Boats Against the Current

Boats Against the Current (Chapter Nine)

Unfortunately, Angel did not get to spend as much time alone with Willow as he would have liked. It wasn’t long at all before their embrace was interrupted.

“Oh my God! Willow! Are you having sex with Angel?”

The others were here.

Anya was never someone he wanted to see, but Angel had never been less overjoyed to see her than he was right now.

“He’s consoling her, An. In case you forgot, we just rescued her from the Initiative. Major badness, remember?” Xander sounded less than thrilled with his girlfriend. Angel only hoped Cordelia’s barely-suppressed smile was suppressed enough.

“I know that.” Anya did not wear peevishness well. “The way he was holding her just looked very sexual to me.”

“I’d like to know something that doesn’t,” Cordelia muttered. Angel hoped he was the only one who heard. She was pushing her luck and he would be having words with her later.

“We had a pretty tough time of it.” Oz could not have picked a better time to reappear. “I even hugged Spike.” Thank heavens his childe hadn’t heard that.

But Spike suddenly made an entrance and it seemed that he had. Luckily, he decided to play along. “Yeah, well, as long as you don’t make a habit of it.” He turned to the new arrivals. “Harris, Linda Goodman, demon girl.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment, but Xander was up to the task of ending it. “How are you guys?” he asked, obviously meaning Willow and Oz.

“I’m okay.” Willow spoke for the first time since everyone had burst in. He turned to look at her and she seemed truthful. Maybe she was okay. Angel certainly hoped so, but she’d been through quite an ordeal.

“Did they experiment on you?”

“An!” Xander nearly yelled.

“What?”


“You know that acting human thing we talked about? I’m thinking you need more practice before you try it in public.”

There was something that looked almost like tears shining in Anya’s eyes right now, though Angel had a hard time giving her credit for that much feeling, and she looked torn between holding her ground and running out the door. Oh how Angel hoped she’d choose the latter course of action.

“Sorry,” Anya muttered. Maybe she was sincere, though Angel was pretty sure she didn’t even know why she was apologizing. Sadly, though, the apology obviously meant that she was staying.

Oz looked nearly as green as Willow did and Angel realized he was possibly as traumatized as Willow was. At any rate, neither of them was looking at Anya, or at each other. Angel put his arm around Willow again. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn if Anya knew the truth.

Willow was about to say something conciliatory to Anya but Angel squeezed her arm and she held her tongue. If they were ever going to properly train Xander’s bitch, they couldn’t reward her for partial compliance.

“Where’s Buffy?” Cordelia asked.

“With Captain America, where else?” Spike answered. “Good thing, too. Because if she wasn’t the only thing standing between me and that Initiative bastard…this chip in my head couldn’t save him.” He looked at Willow as he clenched and unclenched his fists. Angel gave him as close to a fond look as he ever had or ever would. They were family, the three of them, and that meant more than words could say.

“Thanks, Spike,” Willow said, favouring him with a smile of her own, “but Riley wasn’t…I mean he’s not…”

“Don’t kid yourself, Red. Those bastards are all the same.”

“As much as I hate to say it, I’m with Spike on this one. I say we keep Buffy’s khaki arm candy out of the loop from now on. For all we know, he thinks Adam’s the neatest thing ever.” Cordelia wasn’t always wrong.

“I don’t want to seem like some kind of devil’s advocate or anything, but he did actually help rescue Willow and Oz,” Xander offered.

“Only because he wants to keep shagging the Slayer, I’ll wager.” Spike made a gagging gesture as he spoke and Angel couldn’t stifle the chuckle it elicited.

“You’re not upset?” Anya asked. He knew her silence had been too good to last.

“No, I’m not. Buffy and I broke up a long time ago.”

“So you and Willow really are together.”

“An!”

“Yes, we are.” Willow’s soft confirmation shocked everyone, but it was a very happy shock for Angel. He kissed her gently, ever mindful of tonight’s ordeal.

Anya was about to say something that Angel knew was going to piss him off past the point of letting her live through the night when Xander spoke. “His soul’s safe, so Willow can make him as happy as she wants to - and as happy as I really don’t want to think about - and there’s nothing to worry about.”

“You knew?” Xander’s girlfriend was in quite a temper now. Angel almost felt sorry for him…maybe not almost. Xander had been an awful lot of help lately.

“I told him to keep his mouth shut,” Angel said, his voice harsh and just a shade demonic. It was convincing and Xander shot him a covert grateful look.

“Oh,” was all that Anya had to say in reply. Another crisis averted. “Does Buffy know?”

“No, and we’re not going to tell her.” Xander addressed Anya in a decidedly instructional and patronizing tone. She didn’t seem to mind. Angel got the feeling she was used to it. “We’re all staying here tonight, right?” Xander asked.

