Title: Hidden Emotions
Author: heather
Email: heathervamped@y...
Pairing: Angel/Willow
Rating: PG13 for this part, R later
Summary: Willow comes to LA looking for a new purpose in life.
Mostly a fluffy fic, a little angst and mystery to keep things
interesting.
Feedback: The more the merrier.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, Joss does. Good for him.
Spoilers: All seasons of Buffy are fair game and Angel Season 5 up
to Life of the Party
Notes: This will follow Angel season 5 up until Life of the Party,
then I'm going to do my own thing. So, stuff that happens in the
episodes since, doesn't happen in this fic.
Many thanks to Jenni for the betaing services. :)



A stylish black boot sank heel first into the lush pile carpet as
wide green eyes took in the elegant surroundings, finally coming to
rest on a well-dressed man behind an expansive polished wooden
desk. The boots, with their black denim clad legs, continued on to
the wall of windows while the eyes never left the man.

"Certainly moving up in the world, aren't you Angel?" The corners of
the eyes crinkled in a smile as they saw through the new suit and
the new hairdo, and recognized their old friend. When the man
smiled back and rose to greet his guest, the eyes moved from him to
take in the view of LA in the daylight, the city bathed in sun,
though none reached through the window to warm her face through the
special coating on the glass that kept her friend from an unpleasant
fate.

And now the body felt what the eyes couldn't see. Angel stood behind
her, though the window refused to betray him by providing a
reflection. She turned to face him and they embraced, a hug so
fierce that a casual observer would perhaps feel a bit uncomfortable
and want to clear her throat to remind the two of her presence in
the room. "Ahem!"

Angel released his hold on the woman in the boots with the observant
eyes, and turned towards the other in the room. "Willow, this is
Eve, a messenger of the senior partners of Wolfram & Hart. Eve,
this is Willow, an old friend of mine. We owe our continued
existence on the earth to her." Neither woman moved toward the
other, but each stood her ground regarding the other with narrowed
eyes full of suspicion.

Angel stood by uncomfortably as the silence dragged on, the only
sounds in the room were the two heartbeats thundering in his ears.
At last the two women spoke, the same sentence, at the same
time. "I know who you are." Angel laughed a hysterical little
laugh, which echoed painfully in the spacious office and then fell
flat, swallowed by the returning quiet. No one joined in his
mirth.

Desperate to diffuse what he sensed as a potentially fatal
situation, though for who or why he couldn't say, Angel
announced, "Okay, Eve, I think we can probably finish up that
discussion tomorrow." He grinned an idiotic, hopeful grin.

Eve tore her gaze from Willow, gave Angel a look of disgust and
flounced out, her short skirt swishing with the fast pace of her
steps. When the heavy door had clicked shut behind her, Angel
turned back to Willow. He motioned her to a chair and then moved to
go sit back behind his desk. Once settled, he asked, "Willow! It's
great to see you, but what are you doing here? And what the hell
was that about?"

Willow smiled again, visibly more relaxed in Eve's absence. "What?
Can't I just come to visit an old friend on my vacation from
fighting evil?" Angel raised an eyebrow at her, indicating that she
was not a good liar. "Ok, ok. I need a job." She waited for the
vampire's response.

"A job? You need money? I'm sure I can find you something with
Fred, or?"

"No, Angel," she cut him off. "I don't need money, I need a JOB. I
need something to do. You know, a purpose in life. I seem to be
lacking one of those at the moment. The hellmouth is closed, so no
more big evils, there's dozens of slayers running around, so no more
little evils, U of Sunnydale is toast, and that was the only school
with majors in the paranormal, so I'm really kinda out of ideas for
something meaningful to do with my life, and that's when I thought
of you. Man with purpose. Good purpose that could be my purpose.
What do you say?"

"Of course Willow, I know I could use someone around here that I can
trust. We still have plenty of evil in all sizes around LA. I'll
get something set up for you. I know Fred would be glad for your
help, or Wolfram and Hart has an extensive computer system, I'm sure
we could use help with that. I wish you had called, I could have
been ready for you by now."

Willow frowned and pressed her lips together. "Actually, I did
call. Didn't your secretary give you the message?"

"Harmony!"

A blonde head poked in the door. "You bellowed, Angel? You know,
we do have this fancy intercom thingy, where you just push this
little button and?"

"Why didn't you tell me Willow was coming?" Angel asked, his right
hand rubbing his forehead vigorously as if to keep ridges from
forming there.

Willow leaned forward towards Angel, her eyes never leaving the
door. "Harmony's your secretary," she whispered, "but she's a
vampire. Without a soul. Or a chip! Didn't we already go over
this a couple of years ago?"

Harmony sighed and rolled her eyes. "I can hear you, you know.
Anyway, Angel, I told her not to come, so it's not my fault if she's
bothering you."

Angel's grip on his forehead tightened. "Why, exactly, would you
tell her not to come?"

"Hello? You run a big, important law firm now. We don't have time
for the little people anymore."

Angel opened his mouth and then shut it and flapped his hand at the
door, which shut quickly, but not before they heard Harmony
muttering about how the business was going to hell while Angel
entertained his girlfriends.

