The Soulmate Series

Love Me Not (Chapter Thirty-Two of Soulmates)

“I don’t think Angel loves me anymore.”

The new Watcher has arrived: Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, a man who seems a living tribute to the Council’s ineptitude. His hair alone, slicked back with what appears to be sludge, gives evidence of someone woefully ill-equipped to even attend to his own appearance. Willow can only imagine the incompetence he will display at his more pressing duties as time passes.

Faith’s instability is apparent to all observers, even to Buffy, who’d seemed more willing than any of them to let Faith’s ‘eccentricities’ slide and to alibi her more flagrant transgressions.

The evil that is growing and threatening to swallow Sunnydale whole appears to originate within the city government - an idea which seems such a perfect leftist metaphor that it would be amusing were it not a harsh and alarming truth.

When their lives are filled with so much danger and uncertainty, Willow’s pretty sure that Angel’s waning affections should be the least of Buffy’s worries, but she does her best to keep her feelings from colouring her expression. There was a time (not so long ago, really) when Buffy’s priorities would have made perfect sense to her, and she realizes that. She can still remember when love - the finding of it and keeping of it - seemed more urgent to her than any apocalypse, can still remember when she cared more about Oz’s puzzling withdrawal from her than a spate of werewolf attacks (not thinking that they were the least bit related).

Oz is not who she should be thinking about right now, so she ruthlessly tamps down the images of him that threaten to fill her mind. There’s an almost condescending (or is it spiteful?) moment when she thinks maybe Buffy should do the same when it comes to Angel.

It’s not that she’s suddenly acquired a Giles-ian maturity and obsession with the big picture. The truth is that it’s almost impossibly difficult for her to feel her former empathy when the object of Buffy’s heartsickness is the creature whose twisted bond with Willow has destroyed her entire life.

But she has to pretend, has to sit here on the sofa in her parents’ sterile living room, listen to Buffy’s plaintive account of her uncertainty and misery, keep her own feelings entirely concealed, and act as if she is nothing more than a bystander in the drama that is ‘The Slayer and the Souled Vampire.’ It’s agonizing, playing her part, even more so because she has to deliver lines.

“I’m sure that’s not true, Buffy. He still loves you. You guys are forever.” Oh, if only that were so...but Willow’s had so many false hopes dashed that she now considers hope the second most profane of all four letter words - right after love.

“I used to think so. But, Will, you haven’t been around us, you haven’t seen...there’s a difference. When I look into his eyes...it’s like he isn’t there. Like my Angel, the one who loved me so much that he lost his soul because of me, is gone.”

Willow seizes on that last sentence. Perhaps it offers a way to both comfort her friend and bring an end to this conversation. “Maybe his soul is the reason, Buffy. Maybe he’s so afraid of what might happen that he figures it’s just better to let you go, you know?”

Buffy hasn’t heard a word she said; she’s too lost in her own thoughts. “Do you think it could be because I sent him to Hell? I mean, he said he understood and he’s never said he was angry, but maybe he is and he just doesn’t want to tell me. He suffered there, I know he did, and maybe he can’t forgive me for that.”

The discussion, it now appears, will not be ending soon. “I’m sure he knows that you only did what you had to do. The portal was open and there was no other way to close it. You were saving the world, Buffy. That’s your job; that’s one of the things about you that Angel fell in love with in the first place.”

“But he was in Hell with his soul, Willow. Can you imagine how horrible that must have been? Of course, he hates me. I hate me. How could I have sent the man I love to Hell?”

There’s no getting through to Buffy at this point; she’s caught up in the breaking of her own heart and neither logic nor palliative words seem at all capable of reaching her. At least she’s stopped talking, though. Willow needs at least a moment without Angel’s name poisoning the air she breathes, reminding her of just how tortured and convoluted her own relationship with him is.

Her arms encircle her friend, pulling her close. Buffy’s crying quietly, her tears soaking through the fabric of Willow’s shirt as she obliviously sobs out her pain in the embrace of a girl who has suffered so much more at Angel’s hands than she ever has or ever will.

“What if he really doesn’t love me anymore? What am I going to do?” Buffy’s sitting up now, eyes wide and panicked.

The peace has gone and now Willow must say something comforting and wise and false, the words ash-bitter on her tongue. “He does, Buffy. What you guys have, there’s no way that’s gone. How could he ever stop loving you?”

Buffy’s eyes search hers and Willow prays to whatever deity might actually be listening that Buffy sees what she wants to see.

For the first time in forever, a prayer of hers is answered. “Really? You really think he still loves me?”

May she be forgiven for what she’s about to say, but that last bit of possible divine intervention makes her think it might well be acceptable, even laudable, to continue to lie. “I know he does.”