Another reason to be grateful to the boy, because he had been hoping for an excuse to get Anya out of his sight. “Yeah, why don’t you grab the bags and head upstairs. Spike can show you all where you can sleep.”

Spike looked a bit annoyed at having been relegated to glorified servant status, but he didn’t argue. The others all did as they were told.

Cordelia, in fact, seemed eager…too eager, and Angel had a feeling she was going to try to maneuver Xander and Anya into separate rooms. He needed to have a talk with his seer.

“Willow, Spike will show you to my room. I want to talk to Cordelia about that last vision of hers. We’ll be up in a minute.”

Cordelia opened her mouth to protest, but the look in Angel’s eyes was not something she took lightly. Willow seemed a bit unsettled, but he hugged her again and, while she gave him a rather searching glance, she gave in gracefully. “I love you,” she whispered, and then she followed the others.

Alone at last - because this talk with Cordelia was long overdue.

Just as he was trying to think of a graceful way to start the ball rolling, however, she stunned him by getting right to the point. “This is about me and Xander, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Angel didn’t get a chance to say anything more.

“Look, I know you probably think this is really soon after Doyle and all, and I know you don’t like Xander, but Doyle and I…we never even got the chance to be a couple. I liked him a lot and in a little more time, yeah, I probably would have fallen in love with him, but here’s the deal…he’s dead.” That was a slap in the face, and Angel almost hated her, but she wasn’t done. “And not dead in the still-walking-and-talking way like you and Spike either. I’m sorry, but he’s gone. I’m not. Unlike you, though, I don’t have a bunch of time to lurk and brood and eat rats and pine away until the male equivalent of Willow tears up my apartment and forces me to stop acting like a loser and get a life. I’m young and beautiful, but that won’t last for very long and, thanks to Doyle and these stupid visions, I now have a very limited dating pool to go along with my short lifespan. Xander may not be the handsomest, richest, most successful fish in the sea, but he loved me once and…anyway, aren’t we supposed to be all about saving people from demons?”

Huh? That last bit had Angel scratching his head. He waited, hoping she’d explain. With an exasperated sigh, she did just that. “Hello? Xander, who has been helping us this whole time, is trapped in the clutches of an evil vengeance demon! We can’t just leave him like that. It’s…wrong. What if she gets her powers back? That could happen, you know. This is the Hellmouth. Horrible things could happen to Xander and it’s up to us to make sure he’s safe.”

Angel couldn’t help it…he laughed. As angry as he still was with her for moving on so quickly, he had to concede that she had a point. But it was hard for him to think like someone who knew the clock was ticking. Time was so very different to him.

Cordelia, though – she was Cordelia. Was it fair for him to expect her to mourn the way he did when she saw each day as a thief, robbing her of the beauty even he was wont to consider her chief asset? She was a pragmatist, utterly free of romantic fancies. Love was different to her. She didn’t understand the concept of forever, at least not when it didn’t involve something tangible.

He decided that what it came down to was that she was human, completely and unequivocally human. Despite the visions, she would never be like Willow. He couldn’t hold her to the same standards to which he held his family. It was as simple as that.

He nodded. “I don’t want any of this to get in the way of what we’re doing, so I expect you to hold off and not cause any trouble until after we’ve taken care of Adam, but I won’t stand in the way of you being happy.”

He was almost knocked down when Cordelia sprang forward, enveloping him in an embrace that was neither expected nor welcome. Still, he let her get away with her hyperbolic emotional display for a moment before making it clear through increasingly stiff arms and posture that he was more than ready for it to be over. After a further too-long moment, she got the hint and let go.

“Sorry,” she said, though she sounded put-out by his lack of affection.

“You need to get some sleep and so do I. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”

And that was that. It felt good to take control of something, to stop a crisis before it occurred. He’d felt so helpless tonight when Willow was…

Best not to think about those feelings. After all, he had rescued her in time and she was safe upstairs in his bed, waiting for him.

He waited for a moment until after Cordelia was gone, then he, too, headed upstairs, making sure his emotions were completely under control. While Willow was no vampire, she had a way of sensing his moods and she didn’t need to worry about his fears and anxiety. She was the one, after all, who had been captured. She needed to be cared for and tended and not to be burdened with his weaknesses.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised to see her pacing when he entered his old bedroom, but he was. She was dressed in a pair of his old pajamas, black silk ones. He’d been wondering what had happened to those. He must have accidentally left them behind when he’d departed Sunnydale.

“What vision were you talking to Cordelia about?” she asked, rounding on him immediately. Her manner might have been more cowing had she not looked so adorable in the far too large garments.

He suppressed a grin and replied, “I wasn’t talking to her about a vision.”