"Sorry about that, Willow. I would have been ready for you. I bet
you don't even have a place to stay. Every hotel for miles is
booked. There's some sort of convention downtown this week. Some
very weird people walking around. You can stay at my penthouse, if
you want. It's not much, but I have a spare room."

Willow's jaw had gone slack at the word penthouse. A vampire in a
penthouse. Why did that sound funny? Regaining her composure she
said, "Sure Angel, that sounds lovely."

"Why don't you go there now and settle in? I've got some more
business to take care of, and then I'll come by and take you out for
dinner. TO dinner, I mean. At a restaurant. Then you can tell me
what you have against Eve and answer the million other questions I
have for you."

Willow laughed and agreed that sounded fine. She stood up from her
chair and prepared to leave the office, but quickly fell back,
clutching her chest in shock when a familiar bleached blond head
appeared through the wall, followed by a familiar tall, trim body.

"Ok, who went and pissed off Harmony this time? And why does she
insist on seeking me out to moan about it? Do I look sympathetic?
Just because I can't slap her sorry face doesn't mean I want to
listen to the blubbering. Hey, Red."

"Spike!?"

"In the flesh! Or not, but yeah, it's me, for better or worse."

"You. You're. Um, you walked through the wall. And you're
supposed to be dead. I mean, dust. But here you are. And you
walked through the wall. Oh! I walked through a wall once! That's
when I was a ? ohhh, you're a ghost!" Then in a small voice she
added, "That's good. Isn't it?"

"No, it's not particularly good, but as afterlives go, it does come
with the perk of haunting Angel for eternity. So, can't complain
too much."

"He doesn't get to haunt me for eternity, just until we figure out
how to free him from the amulet," Angel added quickly.

Willow was still adjusting to the idea of a vampire ghost, not
totally grasping the concept. "So if you were dust and now you're a
ghost and don't have a body, do you still have a soul? I mean, I
guess it wouldn't matter since you can't hurt anyone without a body
but, are you an evil ghost?"

Spike smirked at her. "Only to Angel. Still got my soul in me
somehow."

Angel stood and addressed his guest and his ghost. "Spike, why
don't you show Willow to my apartment so that she can rest for
awhile. I know you know where it is since you bother me there every
night."

Now it was Willow's turn to smirk, but she did it discreetly and
followed Spike out through the door, which she had to open for
herself.

On the way, they filled each other in on pertinent details that they
had missed. Spike explained his final moments in demolishing
Sunnydale and how he'd wound up with Angel. Willow explained how
they assumed he was dead and that Buffy was touring Europe with
Dawn. At this he became quiet and thoughtful and she was glad he
didn't ask about Kennedy.



Part 2

Angel came home to find Willow standing in front of his living room
windows, watching the last bit of a brilliant purple sunset over
LA. She had changed out of the black jeans and tight sweater that
had so nicely complemented the heeled boots, and now wore a soft
ankle length skirt over flat sandals and a matching sleeveless
blouse. He made his foot scrape on the floor so she would hear his
entrance.

She turned and smiled at him, a truly happy smile that would have
stopped his heart had it still beat. "Willow, you look beautiful,"
he said honestly, before he could stop himself.

A pink hue rose in her cheeks and she looked away from him,
embarrassed of her embarrassment. "I didn't know where we were
going, so this is my anywhere outfit. Is it okay?"

"It's perfect," he assured her.

"Where are we going?"

"Oh, just a little French place, it's called L'Orangerie."

"Ooh, sounds expensive. Do they serve, um, something you can have?"

