The Soulmate Series

Formaldehyde (Chapter Thirty-Eight of Soulmates)

“Having to stake a vampire who wanted to make me a snack.”

Why did she ever say that? The emotions she picks up from Angel the moment the words leave her mouth make her feel both foolish and frightened. He is angry - very angry.

In truth, she knows why she said it though: she wanted to be brave, and flip, and devil-may-care. She wanted to be the girl who once considered bringing marshmallows to toast over the burning corpses of demons. She wanted to be Willow again, and if she couldn’t be her, she at least wanted to sound like her.

Funny. All these weeks she’s been reminding her friends that what she’s been through means she’ll never be the same again, but she herself hasn’t listened, not to one single word. And now that failure is putting her in a very tricky situation. What is Angel going to do?

Luckily, though, it seems as if maybe he’s not going to do anything. She watches out of the corner of her eye as he slips out the door and out into the night. Good. His fury is fading away from her senses as he goes and it’s entirely possible that he’s going home to cool off. He’ll realize, she hopes, that he has no right to criticize what she does. It’s her life, and he isn’t a part of it.

He’s been reasonable lately, or at least as close to it as he’s been since returning from Hell. On that last walk, he hadn’t talked about loving her at all, and while she’s sadly aware that’s not because he’s suddenly gotten a grip on reality, it at least indicates that he might be getting there. Still, there’s a something, a something about the bond and about Angel - not something she knows, something she should know, something that has her frightened and on edge even now that she’s free of Faith and the Mayor. But what is it?

Unfortunately, she’s distracted from her thoughts, and the tendrils of knowledge slip through her fingers. Buffy wants to know what happened and she’s not going to be put off. As Willow gives her the edited-for-public-consumption version, the real events play back in her mind, driving whatever she was close to figuring out further away.

Thank heavens for desks well-stocked with number two pencils, that’s all Willow can think right now as she does her level best not to choke on the dust that swirls around her. That was a close run thing. She must not rate all that highly as a hostage or the Mayor wouldn’t have left her all alone where any Tom, Dick, or demon could decide to make a meal out of her. You’d think, having gone to all the trouble of having Faith and his minions break into her house and cart her off...

Oh well. Lucky thing - not for the vamp, but at least for *her* - that she’s never been able to resist snooping in desk drawers, especially not when the desk belongs to the enemy. Looking at the sharpened implement in her hand, she thinks maybe she’ll start using pencils as hair accessories from now on - they could come in quite handy.

Pity she hadn’t thought of that idea the day when... No! Now is not the time to be thinking about Angel. She needs to stay focused on where she is and what she’s doing, because the brand new dust bunny has just gifted her with a golden ticket: an unlocked door leading right out of this hostage situation.

With that thought, she makes her move, edging cautiously into the hallway. Sometimes it’s good to be underestimated and disregarded. Bet Faith thinks she’s just cringing in a corner like a little mouse, waiting for Buffy to come and save her. Ha! Not this girl. Not anymore.

She makes a run for it, then tries a promising looking door, only to find it locked. Darn. She walks this time, purposefully, but quietly, down the hall...just in time to hear Faith’s voice right before the Mayor’s office door opens and both she and her boss emerge. Luckily, hearing them first has given her time to hide, and it’s back into the room she just left.

“I don’t know why you had me bring her here. They’re not gonna be brain-damaged enough to come back here tonight.” Thanks, Faith. It’s great to know how much value she thinks the gang places on Willow.

“Ever have a dog?” Nice non sequitur there, Mr. Mayor.

“What?”

“I did. Rusty. Irish Setter. Swell little pooch. A dog’s friendship is stronger than reason, stronger than its own sense of self-preservation. Buffy’s like a dog. And hey, before you can say Jack Robinson, you’ll get to see me kill her like one.”

With that, they’re gone. Willow decides not to focus on what the Mayor just said about Buffy. After all, why should she be afraid of a man who just walked past a formerly-locked door that was now slightly ajar and failed to notice? Loser. He has no higher an opinion of her than Faith does, it seems, figuring she’s nothing more than easy bait to lure the Slayer into a trap. Funny, while that is the very reason she’s making good her escape right now, it does rankle a bit. After this is over, she really needs to work on getting some respect.

