Willow gathered him into her arms and deepened the kiss. Her head felt like it was floating away and yet her feet were firmly attached to the ground.
Remembering that Angel needed to breathe, Willow broke the kiss off.
They stared deep into each others eyes, losing themselves in each other. Nothing else existed.
In the hotel lobby, Darcy turned her attention to the Internet. Maybe there was something there that could help them.