Angel chuckled lightly. "Don't worry, I'll manage. Come on, there's
a car waiting."

~~~

In the car, which was actually a black Rolls Royce limo, Angel made
polite conversation, asking Willow about some of the places she'd
been since they last spoke. There was an unspoken agreement between
them to save the more serious talk for later. Willow found herself
fascinated by how much Angel had changed. He'd taken his new role
as CEO to heart, and was the full image of a businessman. It would
be too easy to forget what he really was.

The car pulled up to the curb and the driver got out to open their
doors. Willow glanced up at a white stucco building with a pretty
wrought iron door. When this was opened, her breath caught in her
throat as she looked around at a vast garden, complete with cherub
statues holding potted plants and lion's head fountains on the
walls. "This is a restaurant?" She asked, bewildered, gazing around
at the flowers looming overhead.

Angel took her arm and guided her gently along the path to the inner
door leading to the dining room. "Through here."

In no time they were seated at a private table near a tall, thin
window, overlooking the garden. Willow estimated that her place
setting cost what her dad earned in a month. While they were
waiting for menus, Willow casually flipped through the wine list and
then almost choked seeing that the average price for a bottle was
$500 and they listed more than one for over $1000. Angel relieved
her of the list and folded it in front of him. When the waiter
came, he ordered champagne and placed the booklet of wines in the
waiter's hand, indicating that he should take it away. He then took
both menus, looked at one quickly and said; "We'll have the Menu
Royal."

"An excellent choice, sir. I'll have your champagne in a moment."

Angel returned his attention to Willow who was regarding him with
hot indignation. "I'm perfectly capable of making up my own mind
about what to eat, you know. Really, you could leave it to someone
with working taste buds to choose!"

He leaned across the table slightly and explained, "The menu is in
French. I wasn't sure which languages you've studied." Then he sat
back and looked at his hand fiddling with the linen napkin beside
his china plate. "Sorry, I should have just asked."

Willow felt a small smile tug at the corners of her lips watching
the contrite vampire pout. She reached across and put her hand over
his fidgety one. He looked up in surprise, meeting her playful
gaze. "It's ok. This time. So, just what is the Menu Royal,
anyway?"

Angel brightened immediately. "Well, it's this eight course meal
that starts with eggs and caviar followed by Terrine of Foie Gras
with Spiced Pear and Apple Chutney, then?"

Willow held up her other hand to stop him. "Ok, ok, I'm getting
full just listening to all this. It sounds wonderful, but how did
you choose that of all things?"

Just then their Dom Perignon arrived and as they toasted Angel
explained. "It was the best thing they had, so that's what I
ordered. Here's to the finer things in life for those who have seen
the truly unpleasant things."

"Here, here," Willow agreed and took a few sips of the bubbly
stuff. At first she made a face at how dry it was, but then it
started to taste better.

"Speaking of unpleasant things, why don't you tell me what you have
against Eve?"

Willow couldn't help but laugh at how direct he could be. She set
down her glass, carefully, and tried to conjure up the right words
for the creepy feeling she got looking at the other woman. Finally
she settled on, "She's bad."

Angel put down his own drink and looked a little startled. "Bad?
As in evil? Or just illegal bad?"

"Probably, I'd say both. She's bad news. You can't trust her."

Concern crossed Angel's face and he asked, "What makes you say that?"

Willow shrugged. "I can just tell. Don't believe anything she says."

Angel shook his head slowly. "I'm glad you're here, Willow. I think
you're going to be more useful than you know."

The first course came and for a few minutes they were quiet, aside
from some delighted exclamations over the caviar.

As they waited for the foie gras, Angel filled her in on how he'd
already run into problems with some of the firm's preexisting
employees. He assured her she would see Fred and Wesley the next
day and could catch up with them properly.

After another glass of champagne, Angel broached the subject Willow
had been perfectly happy to avoid up until now. "So, what brings
you here to LA?"

She gave him a puzzled frown, trying to deny that she knew what he
was talking about. "I already told you Angel, I need something to
do."

This time, it was his turn to reach across the table and take her
hand. "You know what I mean. Why aren't you here with Kennedy?
Did something happen?"

Willow sighed and waited for their server to leave before
answering. Though she did not let go of his hand, she chose to
stare at her pate instead of Angel. "Lots of somethings happened.
All the wrong somethings and none of the right somethings."

His thumb rubbed across the back of her hand in soothing circles.
Suddenly she met his gaze. "Look at me, Angel." He did. "What am
I? What am I known for?"

She could see him thinking about this for a moment, trying to come
up with the answer she wanted. "You're the smart one. Good with
computers. Good at witchcraft. Great actually, at everything you
do." He studied her face, trying to gauge her reaction.

She nodded in agreement. "Right, I'm all about the brains. Now,
what's Kennedy? A slayer. All about the strength, the brawn.
Opposites don't always attract, you know? She didn't like the
magic, it made her uncomfortable. That seems to be a recurring
theme," she said, bitterness evident in her voice. "In the end, we
just wanted different things and decided to go our separate ways.
She went to meet up with some of the other slayers, and just? left."

Angel looked a little uncomfortable now. He of all people knew
about being perfectly wrong for someone. He'd never met Willow's
girlfriend but had heard they made a cute couple. Now that she
explained it, he could see how the situation was similar to his.
Still, he was fine now, and she would be too. He could help her.
That was his job, anyway, and what better person to help than an
actual friend? That would feel even better than helping strangers.
He watched as she scraped some chutney onto a cracker and chewed it,
not seeming to taste anything, a faraway look on her face. He