But first...there’s an empty Mayor’s office beckoning. Okay, yeah, if she was smart she’d be high-tailing it out of the building right now as fast as her legs could carry her, but really, there’s a gold mine of potentially crucial information just sitting there, all unprotected, waiting for her to take it back to Giles and Buffy. She can’t just ignore it. That would be...rude.

So, ignoring the voice that tells her to step on by, Willow walks on in instead. The Mayor’s office is surprisingly unostentatious for a man with such lofty ambitions. Not the least bit impressive, in fact. But then again, maybe he’s smart not to give the game away with surroundings that don’t suit his ostensibly meager station.

Closing the door to the office carefully, she heads to a built-in cabinet and opens it. Bingo! Mojo central, complete with skulls. The Mayor is into some serious dark arts, and all this stuff is making Willow’s skin crawl. Even the thought of magick fills her with dread. She can never forget what happened the last time she played with powers beyond her control. How can she?

She overcomes her revulsion and starts exploring, quickly finding a little door that, when flipped open, reveals the mother lode: The Books of Ascension. Yes! Maybe getting kidnapped wasn’t such a bad thing after all. As long as no one is robbing her house right now. She doesn’t remember Faith and her cohorts closing the front door as they were dragging Willow out of there. She also doesn’t remember any of the neighbors even opening a window to see what the commotion was about. Sunnydale - full of none but the ever oblivious. See what happens if any of *them* get taken captive. Hope they don’t expect *Willow* to lift a finger to help.

Focusing on the books and taking her thoughts away from her uncaring fellow citizens, Willow begins to read. It’s not exactly the sort of thing she’d read for pleasure, that’s for sure. Way overwritten. *Tolstoy* was never this lugubrious. Man, could they just get to the point already?

Unfortunately, the pages and pages of unnecessary verbiage take time to read, time that has proven not to be her friend. Her studies are interrupted as she’s midway through the fifth volume.

“Check out the bookworm.”

“Faith.” Just the very last person Willow wanted to see right now.

She crouches down next to Willow. “Anybody with brains, anybody who knew what was going to happen to her... would be trying to claw her way out of this place. But you...you just can’t stop Nancy Drew-ing, can you?” She takes the book from Willow’s hand and glances at the title. Faith can read? Who knew? “Guess now you know too much and that kind of just naturally leads to killing.”

“Faith, wait! I want to talk to you.” Well, actually, no. But she’d rather talk to her than be killed by her.

“Oh yeah, give me the speech again, please. ‘Faith, we’re still your friends. We can help you. It’s not too late.’”

“It’s way too late.” If Willow’s going to die, she’s going to die being honest. All these weeks, these months, of lying and pretense...it’s enough. Now, for one shining moment, she wants to say exactly what she means and how she feels, and if it gets her killed even faster...so be it. Her life’s been pretty damn awful lately anyway.

“You know, it didn’t have to be this way. But you made your choice. I know you had a tough life. I know that some people think you had a lot of bad breaks. Well boo-hoo.” Yeah, try being bonded for all eternity to the guy who raped you, see where that gets you. “Poor you. You know, you had a lot more in your life than - than some people. I mean, you had friends like Buffy.”

Buffy *is* a pretty darn good friend, actually, all things considered. Willow’s very sorry she won’t ever get the chance to see her again. But after mouthing off to Faith like this, she figures her life expectancy can be measured by a stopwatch. Oh well, no use stopping now. Faith can only kill her once. “Now you have no one. You were a Slayer, and now you’re nothing. You’re just a big, selfish, worthless waste.”

Ow! That hurt. Faith packs a heck of a punch. She may have gone rogue, but someone forgot to revoke her Slayer powers. Aren’t there rules about these things?

“You hurt me, I hurt you. I’m just a little more efficient.”

“Oh, and here I just thought you didn’t have a comeback.” It’s amazing how easy it is to be brave when you know you’re going to be slaughtered no matter what.

