- Chapter Nine -
“We
weren’t in danger, Angelus! Believe me. We picked a stupid one. I always pick the stupid ones.” She
gave him her best contemptuous up-and-down look so as to leave no doubt of whom
she was speaking. “Didn’t you know? We can take care of
ourselves.”
Oh, no, Darla, Willow hissed. Think of what you
just said.
“Oh—”
Darla whispered as she realized her mistake, surprised and chagrined into
speaking aloud. “Oh…”
“
‘We’?” Angel repeated slowly. “Willow’s in there?”
Oh, shit, Willow gasped. Oh, shit, he
knows. She opened her
tightly clenched eyes to find Angel holding Darla’s face in his big
hands, peering cautiously into her eyes.
“Willow?”
Willow winced.
“Hey, Angel.”
Angel’s
eyes widened, and a smile spread across his handsome features.
“You’re really in there? You’re okay?”
Willow rolled
her eyes. “Yes, Angel, I’m fine.”
“Then…”
Angel straightened and looked around at the grungy alleyway. “What the Hell are the two of you doing out
here?”
“We were
doing what we had to do,” Willow said coldly.
“What is that
supposed to mean? This
isn’t what either of you want.”
Darla scowled.
“Just because we had a thing
for a hundred and fifty years, don’t presume you know me.”
Angel blinked.
“I’m assuming that’s Darla.”
Darla, honey,
could you have said anything sillier?
Willow asked. That sounded unbelievably petulant.
I don’t
know! Darla yelled. All
I wanted to do was die
and he ruined it! He always
ruins it!
“Darla, I
don’t know what you’re doing, trying to get some guy with a…
did he really have a mullet?” Angel asked. “He had a mullet. I
don’t know what you’re doing, trying to get some loser with a
mullet who couldn’t possibly be more than, what, ten or something, to
turn you? You really want to be made by some creep in a filthy alley?
That’ll never happen, not on my watch.”
“You were made in an alley, if I
recall,” Darla muttered, shrugging out from under Angel’s hands.
“That’s
not the point,” Angel said. He sounded as if he were pouting.
“What is the point, Angelus?” Darla
demanded. What is his problem?
she demanded of Willow.
I
haven’t the slightest,
Willow replied. I mean, he’s really pissed. He must really love you,
you know.
Or you, Darla said slyly.
Willow
didn’t even bother laughing derisively at the idea. Please. He
wouldn’t care that
much if one of Buffy’s pets got hurt.
He
doesn’t love me anymore,
Darla said, absolutely certain. He respects me, and he doesn’t want me
to die, and he has memories of me as his sire, but he doesn’t love me and
he doesn’t want to. I can read my boy like a book.
“The point
is,” Angel was saying, “Willow’s human, and she wants to
live. What right do you have to try and kill yourself while she’s in your
body? Who knows what the consequences could be?” He sounded extremely
distraught.
Look how
worried he is! Darla
exclaimed, delighted. Why, it’s almost… cute.
Angel’s
always cute! Willow
said. And don’t poke fun at me. It’s not my fault I
lo—like the guy.
What was that
you almost said? Darla
asked interestedly.
Please,
please, please leave
this alone, Willow
muttered.
“Are you
guys okay?” Angel asked. He had abandoned his pacing to bend slightly and
look nervously into Darla’s eyes.
Might as well
tell him, Darla said quietly,
her mood changing suddenly. About… us. You know. He did ask.
“We’re
dying,” Willow burst out before she could change her mind.
Angel
straightened abruptly. “What?”
“Yes,”
Darla hissed. “And… not some time. Not ‘later’.
Now.”
“Right now,” Willow added.
“They
showed us the soothsayer’s files.” Darla’s voice had dropped
dangerously. “All the spells and tests and what-have-yous said the same
thing.”
“We’ve
got about two months left,” Willow said solemnly. “Three at the
most—so, excuse us. We’re kind of in a hurry.”
“What—”
“Gee,”
Darla interrupted, speaking to Willow aloud. “He sounds just like we did, except he’s not the one
who’s going to slowly go insane from someone sharing his head!”
“Slowly
go…” Angel’s voice trailed off. “Explain this. Carefully.
I want to know exactly
what Wolfram & Hart told you.”
“Darla’s
soul got pawned,” Willow said.
“But when
I came back, I pulled the soul tight,” Darla said.
“Her soul was mine…” Willow continued.
“…But
then it got stretched between us,” Darla interrupted.
“It
finally snapped, and now we merrily ricochet back and forth between each
other’s bodies,” Willow said, as if bored. “And we never know
when it’s gonna happen. We leave a body behind, defenseless. It happened
again when we were going to a club. We just collapsed, in an alley! We were
lucky nothing happened.”