filled her glass again.

"Here, I think we need to have another toast. To new beginnings,"
he said, raising his glass.

Willow toasted with him and went back to her plate which now
contained fresh Maine scallops, served with their roe, and a salad.
Desperate to keep her talking to him, he asked, "So how about the
others? How are they? I'm surprised you didn't stay with your
friend Xander." It was not Angel's idea of a good time to talk
about Xander, but if that's what it took to cheer up Willow, it was
a sacrifice he was willing to make.

"Oh well, we did hang out for awhile, actually. I know I talk about
it like it just happened, but Kennedy left 3 months ago. At first I
caught up with Buffy and Dawn, but they were doing a sisterly
bonding thing and I felt like the third wheel after a couple of
weeks. So yeah, I went to meet Xander in Spain and we had a great
time for about a month. And then," she took a bigger swallow of
champagne and speared a scallop with her fork, not finishing her
sentence.

"And then?" Angel prompted.

"And then he met another slayer and they hit it off and before you
know it, they wanted to go to Paris and voila! I'm the third wheel
again!" Angel made a sympathetic groan. "Yeah, it was just
perfect, too, if you think about it. Xander has wanted every slayer
he ever met, before there was so many of them anyway. Buffy,
Kendra, Faith, well he had her, but not for long. He's actually the
perfect guy for a slayer. How many other guys would be willing to
accept, or even understand, the life of a slayer? It's not every
guy that devotes his life to fighting evil when that's not even his
calling."

Angel cleared his throat quietly. Willow caught on right away. "Oh
well, you of course. Sure, you'd be the perfect guy for a slayer,
too. Well, except for the vampire thing, which makes you exactly
the wrong guy for a slayer, but you know, for some other kind of
supernatural girl. Like a? hmm." Willow suddenly decided not to
finish her thought and was spared by the waiter arriving with
roasted Santa Barbara spiny lobster, with garlic.

Angel had a pretty good idea of what she was going to say. It was
an interesting point and he pondered it while gazing at his dinner
companion and noting the way the pale blue silk of her blouse set
off the slightly flushed skin visible along her scooped neckline so
that it seemed to be glowing in the candlelight. Then he grinned as
he watched her have a hell of a struggle with her spiny lobster,
which seemed to be winning. He reached across the table and removed
it from her grip, crushing the shell easily enough and passing it
back. "You were saying?" He asked, hoping she would indeed finish
her thought.

Willow eyed him, not entirely sure it was the strength of the
cracking tool that had opened her lobster. But now she had other
problems. She'd almost come right out and said that Angel was
obviously the perfect man for someone like her. That wasn't what
she'd meant to say at all. Ok, it was probably true, but that
wasn't why she was here. She vowed not to have anymore champagne
and desperately tried to think of a way to change to subject.

"I was saying, my what strong hands you have!"

Angel rewarded her with a grin and a knowing look in his eye, but he
let it drop, for now. He didn't dare turn the conversation back to
her friends or her life of the last few months. It seemed that
either wound up being about one slayer or another and that was
clearly a topic she wanted to avoid. Even asking about Xander was a
disaster, though it did get her to make that interesting admission.
Still, the future seemed a safer path at the moment.

"After you left today I asked around in a few departments in the
firm to see who could use your abilities. I think there's going to
be a war over who gets you. You'll have your pick of any job in the
place. And any office." He smiled a little half smile, "Well,
except mine."

"Thanks Angel. You've done a lot for me already, and I've only been
here for 8 hours! I promise I'll work really hard and if there's
anything else I can do for you, just ask," she told him firmly with
a nod of her head.

He looked at her seriously. "You've done a lot for me too, Willow.
You made me a man." At her look of confusion and not a little shock
he added, "The soul. Putting it back, twice."

Her face cleared and she smiled at him. "Oh, right. Yeah well, I
gotta say I had a little bit of selfish motivation in that."

"Really?" He asked, shifting forward a little. "What might that
have been?" This was getting interesting.

"You know, living, not being killed. Those are pretty big
motivators."

"Oh, right," he muttered, sitting back, deflated.

This time it was Angel who was spared a further explanation by the
arrival of the chicken dish, complete with vegetables and salad.
Willow's eyes widened at the amount of food. The portions were
small, but it was definitely the biggest course yet and she'd
already eaten so much. Still, she picked at it to be polite,
knowing it had cost a bundle and she wasn't sure you could ask for a
doggie bag in a place like this. "Didn't we already have salad?"
She said, mostly to herself.

They passed the rest of the meal pleasantly, discussing the
arrangements for the next few days at the firm, though no mention
was made of Willow's future sleeping arrangements. She wondered how
long he'd let her stay at his place. Although she meant it when she
told Angel that she didn't need money, she wasn't sure she could
exactly afford an apartment in LA either.

By the time the petits fours were served, the few awkward moments
were forgotten and they were laughing comfortably, Angel teasing her
about not eating enough, and her teasing him about not eating
anything.

On the way back in the car, Willow asked him why he'd taken her to
such an exclusive restaurant when any caf頷ould have filled her up
just fine. "It was the only place I could think of good enough to
take someone like you," he told her. She had a moment to ponder
what someone like her was when he added, "someone who's saved the
world." She smiled, pleased, even if that was not quite what she'd
been hoping for.

Soon they were at his apartment and he walked her to the door to her
room. She hugged him again, thanking him for a lovely evening. He
kissed her on the cheek and they parted. As she undressed and got
in bed she wondered why she really had come there. There were lots
of possible reasons, but what was the real one? She decided that