“You’re begging for some deep pain.” Faith’s hands are on her now and Willow is suddenly wishing they could just skip to the evisceration, because there’s something about the way Faith is touching her that’s a lot more terrifying than the thought of an untimely death. “Or maybe that’s not what you’re begging for. All the guys want you: Oz, Angel, I even saw Xander over at your place the other night, spending some quality time all alone with you in your nice, big, empty house. Heck, I’ll bet even stuffy old Giles wants some of what you’ve got.”

Her eyes sweep over Willow, taking in every inch of her. It’s as degrading as the feel of her hands. “I don’t see it, but then again, maybe it’s not something you can see. Maybe it’s something you have to...experience.” The knife comes out and it’s now at Willow’s throat. “What do you say? Wanna give me a taste?”

“Girls. I hope I don’t have to separate you two.” Willow’s so glad to hear the Mayor’s voice that she’s considering voting for him if he runs again. “Faith, you can play with your new toy later. Something’s come up.” By ‘new toy’, he’d better not mean Willow. She can’t stop shaking, no matter how badly she doesn’t want Faith to see her fear and revulsion. Dying is one thing, but being touched...being forced...no, she can’t go through that again.

Faith is caressing her face with the knife, seemingly oblivious to her boss’s words. “Faith. You know I don’t like repeating myself.”

“I got someone,” she whispers in Willow’s ear. “I got him.” She turns and sits on the Mayor’s desk, looking for all the world like a dutiful daughter, all the sexual menace drained right out of her, and Willow could not be more relieved. There’s something scary about the way that Faith can switch gears so dramatically, but Willow’s hardly of a mind to complain this time.

“I just got,” the Mayor grins as he speaks, chin on his hand, “a heck of an interesting phone call.”

Thank God. She’s not going to be raped. She’s not even going to die. Buffy is coming to the rescue.

Willow finishes her narrative, amazed that she could pay attention to her spiel even as she was overwhelmed by her memories. There’s something to be said for mental agility, even though she pretty much related exactly what happened. Of course, the edited version leaned more heavily on snappy patter and omitted entirely the threat of sexual assault. Willow has absolutely no desire to talk about that, especially not in front of Wesley, who’s clucking his tongue at her as if getting kidnapped was something she did deliberately to ruin everything.

“Well, let’s hope there’s something useful in those pages. The Mayor has the Box of Gavrok. And as of now, we are right back where we started.”

“Excuse me? How is that Willow’s fault? And hey, we are so not right back where we started because we do have pages from those books now, which we didn’t have when we started.” Cordelia has never been a more welcome presence than she is right now. The ‘We Hate Cordelia Club’ has now officially disbanded. “I’d say Willow’s been a whole lot of help, as usual, unlike you, who can’t even keep your own Slayer from going evil.”

Every eye in the library is on her. “What? Like any of you weren’t thinking the same thing? What is it with you people, anyway? Like telling the truth is such a bad thing? If no one tells Wesley he’s a lousy Watcher, it doesn’t mean he isn’t one. And maybe this way, he’ll do something about it and change careers before he does any more damage.”

Wesley looks absolutely destroyed and Willow is wondering why he seems more hurt by Cordelia’s condemnation than he ever is by anyone else’s when the anvil suddenly hits her squarely on the head: He’s got the hots for Cordelia Chase. Eww. There’s something very creepy about that. Very, very creepy.

But also funny.

She’s this close to collapsing into a very therapeutic fit of giggles when the man himself speaks and destroys her nearly good mood. “Yes, well, be that as it may,” his eyes are fixed squarely on Willow now, “what is it that the Mayor was saying about you being involved with Angel? Is that true?”

She can’t believe this. Wesley has actually fixated on that? Why does he even care? Maybe this is just his way of getting back at her for the fact that she’s seemingly the reason why Cordelia abhors him. But whatever the reason, having to deal with this now, so soon after Faith has revived all those feelings of vulnerability and pain... she can only hope that at least Buffy did not fall prey to the Mayor’s wiles.