“And
eventually this body-sharing is going to stop becoming a fun little slumber
party and we’ll go nuts,” Darla finished. “It’s not
that hard to understand.”
“So,
again,” Willow said, “We’re kind of in a hurry.”
Angel gingerly
carried Darla’s limp body into the Hyperion. “Cordelia? Wes?
Gunn?”
All three
emerged from the office, looking worried. “Oh, no,” Cordelia
moaned. “What’s she doing here? Is she planning on sleeping
over?”
“She’s
dying,” Angel said. “And Willow with her.”
“Oh,”
Cordelia said, and started biting her fingernails. “Oh. Is Willow in
there with her, like Buffy said?”
“No,”
Angel said shortly.
“Ah,”
Cordy said.
“Right
now, they’re both in Willow’s body, in Sunnydale.” Angel
moved into the office to gently lay Darla’s body on the couch.
When he came
back out, all three of his employees were staring, shocked, at him.
“They’re in Willow’s body right now?”
“Wesley, I
need you to look up body-switching and cross-reference it with souls,”
Angel said.
“
‘Souls’ is a pretty big category, Angel,” Wesley said
tentatively. “Perhaps if you tell us exactly what’s going on, we can be of more
assistance.”
“I’m
not sure,” Angel said. “… Exactly. I hope it’s just
Wolfram & Hart playing mind games, but we can’t be sure…”
“We should
stay in touch with Sunnydale, that’s for sure; If Willow and Darla are
there now, perhaps they’ll be able to explain more.” Wesley sighed
and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Perhaps Mr. Giles will have some
further insights…” He reached for the phone.
“Wait,
Wes.” Angel put out a hand to stop him. “It’s late.
They’ll be wanting to get sleep—Willow and Darla need it
especially. Swapping bodies and sharing mindspace must be exhausting.”
Wesley nodded
reluctantly in acquiescence. “I just hate to be doing nothing.”
“You’ll
be helping us more by letting everyone else—and yourself—get some
sleep,” Angel said. “There’re a couple of rooms that have
been cleaned up on the second floor. Go ahead.”
“Uh-huh,”
Gunn said sourly, Cordelia looking righteous beside him. “So we go and
get some shut-eye and you… what? Go beat up everybody in Wolfram &
Hart single-handedly?”
“Something
like that,” Angel said. “Not everybody in Wolfram & Hart, but…”
Angel paused
outside the bland-looking apartment door and leisurely checked the paper in his
hand to make sure the address was right. Satisfied that it was, he calmly
folded the paper, put it neatly into his coat pocket, and kicked the door in.
“I may not
be able to come in, Lindsey,” he said coldly, shoving as much drama as he
could into his threatening statement. “But sooner or later you’ll
have to come out. And when you do—”
Lindsey
snickered, but didn’t turn in his armchair to face him. “Wipe your
feet.”
For what seemed
like the millionth time that evening, Angel was bewildered. “What?”
Lindsey stood
but kept his back to the door, a gesture of contempt. “You can come in,
but wipe your feet.”
Angel stood just
outside the door, not fully capable of forming words in his surprise.
“Geez! I
invite you in already.” Lindsey poured more of his drink into the small
glass he held, and Angel stepped over the threshold with relish and took
Lindsey’s throat in one hand.
Unfortunately,
one of Angel’s fondest daydreams was not to be, because the rolling of
Lindsey’s eyes was almost tangible. “Does it really look like you
need to throttle me for information?”
Stupid mortal.
“Need
to?” Angel sighed and, after a moment of relishing Lindsey’s life
beneath his hands, let him go.
Lindsey turned
to his desk. “Yes, they’re dying. Yes, the records they saw are
real. Want a second opinion? Okay…” He threw a file at Angel, and
then another, and another. “How about a third? Or a tenth? I went through
every connection Wolfram & Hart has. Oh, and this one’s from my own
witch doctor, a family friend. They all say the same thing: not enough soul for
the both of them. Death by insanity.”
Angel swallowed,
dry-throated, as he shuffled through the files.
“Yeah,”
Lindsey continued. “Looks like Willow inherited Darla’s soul when
she was born—Darla’d crossed the invisible line of ‘never
gonna go back’, so the soul was up for auction. But now that she’s
human again… she’s taken back the soul and it’s stretched
between them.”
Angel swallowed
again and almost choked. Darla… had died already; she was obviously
willing to do it again. His beautiful sire… But Willow, too? She’d
done nothing to deserve this; and according to Buffy, she’d also just
anchored his soul.
“You
didn’t believe them, either,” he said evenly. “So…
it’s true.”
“I had to
be sure,” Lindsey said earnestly.
“Why?”
Angel asked.
