Two for the price of one

Disclaimer: I own nothing…not a bloody thing…except my imagination…=) neither do I own the quote by Sergei Koroljov. All in all…just borrowing from the masters…=)
AN: Thanks to my brilliant beta; Isabelle. =) And to “min lilla ängel” for nagging me to keep on writing this fic.
AN 2: any mistakes still there are mine and only mine. (Oh! Looks like I do own something!)

”Doroga k Zvjozdam Otkrita.”
(The way to the stars is open.)


Willow Rosenberg laughed as she watched Xander do a half improvised Scooby-dance while following an animatedly talking Buffy and a skulking Spike out on patrol. They had spent a very nice evening talking and drinking coffee at the Bronze until the vampire had showed up, sent by the watcher, to drag them of on patrol. Willow had begged off, claiming she needed to study for the lit test scheduled for the next morning. In truth she was heading for her childhood home in need of a long relaxing bath. The dorms showers were all good, but nothing compared to a lazy soak in a tub filled with scorching hot water and crackling bubbles; A good place to sort through the mess in her head.

She figured she had deserved that after all the things that had been going on lately. The whole “not being able to speak-business”, Oz leaving…everything…she needed to think…

When Oz left he took part of her heart with him. Never had she felt such pain because of another person. She had given him everything; everything and then some. But in the long run he had chosen to throw it all back in her face. Maybe she was unfair…The werewolf in him had picked that…that bitch for a mate. It hadn’t really been Oz-the man’s choice. She knew this, but refused to acknowledge it deep down. He picked her…end of story.

Never had she thought herself a vindictive and unforgiving person but concerning his betrayal, her heart had shattered. She hated him for that. Ok, she didn’t really do the whole hate thing. It was not in her to hate, so maybe it wasn’t really hatred. But it was something. . .

Resentment maybe?

He leaving when he did hadn’t helped matters either. But she had tried to get over it, and now…now she could actually think about him without breaking apart. Maybe that blonde gentle witch had something to do with that?

Tara…

Willow didn’t really know what to make of the young woman that seemed to show up around every corner in her life as of late. There was something with that girl that drew her in. To Willows utter surprise and, well, shock the impulse to kiss Tara had crossed her mind the last time she’d seen her. Kiss a girl! The thought didn’t upset her like she thought it would, instead warmth spread throughout her body.

Tara was so beautiful and the calm, the slightly unsure look in her blue eyes made her want to both hide in her arms and hold her, protect her from whatever put that look there. It didn’t feel like when she had first fallen in love with Oz, this seemed stronger…more thought thorough, more…more mature…more grownup.

Was she actually felling “those” feelings for Tara? How could she after such a short time?

A scream ripping through the night brought her to a halt, her thoughts disappearing like morning fog. She strained her ears to hear better, a shiver running throughout her body when she heard it again. Before her brain had a chance to think things over she had started to move. Running in the direction of the voice she soon picked up on the sound of someone crying and begging. It made her heart twist. The pure anguish in that voice made tears start to fall from her eyes.

She didn’t stop running until she entered the park and found the source. A cloaked figure was moving surprisingly fast away from a body slumped on the ground. With her heart beating fast, adrenalin pumping and the taste of bile in her mouth, she forced herself to move closer.


* * *


And there she was, just a stone throw away. The woman her voices had told her about. It was the witch that had stolen her daddy away, forcing the soul down his troth! She expected to feel rage but instead she felt a small gust of pity. For the first time in a very, very long time she felt actual pity for another creature.
The mortal could help her, but the price would be high; for both of them.

Willow ran the last couple of yards, throwing herself down on the ground next to the woman. The scene almost made her vomit. Blood was pouring forth from the slit neck and the many gashes on the woman’s pale face, from her nose and from the corners of her mouth. Her left arm was twisted obviously broken and one of her delicate, black velvet shoes was missing leaving one small foot bare. That sight made more tears gather in the witches eyes, touched her far deeper than all the blood and wounds did together.
With shaking hands she lifted the strangers head and put in her own lap. Carefully she tried to wipe some of the blood away with the sleeve of her sweater, not doing much difference but having to do something.