Fortunately, a look at Buffy’s face says that her friend is actually on her side and ready to defend her. But while Buffy is about to say something, Cordelia gets there ahead of her. “Not that Willow’s personal life is any of your business, but are you demented? Buffy may have a thing for dead guys, but in case you haven’t noticed, Willow’s the brains of this outfit and she has better taste. She’s also not the kind of girl who sneaks around with other women’s boyfriends. Leave it to you to believe some lie that Faith and the Mayor came up with. You really are a lousy Watcher.

“C’mon, Willow. I’ll give you a ride home.” She grabs Willow’s arm and practically drags her to the door. It’s not hard. Willow is still in shock at that strongly-worded defense. Having Cordelia on her side is going to take some getting used to, that’s for sure.

“You coming, Xander?” Xander hurries to join them at the first sound of his girlfriend’s voice. He seems a bit surprised by her vehemence as well.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Okay, Buffy?” That’s all Willow manages to say before she’s propelled out the library doors by the imposing Miss Chase, Xander right on their heels. They head for the car. Cordelia is fuming as they get in and she roars out of the parking lot.

“Can you believe that creep? Accusing Willow like that? As if she’d ever let Angel touch her. And like it’s any of his business anyway. I think Wesley’s some kind of pervert, being interested in your sex life and all.” She shudders and doesn’t notice that Willow has done the same. If only Cordelia was right. If only Willow had any say in whether or not Angel ever touched her.

Angel. There’s that nagging feeling at the back of her mind again, that sense that there’s something she should know. She just can’t seem to put her finger on what it is.

It’s Xander who first notices that she’s suddenly gotten lost in herself. “You okay, Wills?”

“Yeah,” she does her best to smile, “I’m just kind of tired. Being taken hostage has a way of taking it out of a girl, you know?”

“Well, I locked your door, so I don’t think you got robbed at least.”

“Thanks, Cordelia.” Cordelia was the one who discovered she’d been kidnapped?

She seems to sense Willow’s curiosity. “I decided to take some time off work to help save the world and I stopped at your house to see if you wanted a ride to the library. Good thing I did, huh?”

There are tears in Willow’s eyes now. “Thanks...again, I mean. It was really nice of you and...yeah, very cool that you realized I was in danger and all.”

“What are friends for?” The smile is breezy, but there’s real warmth in Cordelia’s eyes. She seems to be a quick study at this friend thing.

They’ve arrived at Willow’s house in record time, Cordelia’s irritation making her a bit on the reckless side, but Willow’s not really bothered. She’d actually like to be alone for awhile. She has thinking she desperately needs to focus on; she must figure out what’s been teasing the corners of her awareness tonight. She is certain it’s vitally important.

“Good night. And thanks again...for everything.” She hugs Cordelia as she gets out of the car and Xander follows, about to get into the front seat. “You, too, Xan. Thanks.” They hug as well and then Willow heads up the walk to her front door. Unfortunately, Cordelia has already driven away by the time it occurs to Willow that she’ll be all alone in the house tonight...and there’s no guarantee Faith won’t pay a visit.

Oh no. What if she’s inside, even now?

Willow’s senses, however, suddenly tell her that Faith isn’t the one who’s paying a call on her at present. The bond is letting her know that Angel is nearby.

The bond...again there’s a small voice at the back of her mind telling her that there’s something she should know about the bond.

Now is not going to be the time for her to unravel the mystery, though. She looks around, but she doesn’t see him. He must be up on her balcony. So she goes inside, locks the front door and bolts it, then heads upstairs.

She was right, Angel is indeed on her balcony, and even through the curtains, she can tell he does not look pleased.

She opens the french doors and his eyes sear right through her. She hates those eyes.

“Willow.” His voice is low and even, but she feels the anger simmering through the bond.

“Angel, what’s wrong?” Here eyes are wide and innocent, not that she thinks it will fool him. She knows he can sense that she’s nervous and afraid of him.

“What were you thinking?”

“Umm...what do you mean?”

He’s truly irritated now. “You know exactly what I mean. The Books of Ascension. You took far too big a risk. You could have been killed.”