The hug that follows is warm and strong and Willow feels both guilty and righteous about what she’s just done. Since the world needs a focused Slayer with her eye on the ball, righteousness wins out. It’s not as if Buffy will blame Willow for being wrong, anyway, and at least if Buffy can be deceived until the crisis has passed, the world will be saved and Buffy can find someone new. It shouldn’t be hard. Men love Buffy; she’s that kind of girl.

It seems as if the romantic crisis is over, or at least that Buffy has cried it out of her system for the time being, because suddenly the conversation turns to what objective observers would call the more important matter.

“It’s the Mayor.”

To those same observers, Buffy’s words would be apropos of nothing and leave them confused and full of questions. Willow, however, is too well used to the rambling nature of her own thought processes not to be able to follow the ball.

“The Mayor? Oh my gosh! How do you know?”

“The Deputy Mayor, a guy named Finch. He came to see me last night...Will, this is bad. I mean, really, really bad. The Mayor is a demon, well, sort of, anyway.”

Despite the dire nature of the information, Willow is sidetracked by how much sense this all seems to make: the lax security in this town, the clueless police force...the far too clean and wide sewer tunnels. The pieces of the puzzle that is Sunnydale now fall neatly into place. Why on Earth hadn’t she herself thought of this years ago?

Willow shakes herself out of her reverie. Facts would be good, and Buffy is the one who has them, so she decides to ask some questions. Her computer is right upstairs and she can get to researching right away. Is it wrong if she feels some excitement? It’s been so long since she’s truly felt useful and hacking into government databases is something of a specialty of hers. She can bring something very important to the fight this time..

“What did Finch tell you?”

“Not much, he seemed pretty scared, but he says he has some files he’s going to bring us and that what the Mayor is up to is really big.”

“Files, huh?” Willow is already plotting how she can get to them before the Deputy Mayor even has a chance to give them to Buffy. There’s not a single thought of Angel or her parents in her head.

Buffy looks at her with the oddest expression. There are tears in her eyes.

“What is it, Buffy?”

“It’s...it’s you. I haven’t seen you look like this since...”

That fast, she’s enveloped in a Slayer-strength hug.

“God, Will, I thought...I thought you were never gonna be the same again, but now...” The hug grows tighter and Willow gasps for air. Buffy lets go, looking rather abashed. “Sorry. Guess I was a little over-excited.”

“It’s okay.” And it is, because Willow is almost excited herself. She hasn’t had a moment like this since...well since...a moment where she was consumed by something intellectual to the exclusion of her emotional pain. It was good, so very good. It’s gone now, but having had one, she’s almost sure there will be another and that is something worth looking forward to the next day and the next for, something to sustain her through the tears and the nightmares and the hopeless tangle of her feelings.

“Are you doing better?” There are times when Buffy surprises her. This is definitely one of them. Of all her friends, Buffy is the one Willow would least expect this question from.

She decides to be honest. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think so. Like right now, when all I could think about was the Mayor and what might be in those files. But then, sometimes I think maybe I’ll never be better, that I’ll never be happy or even feel okay about anything ever again.”

Another hug, more gentle this time. “Hey, at least I can hug my best friend these days. That’s gotta mean something, right? Add you getting excited about research again and I think it means there’s hope for you yet.” Buffy could be grasping at meaningless straws, but on the other hand, she could be right and Willow might well have cause to see the light at the end of the tunnel as the sun and not an oncoming train.

“I love you, Buffy.”

“I love you, too.”

There’s silence for a minute or two as both try to figure out what to say next. There’s so much Willow wants to say, but months of lying and secrets have made it so difficult to find the words for truth.

Then the phone rings and it doesn’t matter anymore. Willow answers it and a very worried Giles is on the other end.

“Willow, is Buffy there by any chance?”

“Yeah, sure.” She doesn’t need to ask. The tone of his voice screams ‘emergency’, so she motions to Buffy and hands her the phone.

Buffy’s answers are short and her voice gives away the fact that she’s worried and shocked. Willow waits ‘til she hangs up before asking her anything.

“What’s happened?”

“It’s Finch. He’s...he’s dead.” The expression on Buffy’s face is one of stunned blankness and Willow has a hunch they are thinking the same thing: things are worse than they ever imagined.

“I have to go. I need to talk to Giles and...Wesley isn’t real supportive of you guys being around and...”

Willow is already well-aware of Wesley’s attitude and she’s not hurt by Buffy’s veiled instructions to stay home. After all, she can use her computer here as well as anywhere, and right now it looks like they’ll need her skills on it more than ever.