”What can I do to help you? Oh, goddess its so much blood…” Willows voice cracked. Instinctively she knew it was too late to call for an ambulance, the woman was dying.

“Please….” Drusilla tried to focus her eyes on the redhead’s face; startled by the hurt and compassion she saw there. Her demon scoffed and Drusilla immediately pushed it further down. She could not afford to scare the human now. “Don’t…don’t worry pretty mine…Its all right…Don’t cry.”

Willow wiped her hand over her eyes not realising she smeared the dying woman’s blood all over her face.
“Is there anything I can do?”

The stranger’s big blue eyes turned to her own and Willow could clearly see both pain and fear in their depths, but also something more difficult to place. A light glimmer of something shady, something hidden. She slowly pushed some of the woman’s tangled brown, almost black hair from her unrecognisable face. Her attention returned to the blood. So dark it was, almost black against the woman’s porcelain white skin.

“Help me…”

“I don’t know how!” Willow started crying in earnest, it ripped her speeding heart out not being able to help this innocent.

“Lo…look…look into my…eyes, little witch…Look deep into…in…my eyes…don’t be afraid…let me be in you…help me…” A single red tear fell from the woman’s eyes. Maybe Willow would have thought that strange at another time, that or the fact that this stranger knew she was a witch…but her mind was lost, she was drowning in stormy blue eyes, eyes tinted with madness and sorrow.

“I am so…so sorry…” And with those words ringing in Willows head a sharp pain shot through her making her scream, then everything went black.


* * *


Willow awoke felling something she had never felt before. A massive, urgent, overwhelming feeling of hunger. Not the normal emotion of hunger but instead one that shredded her mind and blinded her to everything else.
She moved slowly, not really having any control over her own body. Her green eyes opened and closed, repeatedly until she finally could make out the trees around her, the streetlights, the dew in the grass underneath her.

Her senses returned, almost hesitantly, one by one. She was cold, wet…there was fear, pain…hunger! She forced herself up. She needed to feed. Now. . .

Her eyes scanned the park, as she desperately listened for any sound that might lead her to relief. Anything that might help. She could feel herself tremble, her legs almost giving out as she stood up. But something inside her screamed at her to move, to hurry, to eat.

She started walking, slow at first and then faster and faster as her mind tried to run away from the pain furious twisting around inside. She left the park and almost got run over by a car as she crossed the road, franticly she looked around, her memory hazy and not giving her any direction.

The world stopped.

Her head swung around and her eyes locked on its target; an elderly woman. Her insides screamed, pulling her in two different directions. Her heightened senses felt the woman, the smell of her…Willow could hear her breathe, hear the sound of the blood pumping in her veins…Her back straitened as a buzzing sound overlapped it all, drowned everything out except the hunger. She couldn’t think. Her instincts kicking in, hurling her at the woman. She screamed in terror, ecstasy, fear, excitement, everything too much for her to decipher. The sudden taste of blood made her want to hurl, instead she cried out and ran. Her body being forced into overdrive, she ran, and ran…then blacked out…


* * *


The void was endless; she could feel it in her mind. A dark place of nothingness lacking borders. That, worried her, but what finally made her fear was the realisation that she was trapped in this oblivion, this non-existence. She knew she was dreaming and since she knew it couldn’t really be a dream…it made her shiver.

“Hello?”

The sound of her own voice frightened her; it somehow grew and rushed back to her like a slap in the face. Therefore she flinched at the soft sound of musical notes floating through the darkness; it was soon followed by another one, then another and another until finally coming together in a melody she vaguely recognised. Someone was playing a piano and that someone was playing…yes, she knew what it was. Her father’s favourite classical piece. Beethoven’s Moonlight Adagio. Melancholic, almost physically painful notes drifting towards her, sounding like they where being played right by her side.