Okay, it’s bad enough that Faith and the Mayor and even Wesley think she’s useless, but this is just too much. “Look, Angel, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the concern - but I don’t actually appreciate the concern. I saw a chance to help save the world, and I took it. If Buffy had done the same thing, or Giles or Xander, you wouldn’t be yelling at them. I’m just as committed to fighting evil as anybody. And hey, newsflash: I’m not dead. So everything worked out for the best.”

A moment later, she wishes she’d phrased things differently.

“I am not in love with Giles or Xander - or Buffy. I am in love with you, and I don’t want you to take these foolish chances anymore, no matter how good of a reason you think you have.” His anger has made him less cautious than he normally is when talking to her about his feelings. She wishes it hadn’t. There are some truths Willow desperately wishes she didn’t have to face.

“You can’t tell me what to do, Angel. I know you think you love me, but...”

That anger is now cold fury and it’s freezing Willow right to the marrow of her bones. “I don’t think I love you. I do love you.”

Time to draw on the same courage that allowed her to give Faith a piece of her mind...and hope that it doesn’t put her in the same peril. “No, Angel! You don’t. I don’t care what you believe. Because people don’t rape people they love. It’s a fact. So just think about that and realize that this,” she gestures between the two of them, “is some sick fantasy. Maybe you’re so traumatized by what you went through in Hell that you’re not in your right mind yet. I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t care. I just want you to leave me alone. You raped me, you hurt me, you ruined my life. Just leave me alone!”

If Willow thought she was terrified before, what she senses now almost paralyzes her: calm - eerie, inexplicable calm - flows from Angel to her. She’s shocked and she has no idea what to do.

“I understand. You’ve been through a horrible ordeal tonight and you’re still upset...”

He’s insane. That’s it. That has to be it. “Upset? What planet are you on, Angel? I’m a lot more than upset. I hate you! I wish you were still rotting in Hell!”

He’s smiling at her, indulgently, as if she were a misbehaving child. The alarm bells are going off full tilt inside her, trying to tell her something, when he speaks again. “You need to pack some things, Willow. It’s not safe for you to stay here. There’s no telling what the Mayor might do once he discovers you took some of the pages of the Books.”

She’s having no luck making him listen to what she’s telling him, so, disoriented by his manner, she gives in and joins his conversation, asking a question whose answer she knows but desperately hopes is different from what she thinks, feeling as insane as he is for asking it. “Where are you taking me?”

“The mansion, of course. It’s the only place where I can ensure you’ll be safe.”

No. No! Funny how hearing him say it, even though she knew what he would say, somehow makes it more real and revives her flagging courage. She is not going back to the mansion with him. “Angel, did you hear a word that I said? What on Earth makes you think for one moment that I would stay with you? I’ll go stay at Buffy’s house. Or Cordelia’s. Heck, I’ll stay with Xander or even Giles. But there is no way I will spend one minute alone with you in that mansion. Do you understand me?”

The indulgent look remains, tinged with sadness, and all she’s getting through the bond is that same calm, now mixed with that blasphemy he considers his love for her. “I understand your concern. But, Willow, by now, don’t you realize that you can trust me? I made a mistake.” That’s what he thinks it was? A mistake? “I would give anything to go back and change it, to make things different. I can’t. But since then, have I hurt you? Have I once done anything to cause you pain?” Only refused to let go. Only been a constant, abominable reminder of the worst thing that’s ever been done to her.

“I’ll call Cordelia right now, okay. You can even listen in. I’ll have her come get me and take me to Buffy’s. That’ll be okay, right?”

Angel says nothing and the silence seems to go on forever.

Then he walks through the doors and into her bedroom.

The invitation...he knew... Willow can’t breathe. The man who raped her is in her bedroom.

Everything suddenly comes together in her mind and she starts to remember things - Angel shutting down the bond when Buffy was in the mansion; the way she felt him so strongly when her mother tried to burn her at the stake; tonight, when she was held captive, the way she could feel him reassuring her.

He’s been controlling the bond all along. He’s a monster - a cold, calculating monster.

“You bastard!” she screams, as she slaps him full across the face.

Oh no. What has she done?


Tbc...