Willow looked deflated, then confused, before he could almost see a light bulb go on over her head. “Oh…oh! You were talking to her about Xander.”

“Exactly. But I could hardly announce that to everyone, now could I?”

“No, I kind of think that might have led to a major meltdown.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment before speaking again. “I…um…how do you feel about it? I mean, if there even is an ‘it’, because Xander’s still with Anya, and I’m thinking Xander might be the only one of us who hasn’t figured out that Cordelia is carrying a torch still and…” She was hopelessly tangled in her words and she paused to collect herself before saying something that made him realize how well she understood him. “I guess this has to hurt. I mean, because of Doyle.”

He pulled her to him in an embrace so very different from the one he’d been forced into with Cordelia downstairs. “Yeah. I know that she has a right to move on and that she didn’t feel as close to Doyle as I did…as I do, but…”

“But it hurts,” she said softly. The warmth of her seeped into him, not just the heat of her body, but of her heart. It meant everything to Angel.

“Thank you,” he whispered as they stood, holding each other. He realized that, despite his best intentions, she was taking care of him. Time to set things right. “How are you holding up?”

She withdrew from his arms. “I’m okay,” she said, eyes downcast and shadowed.

“No, you’re not.”

“Angel,” she gazed at him pleadingly, “I am okay, okay?”

“Willow, you aren’t. You don’t have to lie to me. I’m not like the others – your parents, your friends. You should know that by now. You don’t have to deal with this alone. Lean on me. I won’t let you fall.”

With that, she was back in his arms. Where she belonged. There were tears, and they burned, but she needed to cry and he needed to let her. He hadn’t lied. She could lean on him and he’d be long past dust before he’d let her fall.

“It was awful,” she said after a time. “I…I never thought I could ever feel so dirty. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the way they looked at me.” Angel fought back the ridges and fangs. It wouldn’t be fair to her for this to be about his anger. She’d stop talking, and she needed to let it all out. “No one’s ever called me names like that, or talked about me the way they did. It was…it was like they got inside me, you know? I mean, I know it could have been worse…and they wanted it to be worse…and if you hadn’t gotten there… Thank you,” she said, before she broke down again.

He held her for a long while, letting her sob the pain and humiliation out, letting the relief at what hadn’t happened finally break through. He held her through it all.

He wondered for a moment or two why she hadn’t showered, but then he realized that nudity and a glass wall would have taken her right back to the Initiative and it made sense. Maybe he’d suggest a bath in the morning, but for now…no, she just needed rest.

She started to sag against him, a predictable adrenaline crash, and he picked her up and carried her to the bed. He tucked her in, stroking her hair before he went to change into something himself. Normally, he slept nude, as did Willow, but tonight that would not be the right thing at all. He found a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants in a drawer and changed in the closet, feeling rather reticent about being nude where Willow could see tonight.

“Thank you,” she said again when he came out. She sounded sleepy and he smiled, but said nothing, as he got into bed with her.

When she curled up against him, he put his arms around her and held her. He could only hope for her sake that she would sleep dreamlessly, but if she didn’t, he would be here.

*****

Willow’s sleep hadn’t been nearly as restful as he’d hoped. Nightmares had plagued her and he’d roused her several times to break the hold her terror had on her dreams, but at last she’d had two hours or so of uninterrupted slumber. It would have to serve. There were plans that needed to be made. The Initiative and its Frankenstein were still active and that meant Angel and the rest of the crew had to be as well.

“Would you like a bath this morning?” he suggested. “I have a huge tub here. Spa jets and everything.”

She raised an eyebrow before grabbing him in a hug. “Thank you,” she said.

He said nothing, merely searched the bathroom for towels and soap while she rummaged through the bag Xander had hastily packed for some clothes. Luckily, they both found what they were seeking.

He was about to leave the room before she disrobed, wanting to give her privacy, when she called him back. “Wanna keep me company?” she asked shyly. The trust those words conveyed was a treasure to Angel. After everything she’d been through, he wouldn’t have blamed her for needing a great deal more space right now.

“Okay,” he said. She ran a bath and the tub filled fairly quickly. Angelus had always been one for creature comforts…hell, if he was honest, Angel liked them too, even if he hadn’t always allowed himself to indulge his tastes.

They didn’t talk. There’d be enough talk downstairs and sometimes even Willow liked silence. She disrobed, a bit hesitantly, but she did and she got into the tub. She didn’t luxuriate in the hot water, simply scrubbed herself. Angel didn’t stare, though he watched her out of the corner of his eye, making sure she was alright.

Within a minute or two, she got out, dried herself efficiently, and got dressed. “I’m gonna be okay,” she said as they headed for the door.

“I know,” he answered, and it was the truth. She was going to be okay. She was brave and strong and the Initiative was no match for her. “I better go put something on. Then we have to figure out how to feed you and Xander and Cordelia and…”

“Oh my gosh! And what about blood for you and Spike?”