The darkness started to change into a sort of half-light as a figure dressed in white appeared a few feet away from her. A long, faintly off-white nightgown cut in an elderly fashion, dark brown hair curling around a disturbingly familiar face. The woman’s big, somewhat dazed blue eyes met hers, bored into her very soul with their intensity.

Willow knew that face. Last she’d seen it the owner had been smiling viciously, advancing on a powerless slayer…No….last time she had seen that face it had been speckled with blood…filled with pain…

The witch blinked and in an instant the vacuum surrounding her was replaced. She was now standing in a room. To her left a grand piano resided where a man sat playing. His long, slim fingers almost caressing the keys, luring perfect notes from the instrument. It took her almost a full minute to understand who it was. Her heart skipped a beat.

Spike!?

He looked so different, the bleached blonde hair so typical to the cocky vampire was light brown and long enough to touch the collar of the open white shirt he was wearing. His eyes however were the light blue she remembered, but the strangely peaceful look in them was new. It was nothing like the frosty let-me-tell-you-of-the-hours-before-you-finally-die-look they normally held whenever she saw him.

A movement in the corner of her vision made her turn. Her jaw fell open. This face she recognised immediately.

Angel…

Like the other male vampire his hair was longer and his clothes of the same old cut as Spikes. He had a grin on his lips that brought an answering smile to her own. She had never seen him smile before, he was always so serious. That combined with the guilt ever present in his eyes gave the souled vampire an air of sadness.
This version was different. His dark eyes were happy. No, not happy. They where…at ease. Not Angel’s, but Angelus’ eyes…

“Little witch, you shouldn’t be here.”

Willow turned back to the woman who still stood watching her. A small tremble racked the mortals frame. This was no woman. She knew who this…this…creature was. Still the knowledge paled in comparison to a greater worry. Where was she?! Her mouth opened before another thought had time to cross her mind.

“Uhhh…Where am I? Cause I think I’m dreaming and that’s weird cause if I was dreaming I shouldn’t know I was dreaming. Right? And then again, if this isn’t a dream I’m somewhere else and that’s not very good…ehhh…right?”

The vampire smiled, her head somewhat tilted to the side. She seemed amused by the explosive spluttering of words.

“You’re sleeping but not dreaming. Lost in the middle and now the birds are all trying to eat you’re crumpets away. You took a wrong turn pretty.”

Willow frowned. What on earth did she mean?

“Wrong turn? But I haven’t walked anywhere. The last thing I remember…” a horrible thought suddenly struck her. “Am I dead?!”

“No.” the female vampire walked up to her. “Not dead, that wouldn’t be much fun, now would it pretty?” she reached her hand out and stroke the young redhead’s cheek. Willow immediately pulled back, her eyes wide.

“You died!”

“I have been dead for ever end ever. You know that.”

Willow backed another step, the fear growing inside of her.

“This is…I…no…vampires…”

“No need to hide, you’re safe now. Keeps me warm and safe too. All the bad went away in a puff of smoke!” she giggled at Willows wide-eyed expression.

“Bad? What bad? I don’t und…” she trailed of as the vampire stretched her arm out and ran her fingers through Spikes hair as he stopped playing. They both fixed the mortal with their eyes. The dark vampire then held her hand out to Angelus who took it, placing a lingering kiss on her wrist.

“You can’t stay. Wakey-wakey little sweet. This place isn’t for you…”

“What?” Willow still didn’t understand.

“Time to go home before the birds have finished their snack and it’s to dark to see.”

“But…”

“Wake up Luvvie! I have secrets to tell.”


* * *


Willow sat perfectly still on the ground – waiting. She didn’t dare to move, in fact hardly dared to breath, fear holding her body rigid. Her mind in opposite was wild, a tempest in the magnitude of a small hurricane raging inside her head throwing thoughts and memories around like small leaves caught in that storm.