“Go, Buffy. It’s okay. I’ll get to working my computer mojo, see if I can turn up whatever Finch was planning on sharing.”

The look in her friend’s eyes is one of extreme gratitude. Willow feels more respect from her now than she ever has. It threatens to bring her to tears.

“I’ll call you or come by later and let you know what’s up, okay? I promise.”

“Thanks.”

Buffy is gone, out the door and into the darkening twilight, leaving behind answers to which Willow isn’t entirely sure she knows the questions. Still, there are some questions she does know and they are what she will focus on. All of them are about the Deputy Mayor.

Heading upstairs, she wonders just what happened to him, anyway. She’s guessing his death wasn’t a heart attack brought on by his stressful job or anything like that. Here on the Hellmouth, natural causes are anything but natural or normal. She can’t recall the last time she heard of anyone actually dying from a stroke or pneumonia.

Time to boot up the computer and see what she can see. Sadly, it isn’t much. The Mayor’s files are tightly guarded and Willow is starting to think she’s way off her game. No luck at all in breaking in. Perhaps it’s too late for her to come back, to be a part of the fight ever again. One more thing that Angel’s cost her.

But like it or not, she is also aware that Angel has, at least if she’s objective about it, acted to balance the scales. Twice now, he has saved her life. More importantly - to Willow’s way of thinking, anyway - he stood up for Oz after the death of Scott Hope.

Absent an effective intellectual distraction, her mind is flooded with thoughts of the man she’d most like never to think about again. It can’t be helped. She almost expected this. After all, the main reason for Buffy’s visit was to talk about him.

The mansion is there, crystal clear in her mind’s eye. She can see Angel’s face, feral and cruel as he took her against her will, heedless of her cries and pleas, heedless of anything but his own desire. She can feel the clothes being torn from her body, the thrust of him inside her, the way he made her hurt and bleed.

Yet she can also see his face some time later, the sadness and longing in his eyes. She still hates him for that, as if it was some deliberate act to rob her of her right to feel pain and anger. She hates him most, though, for the way he used the connection she’d been foolish and naive enough to forge against her, turning her body into her enemy and forcing her to feel the most degrading kind of desire.

She can see his face when he came to apologize, the contrition in his eyes a slap in her face.

But then there’s the night he saved her from giving in to the First Evil and killing herself, the walk that they took and the way he accepted her hatred. She can still taste the snow on her tongue and recall the way the snowflakes fell chill against her cheek

There is also the night her mother tried to kill her. The searing heat of the fire as it threatened to consume her in agony...until he came, braving the flames and risking his own death to snatch her from the jaws of a death too gruesome to even contemplate.

He defended Oz. She can’t forget that, or that it might be the difference between whether the boy she loves is gone forever or has a chance at redemption worth returning for someday.

There are all these memories and something more, something deeper, something that would remain even were these recollections to fade into nothingness.

Loathe it all she might, she can still feel everything she’s shared with Angel. Whether she likes it or not (and she certainly does not), their connection is there. Unbroken and unbreakable, a chain that will forever bind her to him. She’s read and researched as best she could and all she’s found out points to one inescapable truth: she will be tied to Angel forever

For the very first time, Willow forces herself to contemplate just what that might portend. What will it mean in a year? Two years? Ten years? A lifetime? Is there a chance for her to have a life at all under her own control? To make choices freely? To go where she chooses and be who she chooses? To find love, love that she feels, for whom she chooses to feel it?

The bond stirs to fuller life within her and she knows before the knock comes just what it means. Speak of the devil and he shall appear, isn’t that the saying? Does it apply to thoughts as well? She gets up to open the doors to her balcony the moment she hears the tapping on the glass.

“Angel.” It’s a statement, not a greeting and her voice is flat and devoid of emotion. He knows what she’s feeling anyway; he doesn’t deserve a second helping.

“Willow.” His tone is as detached as her own, but like him, she has access to the world beneath it and she senses the sorrow dwelling there. “I want you to know how sorry I am about Oz.”

That can’t be why he’s here. “You already said that the other night at the library, but thanks.” She’s irritated. Why can’t he just get to the point and leave? “Is there anything else? ‘Cause I’m kind of busy right now.”

She’s annoyed and impatient and she’s hurting him by acting as if the bond isn’t there at all, as if she has to make things very clear. There’s something to be said for her meager arsenal. What she has, after all, at least works. It’s his own fault anyway. His timing could not have been worse.

“Are you looking into what’s happening with the Mayor? Because that’s actually what I came to talk to you about.”

Really? Now that’s interesting. But before she can say anything else, he responds to her unvoiced curiosity. “I think Faith might be up to something.”


Tbc...