she didn't need to know right at that moment and could start
figuring it out tomorrow.

End 2

Part 3



Willow opened her eyes and saw nothing. Her head felt fuzzy and a
little sore. She wondered if she was really awake and then realized
she could hear water running. The events of the last 24 hours
slowly returned to her, and she remembered she was in Angel's
apartment.

The shower was running. It must have been morning, but
it was so dark. Of course, Angel would have very heavy curtains
that were obviously closed. She rolled over, intent on regaining
the pleasant dream she was having until she remembered two things at
once. The person she was so happy with in the dream was not a girl,
and she had a new job to start and could not lay in bed all day.
She wasn't sure which thought caused her to be out of bed and on her
feet in a flash. Her head protested the sudden movement with a dull
throb.

Fumbling for a light, Willow decided she'd better get an alarm clock
if she was going to be a working woman. It had been easy to fall
out of the habit of researching all day and fighting all night. She
had become a woman of leisure. A lot of good that did anyone.

The shower went off with a squeak of a knob and Willow peeked out to
see if the bathroom was free. She was treated to the sight of Angel
shuffling into his room, clad only in a towel around his waist. He
was using a second towel to vigorously rub his hair which stood up
in all directions. Willow found herself transfixed by little
rivulets of water streaming out of his hair and running down his
muscular back between his shoulder blades before being absorbed by
the towel at his waist. She came to when his bedroom door closed
leaving her staring at its wood grain, which was not nearly as
interesting.

Shaking her head, realizing she'd been considering
making the door transparent, Willow made herself get ready for
work. No more naughty thoughts about the boss, she told herself as
she picked out her clothes for the day. `Hehe, Angel's my boss.
He's gonna give me orders. I'm gonna be under Angel.' Willow
gasped at her own thoughts and realized it must be the hangover
talking.

By the time she was ready, Angel was waiting for her, fully dressed
and not a hair out of place. They talked business on the way down
to the office, nothing mentioned of the previous night. He
suggested that she go to see Fred first, who would be more than
happy to show her around the various departments that might interest
her.

Willow had seen the entire building by early afternoon and was
suitably impressed by the resources of the firm. Fred made a great
tour guide and chatted ceaselessly about the research they were
doing and how nice it would be to have someone else to talk to who
would understand it. Though she was reluctant to share, Fred agreed
that Willow would split her time between helping her in the lab,
working with the firm's expert hackers, and assisting the other
spell casters.

Having promised to check in with the boss and let him know her
progress on finding work, Willow made her way up to Angel's office.
Harmony was not at her desk. Willow hesitated, and then noticed the
ditzy vampire far down the hall, gesturing angrily at a bored
looking Spike who finally strode away through the nearest wall,
leaving Harmony to yell at thin air. Instead of returning to her
post, Harmony chased after him, opening doors at random in her
search.

Willow shrugged and let herself into Angel's office. Her boss was
no where to be seen, but Eve was sitting on his couch, legs crossed
daintily in such a way that Willow could see all the way up her
skirt. "What are you doing here?" Willow asked, immediately
suspicious.

"I'm having a meeting," Eve replied, coolly.

Willow scoffed at her. "With yourself?"

"Angel just went to get some client files, since his secretary seems
to be missing again. What are you doing here?"

"That's none of your business!" Willow shouted. She didn't know
why she should feel so defensive. She had nothing to hide, she was
just coming to talk to her boss about business.

"Fine. Do you think you could take care of your business later?
You're interrupting."

"What's going on here?" A voice from behind Willow asked. She
turned to see Angel come through the door, his arms loaded down with
folders bulging with papers.

"Angel! I just came by to talk to you about," she shot Eve a look
that made the other woman shudder involuntarily, "never mind, I'll
come back." She hurried out of the room leaving the vampire staring
after her in wonder.

Willow strode down the hall cursing herself under her breath for
letting Eve get to her. She'd find out what that witch was up to if
it was the last thing she did. That thought made her stop in her
tracks. What if it WAS the last thing she did? And what if Eve was
a witch? She definitely radiated a feeling of power that was not
human. But it also wasn't the natural energy that came from pure
magic. All these private meetings with Angel did not sit well with
Willow. The sooner she found out Eve's agenda, the better.

After getting lost four times, Willow found Fred in her lab, her
eyes magnified to the size of baseballs behind a pair of gigantic
goggles. She dripped minute amounts of a foul smelling sludge into
a beaker full of what looked like smoking sand. "Stand back,
Willow," she warned without looking away from her work. As the last
of the contents of the eye dropper made contact with the stuff in
the beaker, the whole thing burst into green flames. Willow jumped
back, but Fred kept her cool and plunged the entire apparatus into a
waiting bucket of ice water. As it bubbled and steamed, she removed
the goggles and turned her attention to Willow. "Well, that's not
it," she concluded.

Willow wanted to ask what she was trying to find, but then
remembered the real purpose of her visit. "Fred, can I ask you
something, just between you and me."

"Sure, Willow. Anything."

"Well, I was just wondering, what do you think of Eve? You know, as
a person. And I use that term loosely."

"Oh, Eve? Let's see, she seems really nice. I mean, we don't
really know who she is or what she wants or where her loyalties lie,
but other than that, you know, she's Eve."

Willow frowned. "But don't you think it's odd? Nobody knows
anything about her, but everyone just takes her word for
everything. Can't we check her out a little? Find out a few
details at least? I don't know, say like, her last name?"