Lindsey sounded
incredulous at the question. “Why? I don’t want Darla to die any more than you want
Willow to.”
Angel gave him a
disgusted look. “Do you love
her, Lindsey? Is that
what this is?”
Lindsey’s
jaw twitched, but he didn’t answer. Angel snorted. “I wasn’t
capable of it. And neither… are… you.”
Lindsey’s
eyes were full of pain that Angel found deliciously easy to ignore.
“Maybe not,” the other man said icily, “But I’d save
Darla if I could. You can
save them… but I bet you won’t.”
Angel stared at
him silently, shocked at the very idea.
“You’ve
got a choice, pal,” Lindsey said, warming up to his subject matter.
“Waste the last two months of their lives searching for a cure that
doesn’t exist and watch them go nuts and die… or, use the only real
power you’ve got. You can make that pesky soul problem go away if you really
wanted to.”
Angel scoffed.
“By killing her?” It wasn’t clear which ‘her’ he
meant.
“By giving
her life! Eternal life!” Lindsey’s mind could only wrap itself
around Darla.
“And then
what, Lindsey?” Angel demanded. “You and she could be
together?” His own bitterness shone through his harsh words. “If I
were to do it—if I turned Darla—how long do you think it would be
before what used to
be her hunted you down and had you for breakfast? Gotta say though, that
thought alone almost makes it worth it…”
Angel quickly
caught himself and tossed the useless files to the ground. Resisting the urge
to stomp on them, he hissed, “But… there’s another way, and
I’ll find it.”
Cordelia pulled
a chair up next to the couch where Darla’s prone body lay. She sat down
and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and draping her arms on the
rests of the chair.
“I
can’t believe that when she wakes up, Willow’s gonna be in
there,” she said softly.
Wesley rubbed
his eyes groggily. “Cordelia, go to bed,” he said.
She shook her
head. “Nah. You go. We need someone to keep an eye out, and I’m
certainly not leaving… her
down here alone. I’m worried, Wes,” she said. “I mean, Willow
and I were never good friends—parted on pretty nasty terms,
actually—but I don’t want her to die! Or go insane, or whichever comes first,
and not even be in her own body!”
“Cordelia,
I know,” Wesley sympathized. “I quite like Willow—she’s
a remarkable young woman—but Angel pointed out quite reasonably that we
won’t be able to help by not getting any sleep. Why don’t you nip
up to bed?”
Cordelia stared
stonily up at him.
Wesley sighed
and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ll get you a blanket,
then,” he said defeatedly.
Cordelia smiled fondly
after him as he climbed the stairs, then gasped as a shadow obscured her
vision. “Oh. My. God. Angel, must you do that?”
He looked hurt.
“Do what?”
“That thing where you just appear!”
He rolled his
eyes and knelt beside the couch, his brow furrowing as he brushed a wisp of
blonde hair away from Darla’s eyes. But while he did that, his mind was
far away; he didn’t see pale smooth cheeks but tanned freckled ones, and
to him the hair beneath his fingers was a soft brown-red instead of his
sire’s stiff blonde.
“You’re
in love with her, aren’t you,” Cordelia observed gently.
His glance
darted nervously from his Seer to the door as if judging how far away his means
of escape was. “What? No.”
“With
Willow,” Cordelia continued. “You are. That’s…”
Her voice trailed off, and she looked thoughtful for a moment. “Kind of
sweet, actually.” A distant smile settled it over her features.
“You know, the spell probably worked. Your soul’s permanent,
Angel,” she said.
He looked
surprised for a second, and then said, “Yeah. It is.” He chuckled
humorlessly. “I always figured it would be under… happier
circumstances than these, though.”
“Oh,
Angel…”
“We’ll
figure something out,” he said. “We have to.”
Darla’s
body stirred, and Cordelia jumped.
Angel’s
brow creased. “Could… could I have a minute?” he asked. She
nodded, and went out to the lobby proper to sit by the front doors.
Darla’s
baby blue eyes flickered open and met Angel’s chocolate ones.
“It’s been a long time since I saw you when I woke up,” she
said, and a hand went to her forehead. “My head hurts,” she
whimpered in Willow’s voice.
“Oh,
Willow,” he said, and moved so that he hovered over Darla’s body,
not allowing the woman to get up. “I’m gonna find a cure. I
swear.”
She gave a
trembling smile. “Darla says she didn’t know you cared that
much.”
“I
care,” he said fervently. “I care.” He took her smaller hand
between his two big ones. “It’s so weird talking to you in
Darla’s body.”
“Sorry
about the circumstances,” Willow said wryly.
“I can
tell when it’s you and when it’s her pretty well,” he told
her, and then: “Why did you anchor my soul?”
Willow blinked.