“That, too.”

Angel dressed in a hurry, a bit unhappy about the rumpled state of his clothes, though he could hardly blame Xander for packing hastily. If only an iron had been among the things left behind, he sighed.

These were, however, serious times, and his fussy sartorial habits were not worth worrying about right now.

They made their way downstairs, where everyone else was already milling about, though thankfully there was no bickering. It seemed as though the situation had everyone behaving in a somewhat adult fashion.

“Morning, sire. Red.” Spike was the first one to notice their entrance. He was looking at Willow cautiously, his concern obvious. Angel found it rather touching. Family…

“Hey, Spike. Good morning, everybody.” Willow plastered a cheery grin on her face and went about the work of being the perky optimist everyone knew…that everyone needed. Angel was just glad she had him for those times when she just couldn’t be that.

“We’re hungry,” Anya said.

“An,” Xander chided her.

“What? It’s not like your stomach hasn’t growled annoyingly. We’re all hungry and there’s no food.”

As much as he loathed Anya, Angel couldn’t argue with her. The humans in the house did need to eat. And since one of those humans was his lover, he thought the acquisition of food was an urgent matter worth attending. “Xander, can you take Willow’s car and go pick up some supplies? Stop at Willie’s while you’re at it, too?”

“I get to drive Willow’s Mercedes again?” Xander’s eyes lit up. Angel almost chuckled.

“That’s Willow’s car? You told me it was Angel’s.” Anya was peevish again. Great.

“Angel bought it, so it’s really his car.” Willow attempted to mollify Xander’s trollop.

“But he gave it to you.”

“It’s pretty much a company car kind of thing.”

Xander shot Anya a look and she let it go. It was possible she was mindful of Cordelia and realized that arguing with her boyfriend’s best friend didn’t help her in a highly competitive market. Angel was still wondering what would make two women compete for Xander Harris, but he would have to save that puzzle for another day’s solving.

Xander still had Willow’s keys and was about to leave, when Angel stopped him. “Here,” he said, taking out his wallet and pulling out three crisp bills, “This should cover the food and the blood.” The boy took the money gratefully and headed towards the door.

“Don’t forget Wheetabix,” Spike called out.

“I’ll go with you,” Anya said. “You could use my help.”

No one agreed, but no one argued either and the twosome departed, leaving the rest of them to start discussing what needed doing.

“You know, there’s kind of one good thing about yesterday,” Willow said, out of the blue.

“What?” Cordelia was the first to ask, though they were all thinking it. What on Earth could be good about what had happened.

“Well, I kind of have a better idea of how they think, and that could come in handy what with fighting Adam and taking them down and stuff.”

He put his arm around her and pulled her to him. He’d almost underestimated her. Yes, she was the vulnerable girl who needed him, but she also really was the plucky optimist he saw before him right now, the girl who always saw the light at the end of the tunnel and who always knew it couldn’t possibly be a train.

“You have a point,” Oz said. “We at least know that they don’t really know much about demons. That could come in handy.”

Spike snorted. “I could have told you that.”

“Spike,” Willow interposed, “you were there quite awhile back. The fact that after all this time, they still haven’t learned anything, shows that they’re linear thinkers who refuse to believe in other intelligent life forms and who interpret everything through a very narrow paradigm. That’s a crucial thing to know. It’s a weakness and we can use it.”

“Yeah, well, you could be right there,” Spike conceded grudgingly.

“She not only could be - she is. I could see it last night. They thought I was dumb muscle. They were shocked when I gave orders. Guaranteed they have reinterpreted everything to see Buffy as the one in charge. They see demons as a lower form of life. Likely, that’s how they justify experimenting on them and how the late Maggie Walsh came up with the idea that she could make a demon hybrid and keep it completely under her control.”

“Makes sense,” Oz said, though he was pensive. It was obvious that being seen as a dumb animal really hurt him. That made sense given the feral nature of his demon and his extreme discomfort with that. Angel felt for the wolf.

“Does this give you any ideas about how to hack into the system?” Cordelia asked.

“Actually it does. But I want to call Wesley…oh, and Giles…before I get started. Did you charge your cell phone, Cordy? I forgot about mine.”

“Sure thing. I plugged in the laptops, too,” Cordelia said before racing off to get her cell phone, the grin she wore showing how glad she was to be useful. Angel had to admit he was happy she’d thought of that. Of course, he was even happier that he himself had thought to keep paying the utilities here…how had he known he’d need to stay here again someday?

Cordelia was back with the phone in a flash and the others sat quietly, listening as Willow made her calls. They were all hungry and having a hard time thinking anymore. Angel hoped Xander got back soon.


Tbc…