Fred sighed and began trying to scrub the burnt-on mess out of her
equipment. "It's complicated. We have to trust her because she's
the only thing we have. She's the big link to the senior partners,
the only link. Without her, we'd know even less."

Willow tried to be patient. She could always tell when she was
dealing with people who'd never lived on a hellmouth. They were far
too trusting and not nearly curious enough for their own
good. "Look, I understand why we need her. But has anyone even
tried to find out anything about her? That's all I'm asking."

Fred paused in her cleaning. "Well, no. Now that you mention it, I
wouldn't even know where to begin to look. She's always presented
herself as this young thing fresh out of school who landed a great
job. The only thing I would think there is to find is her
transcripts. Those don't really say much about a person."

"Fred, you've got a lot to learn. I'll start with checking out her
transcripts like you said. I'll see if they're in her employee
file." As she turned to go, Fred called her back.

"Willow, are you sure you should be doing this? I mean, we really
just started working here, I don't know if it's a good idea to stir
things up getting on Eve's bad side."

Willow could see her casting loving glances around her multi-million
dollar lab and knew exactly what she was thinking. "Don't worry,
Fred." She placed a reassuring hand on the other woman's
shoulder. "I'm already on Eve's bad side."

End 3

Part 4

"I don't get it. I just don't get it." Willow continued scrolling
through Eve's personnel file, muttering under her breath all the
while. "It's all here. How can that be?" The records showed that
everything Eve had told them about herself was true. Willow stopped
reading and her head shot up. "Wait. Just because she wrote it on
her job application and it went in the system, doesn't mean
anything! It could all be an elaborate cover, a created identity!"

"Working hard?" An amused male voice asked from just behind her
chair. Willow spun around to find Angel reading over her shoulder
with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. "I don't think
private investigator was one of the jobs we talked about. We have
enough of those."

"Angel! I was just? ummm? well, learning about the firm? What are
you doing here? Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to sneak up on
people?" She asked, hoping to change the subject.

"You came to see me and I was busy so I thought I'd stop by now that
I'm free. But that doesn't explain why you're checking up on Eve."
His tone of voice now suggested that she'd best explain herself in a
hurry.

Willow felt herself blush. How silly of her that she hadn't trusted
Angel's judgment of Eve after all of his experience with demons in
various forms. In a small voice she answered honestly, "I thought
she was evil."

To her surprise Angel chuckled ruefully. "Yeah, attractive women
often are."

"You think she's attractive?" Willow demanded, unable to keep the
disgust out of her voice. "I mean, yeah, of course she's
attractive," she added, trying for a lighter tone. "I ought to
know."

Angel smiled at her. "Right, you're the expert. Now why don't you
give the demon hunting a rest and try to relax. Well, as much as
you can relax in an evil law firm. What did you want to talk about?"

Willow just stared at him for a moment, clueless as to what he was
talking about. Then her face lit up. "Oh, I wanted to tell you
about all my new jobs." While she recited the various tasks she'd
lined up for herself, she began plotting how she was going to
discover the truth about Eve. The situation was worse than she
thought. If Angel was thinking of her in terms of "attractive
woman" instead of simply, "employee", he was in no position to be an
objective judge of her character.

She would have to work alone, that much was clear. Through her
natural female attributes, Eve clearly had every man in the firm
eating out of her hand. None of them would lift a finger against
her. The only woman she knew she could trust was no help either.
Fred was so in love with her lab she'd turn a blind eye if the devil
himself was walking around giving orders.

When Angel left to see about getting her a private office, Willow
turned back to the computer and logged out of Wolfram & Hart's
employee tracking system. Connecting to the Internet, she looked up
UC Santa Cruz. Universities were notoriously lax in their security
systems. She'd have them hacked by dinner.

Willow underestimated her abilities. She was busily searching
through student records at UC Santa Cruz in just under an hour.
There was no record of Eve. `Sloppy, sloppy,' she thought. She was
sure that if they really wanted to, Wolfram & Hart could have a
phony student record created with no trouble. Her interest more
piqued than ever, Willow carefully erased all traces of her hacking
activities and gathered the papers detailing the legitimate cases
she was supposed to be working on. It was 5 o'clock and Angel had
promised she'd have an office by the end of the day. It seemed wise
to wait until she could work somewhere undisturbed to continue her
investigation.

Willow stepped out of the elevator onto Angel's floor and went in
search of Harmony.
The irony was not lost on her that if she'd come across Harmony not
3 days before, she would have staked her, and yet now she wanted to
ask her for directions to her office. To Willow's surprise and
relief, Harmony was at her desk, typing a memo with two
fingers. "Hi Harmony," she ventured.

"Willow, how nice to see you! I'll be right with you." She made a
few more keystrokes and then rose, giving Willow a brilliant
smile. "I'll bet you want to see your new office!" Willow nodded,
her eyes fixed on Harmony, mouth slightly agape. "Right this way,
please." Harmony made her way down the hall, past several of the
doors she'd so brazenly flung open just that morning in search of
Spike.

"Here we are!" Fitting a key in the doorknob, Harmony let them into
a spacious office with a beautiful cherry desk and three wall-length
windows. A brand new flat screen monitor was perched on the desk,
the hum of the cpu coming from somewhere underneath. One wall was
lined floor to ceiling with bookshelves that were full of various
demon texts. The rug was a forest green which matched the
upholstery on the side chairs positioned in front of the desk for
her visitors. Behind the desk was a black leather office chair with