“That was a non sequitur,” she muttered.
“Well?”
Willow looked
hurt that he could even ask. “Because I care about you, Angel,” she
said cautiously. “And because I think everybody, no matter what
they’ve done, deserves a little happiness.”
“What
about you, Willow?” Angel asked. “Do you deserve happiness?”
“What’s
that supposed to mean?” she replied nervously.
Angel leaned
forward very, very slowly and brushed a kiss across Darla’s lips.
When he pulled
away, his sire’s eyes opened and it was Darla behind them again, not
Willow.
“That
hurt… more than I thought it would,” she said.
“I’m
sorry,” Angel said. “Not for loving her,” he amended, “But
for hurting you. I’ve done a lot of that, haven’t I?”
“Yes,”
Darla replied, but not angrily. “You really have, Angelus.” He
didn’t flinch when she called him by his demon’s name. “How
are you going to save her?”
“I
don’t know,” he said. “I’m not going to save her. I’m going to save both of you,
whether you like it or not.”
“Really,”
Darla said, interested. “You’re quite the brave little soldier,
aren’t you?”
“You know
I am,” he said with a smile. “Can—can I have Willow back for
a second?”
Darla blinked,
and when her eyes opened Willow was there. “Hey again.”
“Hey
again,” Angel said. “Are you—are the two of you very
tired?”
“We’re
afraid to close our eyes because we don’t know where we’ll wake
up,” she said.
Wesley knocked
hesitantly on the office door before entering. “Angel? Really. I think we
all need to get some sleep.”
Angel rose
gracefully on steady feet to stand before the couch. “That’s what
we were just taking about.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Would
it be possible for Darla and Willow to… snap back and forth… while
they were asleep?”
Wesley looked
thoughtful. “Possible, but highly unlikely. Since both of them,
assumedly, would be dormant, and the soul is known to wander during sleep, they
would not be ‘anchored’ anywhere. Under normal circumstances, I
believe it could be expected they might ‘snap’, but since their
snapping occurs because one is trying to get to Willow’s body while one
is trying to get to Darla’s, they shouldn’t switch locations during
dormancy.”
Darla/Willow and
Angel both looked blank. “Is that a yes or a no, Wes?” Angel asked
tensely.
“What? Oh,
no, they won’t snap,” Wesley said, coming out of his brown study.
“You know, if not for the dire circumstances, this situation would be most fascinating…”
“C’mon,”
Angel said, ignoring Wesley’s mutterings, reaching down to take
Darla’s hand. “I’ve got a bed upstairs.”
“Angel,
you naughty boy,” Willow exclaimed delightedly. “Sleeping with me
on the first date?”
His grin made
her catch her breath, and Darla’s knowing laughter in her head made her
blush. “Upstairs,” he ordered gently, and Willow and Darla rose on
their unsteady feet, using Angel as an impromptu crutch.
“Sorry
about the leaning,” Willow said hesitantly as they made their way up the
Hyperion’s grand front staircase. “It’s just, sharing a body
makes one unusually tired.”
“I would
imagine so,” Angel said. “Why expend unnecessary energy?” In
a single smooth move he cradled Darla’s petite body in his arms.
“Oof,”
Willow said to dispel the awkward silence that descended once she was being
snugly carried up the stairs. Angel chuckled darkly and strode down the hallway
to his suite.
“Here we
go,” he announced, depositing his sire’s body on his bed.
“I’ll be right back.”
Darla and Willow
looked around, curious to see how their man decorated his living-space, but
quickly grew too tired to care. They unbuckled Darla’s shoes while
yawning widely, and crawled under the covers on one side of the bed, making
sure to leave enough room for Angel.
In two minutes,
even their fears of waking up somewhere else couldn’t keep them awake any
longer, and Willow and Darla fell soundly asleep, clutching a pillow that
smelled of Angel.
The vampire in
question came back to his bedroom from having washed his face and brushed his
teeth as quickly as possible. He smiled tenderly at the sight of his sire
asleep—something he’d never really appreciated during his days as
Angelus, and something he’d missed in his century of being souled. He wondered
absently what Willow herself would look like asleep, and sketched her out in
his mind—shoulder-length dark red hair spread over the pillow, long limbs
askew, perhaps, her delicate features graced with a smile.
Angel removed
his belt but left his slacks on, thinking of how embarrassed Willow would be at
the thought of his sleeping nude. Then he pulled his long-sleeved shirt (black,
of course) over his head and made his way across the room to the bed.
“Goodnight,
Willow,” he murmured quietly, but couldn’t quite bring himself to
change the intimacy of the setting by acknowledging Darla as well. He lifted
the covers and slid in beside the sleeping woman and was soon asleep as well,
dreaming of red hair and a sweet smile.