She had come awake with a gasp, fighting to regain her senses only to be brutally pushed away from the inside. She had lost control over her own body’s movements with a hard shove and a hissed “Move!” delivered in the voice of the vampire from her dreams. From Drusilla…

Willow to shocked to react at first had been flabbergast when the vampire had stood up and started to walk. It proved an extremely scary act; watching through her own eyes but having no power over what happened outside her mind. She couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening. Her brain told her that she in fact and of course was the one who controlled the movements, her vision confirmed this, but when the witch then tried to stop nothing happened. Her body kept on walking, one foot placed in front of the other, and Willow had nothing to do with it.

She panicked.

Screaming, with a voice that didn’t reach outside her head, fighting, with arms that didn’t move, and finally crying hysterically, although no tears touched her physical cheeks. All the while she was moving towards the warehouse district of Sunnydale. That fact made her, after a good twenty minutes of hysterics, calm down a little. The famous rational mind of Willow Rosenberg kicking in.

The warehouse district was not a particularly good place to go in Sunnydale, especially not after dark. It was mostly deserted and a perfect place for vampire lairs, hence often teeming with the un-dead population. She had to do something, going there would mean death.

Willow pushed her mind forward, hitting what felt like a moving wall, showing her back. She tried again, then again until she, in a desperate act, fuelled by her own fear and anger practically rammed it.

Drusilla winced at the impact, wisps of pain shooting thorough her body. The little witch was stronger than she had thought she would be. Silly girl. All Drusilla wanted was to go home and sleep, her head hurt terribly and the humans mad yelling didn’t help a bit.

“Stop it.”

“Move!” Willow cried out as the wall boggled and gave in. The emptiness she had been floating in giving way to a feeling of solid ground under her feet. She stopped.

She stopped!!!

Her feet stopped moving! She was back in control! A wave of warmth spread inside of her. She had taken it back. A push from the insides however made that warm feeling disappear in an instant.

Drusilla raged. The stupid human didn’t move. She snarled and pushed again. It was all because of the girl’s shiny trinket. Drusilla knew this, she could hear the stars sing of it in teasing voices. Her demon and Willows soul were equally matched in power, leaving Willow and herself to fight it out. And right now the vampire didn’t have the energy to do so. Cursing her violently and making sure the witch heard it she settled back.

Willow blushed at the words clearly broadcasted inside of her head. Somehow it seemed wrong for the fiend to swear, it didn’t suit her.
She looked around. Now what? The panicked fear she had pushed down before, came back in full vengeance and with that a memory.

The old lady!

She had hurt that old defenceless lady! She – Willow Rosenberg! A muffled sob escaped her lips. How could she have done that? She didn’t hurt people! She was good! She was…not alone…she was…possessed? What was she? She was…No…wait…the lady and…the voices in her head…the one stealing control…
Her mind twisted around the facts, ran through them, over them, and dissected them…If not her then…

“Drusilla!” her sudden exclamations spoken in a piercing tone to the darkness surrounding them, made a pouting Drusilla snap to. The witch didn’t sound too happy…

“Oh, Goddess! I need to find Giles!” dizziness clouded her mind and she gracelessly slumped down to the ground. Everything was spinning…Damn it…she needed to be calm! Her thoughts raced and her body froze, fear boiling up inside of her.

What if Giles couldn’t help…?


TBC…

AN 3; People…please…Its me begging here. This is my first real long fic, so please…Please, pretty-please with a naked, pierced Spike on a leash on top…(or a Willow covered in whipped cream, or Angel in a neon green tutu singing “when Irish eyes are smiling”, or Dru with bunny slippers balancing a teapot on her head, or whatever else tickles your fancy….) PLEASE review…I need it people! Is it good? Is it bad? Should I ditch the story? Any and all advise will be received with open arms (or with a mace, a cistern filled with gasoline and a lighter if you just write; “It sucked!” and don’t tell me WHY it sucked….)…=)