The Soulmate Series

Little Fighter

The adrenaline crash she’s experiencing after Angel suddenly decided to allow her to leave the mansion makes Willow actually grateful that he’s following her. She’s demon bait in her current condition. Her feet are like lead and it’s all she can do to put one in front of the other as she makes her way homeward. She is so tired - so incredibly, horribly, achingly tired. In this state, it might be a miracle if she makes it back to her house without falling over and she’s certain the only thing keeping her going is her terror at the thought of Angel swooping in and carrying her home. The closest thing to bliss she can imagine is a lifetime with Angel never touching her ever again. So she takes a deep breath and focuses on the Valhalla that is the Angel-proof empty house with a hot shower and space to wail and cry and think which awaits her. It helps. She quickens her pace.

Finally, her door is right there and she looks behind her, hoping that Angel has seen her reach home and has turned back. He hasn’t. She can see him lurking in the shadows. A surge of hatred makes it through her crushing fatigue. Won’t he ever leave her be? The thought of him skulking around outside her house all night, destroying the purity of her solitude with his oppressive presence, is too much. Heedless of what the neighbors or any passers-by might think, she turns around and screams, her voice choked with sobs. “Leave me alone!”

It doesn’t matter now what anyone else thinks, because it worked; her shouted plea has had the desired effect. She nearly collapses in relief as Angel disappears into the darkness. He’s gone. She reaches out with her inner senses and she can hardly feel the loathsome taint of the bond anymore. She wishes it wasn’t there at all, but at least this may mean that it’s affected by distance and that staying far away from Angel might well be nearly as good as the bond being destroyed.

In moments, she’s opened the front door, barely thinking to slam it behind her before rushing upstairs, and now she’s vomiting into the pristine white toilet in her bathroom. She hadn’t even known she was nauseous at all until it just overwhelmed her. Moments pass and all she can hear is a roaring in her ears and the echo of her body trying in the only way it knows how to purify her, to free her from the taint and corruption that’s been visited on her today.

Finally it’s over and she can breathe through the tears she’s been crying even while she was violently sick. She gets up and goes to the sink, rinsing her mouth out over and over through choked sobs and suppressing the urge to shriek as loud she can. As much as she wants to howl all the rage and pain and despair she feels to the heavens that have proven to be as empty as the promise of rewards to the righteous that she was taught to believe in, the last thing she wants is nosy neighbors calling Sunnydale’s ever-stupid police force. It would be just her luck if they showed up for once and she had to deal with their questions when all she wants is to be totally alone.

Deep down she knows, though, that she doesn’t really want to be alone. She just doesn’t want to be with anyone she knows. More than anything she wishes she had the kind of mother she could go to with her troubles and her pain, a mother who would listen and care and be wise and who would be angry for her, who would take on some of this awful burden of hate and despair and confusion that she is so ill-equipped to carry.

It hurts, it hurts so much, and Willow crumples to the ground, curling up in a ball on the cold tile floor as she cries out her anguish. Alone. Alone because her parents are away and wouldn’t be any use if they were physically present. Alone because Giles is too British and too much Buffy’s Watcher for Willow to go to him with this. Alone because Buffy and Xander are the last people she wants to tell. Alone because tonight is the full moon and Oz isn’t Oz right now. Alone because the fact that it’s Angel who’s done this to her means that there’s no one she can tell, not all of it, not ever. Alone because the one person she might have been able to go to isn’t there. She wishes Jenny were still alive.

But Jenny is dead, dead and gone. Another reason to hate Angel, as if she wasn’t already being eaten alive by the poison of her loathing for that monster. Even her tears now feel like acid corroding her eyes and she wonders if it’s possible to be destroyed from within by your own emotions. Of course, she chides herself, here on the Hellmouth anything horrible is not only possible but darn near certain.

For a moment - a brief, unforgiving, and terrifying moment - she thinks about ending it all, of finishing herself off before the Hellmouth can kill her piece by piece, slowly and painfully as it seems to be doing a damn thoroughgoing job of right now. But she shuts the thought down before it can even fully coalesce in her mind. She’s not a quitter. And, while she might very well consider taking an offered opportunity to go back in time and die before she went to Angel’s mansion, she doesn’t want her life to be over at its very worst, to have her last moments be the most wretched she’s ever known.

She gets up slowly, her muscles sore and tired, and she takes off Angel’s clothes, throwing them onto the small trash can they are far too big to fit inside. She will take them out to the big garbage can in the garage in the morning. Or maybe she will take them out to the unused barbecue in the backyard and burn them. Right now, the shower beckons, so she turns on the tap and waits for the steam to tell her that it’s boiling.

She gets in, the agony of the hot water on her skin a welcome change from all the other pain she’s endured today. It’s a test, proving if she’s a warrior, if she has what it takes to withstand all the dreadful, lonely, secret-filled days to come. She stands there under the scalding spray - defiant. She closes her eyes and lets the water beat against her face, praying it will burn away the memory of Angel’s lips on hers, almost hoping it will melt the skin he’s had his hands on off her very bones. She endures. She’s tough, she can take it. Right now, she thinks that maybe she’s stronger than Buffy or Faith or both of them put together. Because she’s going to live through this.

As much as she wants to stay in her small tile world forever, the water begins to cool and Willow knows it’s time for her to get out. She needs sleep and she hopes, though almost certainly in vain, that at least some of it will be peaceful. She can use as much rest as it’s possible for her to get. For tomorrow there are things she must do. Like get rid of Angel’s clothes. Like take another long, hot shower. Like get her story straight, screw up her courage, and tell the partial truth to the one person who has to know something, who deserves to know everything, but who must only ever know a hopelessly expurgated version of what really happened.

Tomorrow, when the sun is shining and he’s himself again, Willow will call Oz and ask him to come see her. Tomorrow Willow will sacrifice the last good thing in her life. Tomorrow will be one more terrible thing Willow will live through.

Her skin is blistered as she puts on her most virginal underwear and pajamas and climbs into bed. She doesn’t try to fool herself that a new day will dawn and she will wake up and things will seem so much - or any - better. The sun will rise, but her world will still be a dark and hideous place, even if she never sees Angel again. She will wake up in the morning and it will all still be true: she will still have lost her virginity in a violent assault by the love of her best friend’s life; Angel will still be bound to her by a mystical cord she never meant to create; he will still believe he’s in love with her. She will have to bear the weight of it all on her shoulders alone.

She can’t be Oz’s girl anymore, or at least not for now. But she won’t be Angel’s either. And she won’t be dead. Someday, somehow, she’ll find her way through this; she’ll discover a way to completely sever the bond she has with Angel and make everything go back to normal, make it as close as she can to where she can tell herself this was all a bad dream. It can be done, she has to believe that. She’s strong and smart and brave and true and she’s survived everything the Hellmouth has thrown at her so far. She’s passed her tests, dammit, and no matter how pitched the battles, Willow will win the war.


Tbc...