numerous levers and knobs to adjust it. Willow thought she could
even see a dial for heat.

Turning to Harmony, Willow asked, "This is my office? Just mine?"

"Sure is! It's all yours! And I'll be right down the hall if you
need anything. Just use the intercom on your desk." She turned to
go, but Willow grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back into the
room.

Shutting the door, Willow turned to the startled blonde. "Alright,
what's going on here? The fancy office, the nice vampire routine,
what's the deal?"

Harmony rolled her eyes. "Fine, Eve told me I had to be nice to
you, that you were important. So we got you the big office and here
I am being nice. I don't have to be, you know. I have every right
to be evil if I want."

That brought up another question Willow had been meaning to
ask. "Yeah, what's with that anyway? Why don't you drink human
blood? It's not like you have a soul."

Harmony looked uncomfortable and wrenched her arm away from
Willow. She tried to leave again but Willow stood in front of the
door and crossed her arms, clearly unwilling to let her by until she
was satisfied. "Ok, ok, it's not that I don't want to. It's just?
Promise you won't tell?" Willow nodded, but didn't budge from the
door. "They're too hard to catch. People see you vamp out and they
run. It's like they think you're gonna hurt them. I try to chase
them, but I'm not very fast, and once the heel of my shoe broke and
I fell and it was so embarrassing. So, this one time I was really
hungry and I couldn't catch anyone, so I tried the pig blood. It
wasn't that bad! And it's so much easier to get, so I gave up human
blood for good. It's a lot easier to make friends this way too,"
she concluded.

Without saying a word, Willow moved away from the door. Harmony
left quickly, eyes downcast. As soon as the door was closed, Willow
burst out laughing until she thought her sides would split. When
she recovered she remembered what Harmony said about Eve making her
be nice and acting like she was important. `It's like she wants me
to be suspicious of her', Willow thought.

She roamed around her new office, taking everything in. It was very
nice, everything she could have wanted. Picking out a particularly
interesting looking text on deceptive practices of demons, she
curled up on the loveseat against the wall opposite the bookshelves
and began to read.

It was in this position that Angel found her two hours later, when
the sun had set. At her invitation to his knock, he stuck his head
in and asked how she was liking her new accommodations. When she
had thanked him a few dozen times he asked if he could take her to
dinner.

"Ok, but nothing fancy tonight. Is there a good pizza joint in
town?"

It turned out there was and over a large pepperoni pie with a
pitcher of beer, Willow told Angel all about her first day at work
and how she looked forward to the next day.

"That's really some office. I didn't realize we'd be on the same
floor, what with you being the big CEO guy and all, and me being
just the new girl."

"Well, we're all new, really. I thought it would be nice to have
you nearby. We can keep in touch better that way."

Willow thought this sounded a lot like him wanting to keep an eye on
her. "Harmony told me it was Eve's idea to give me that office,"
she informed him, keeping her tone conversational.

"It was. She thought it would be a good idea for you to be
accessible. You're going to be one of our most valuable people so
she wants you right there with us."

"Uh huh," was all Willow could think of to say. She thought she'd
better drop it for the time being.

Angel had other ideas. "You know, I bet the two of you could get to
be good friends. You've got to be about the same age, you're going
to be working together, you both know about demons. You have a lot
in common."

Willow choked on a bit of pizza and took a larger than necessary
chug of beer to wash it down. "Um, right. Friends. That sounds
great. Maybe we'll stay up late and braid each other's hair."

Angel completely missed the sarcasm and said, "Great! That's the
spirit!"

As they walked back to the penthouse in companionable silence,
Willow found herself wondering just how interested in Eve Angel
really was. Against her better judgment, she decided to ask
him. "Angel, do you think you and Eve are going to get together?"

"Get together? Well, sure we have a meeting first thing in the
morning and? wait, you mean together together? No, of course not,
why would you even ask?"

"Oh, no reason. It just seems like a good match. You know, like we
talked about last night with you being the perfect guy for a non-
slayer girl with supernatural tendencies."

"You think Eve has supernatural tendencies?"

"Well, she knows about things. She's not afraid of demons, and you
said she was attractive. So, that's a step in the right direction."

"Willow, when you said that about me being right for that kind of
girl, I thought you meant? well never mind. Um, no, I don't have
those kinds of feelings for Eve. It's not like I end up with
feelings for every attractive girl I work with."

Willow looked at him skeptically but only said, "Oh. Well, that's
her loss." Angel smiled at her and shook his head.

That night Willow slept well, relieved to know her boss was not yet
sleeping with the enemy.

End 4

Part 5


"Angel! Blood!" Willow called out as the microwave beeped. Angel
hurried into the kitchen, already fully dressed, and took the
steaming mug from her hands.

"I had your blue suit cleaned. It's hanging up in the bathroom.
They charged extra for that yellow goo on the sleeve, but they got
it all out. Where's the paper?" He asked her.

"Late again. Kids these days, I tell ya."

Angel rolled his eyes in agreement and took his breakfast to the
table where he sat with nothing to read. Two weeks had passed since
Willow had come to LA and started work at Wolfram & Hart. She and
Angel had developed a morning routine that suited them both and
ensured they didn't get in each other's way.

What Angel didn't know, or at least pretended not to, was that part
of Willow's routine included watching him walk in his towel from the
bathroom to his bedroom after his shower every morning. Once,
before she could stop herself, she made the towel fall off. She
then felt guilty for two days and told herself she wouldn't watch
him anymore, which lasted until the next morning when the shower
shut off and she found herself at her door peeking out.

Willow darted off to the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later
wearing the freshly cleaned blue suit. Angel checked his watch and
announced that he had to leave.

"Where's your meeting this morning?" Willow asked.

"Just a few blocks away. I'll take the sewers," he told her. "I
should be in my office by 10. I'll stop by around lunch." Placing
one hand on her padded shoulder, he leaned in and gave her a quick
kiss on the cheek before disappearing out the door.

A few minutes later, Willow was in the elevator, heading for work
too. In addition to her office duties, she'd begun to accompany
Angel on his demon fighting missions at night. At first he'd
adamantly refused, citing her safety as his primary concern. They'd
been in his office when this discussion took place. She had stopped
by to see if he was ready to head home and found him preparing for a
hunt. Instead of protesting his chauvinistic rationale, she'd
simply held up her hand. In the blink of an eye, he'd found himself
flung against the window, bound hand and foot by the thick, braided
drapery cords. "Now don't you think that's a useful skill to have
on your side?" she'd asked him calmly.

Refusing to look at her, Angel had agreed she could come along if
she promised never to do that to him in front of anyone else. She
promised and let him down, noting to herself that he hadn't made her
promise never to tie him up in private.

Their most recent mission had involved a giant slug demon that lived
in the sewers and was eating some of Wolfram & Harts sewer-dwelling
clients. Apparently it would slither up when they were asleep and
drown them in a stream of slime before absorbing the bodies into its
porous flesh. It had been an easy kill, but tougher on the clothes
than most.

Angel took care of all her dry-cleaning. He had a good rapport with
a local shop who's proprietor claimed he could send all three of his
sons to college thanks to Angel's business. It was this grateful
attitude that kept him from asking uncomfortable questions about the
state of the clothing that Angel dropped off every week.

Willow arrived at the lab with some reports for Fred on the previous
day's research only to find the scientist already busily at work.
When she saw Willow she looked surprised and a little
uncomfortable. "Still trying to find a way to help Spike?" Willow
asked her with a knowing smile.

"Well, yeah. I just feel bad for him, you know. He got a tough
break. Just don't tell Angel, okay? He doesn't like me spending
all this time on Spike, even if it means getting rid of him."

"You're secret's safe with me," she promised, handing Fred the
reports and leaving her to her latest experiment.

She stood in front of the elevator doors, tapping one foot
impatiently as she watched the dial slowly spin towards the floor
number indicating her current location. At last a subtle ding
sounded and the doors slid open to reveal an empty car. As she
stepped in she heard a woman call out, "Hold, it please!"

Willow automatically, pushed the open door button and held it as she
looked up to see who was coming. Her stomach fell to her feet as
she saw Eve approaching, skirt swishing briskly as she hurried to
catch up with Willow. Once she was in, Willow punched the button
for the 18th floor a little harder than was necessary to make it
light up. She didn't even ask where Eve was headed, automatically
assuming that she was going to see Angel, who she'd forgotten wasn't
even in yet.

Willow had made no further progress in the last two weeks on
figuring out what Eve was up to, though she continued to believe all
was not as it appeared. Every one of her leads had dried up. She
had even followed Eve one night after a particularly late meeting
with Angel. She had left the building, climbed into a perfectly
ordinary looking car, and driven up to a perfectly ordinary looking
apartment and gone inside. Feeling foolish, she had driven away,
not seeing Eve watching her from a third floor window.

Now in the elevator, Eve made no move to push an additional button,
only stood silently for a few moments, studying the maroon carpet,
or perhaps her shiny black shoes. She gave a small gasp when the
elevator lurched to a stop and the emergency alarm began to sound.
Willow glared at her for a moment, and then rapidly pressed the red
button until the alarm silenced and a male voice came through the
speaker in the panel. "What happened up there?" It demanded.

"We appear to be stuck," Willow shot Eve another chilling
glance. "We're between the 19th and 20th floors.

"Ok, we'll send someone right up. Might be awhile before it's
fixed. Is everyone in there alright?"

"We're fine. For now," Willow assured the concerned voice. Turning
to Eve, she took a deep breath in attempt to remain calm and
asked, "What's this all about?"

Eyes wide with surprise, Eve replied, "What, the elevator? Why, I'm
as startled as you are! You don't think I got us stuck on purpose?"

Willow didn't know what to say. There wasn't much she could do but
wait. If Eve tried to attack her, she could defend herself, but
otherwise, she felt she didn't know enough about elevators to risk
any magic to get them out. After a few minutes, she slouched down
on the floor, trying to get comfortable as far away from Eve, who
remained standing, as possible.

"Willow, I have been meaning to talk to you about something. Now is
as good a time as any, wouldn't you say?" Willow wouldn't
say. "Well, anyway, it's actually about a little proposal I have
for you. Do you know our associate, Charles?"

Willow frowned and then looked up at her. "Gunn? We've met. Nice
guy."

"Yes, Gunn. Did you know he received some special cerebral
enhancements, courtesy of Wolfram & Hart, that taught him everything
there is to know about demon law in a matter of minutes?"

Willow had heard about this. "What's your point?"

"My point is that there are other enhancements that Wolfram & Hart
is capable of providing for it's more important employees."

Willow saw she would have to take the bait to get this conversation
over with. "Such as?"

"For instance, for someone like yourself, we could implant the
knowledge of every spell known to every Wicca in the world. You'd
never need to look at a spell book again. In addition, we could up
your power. You could move buildings on a whim. How does that
sound?"

"I can already move buildings, if I wanted to," Willow informed her,
getting up off the floor to face her adversary.

"Yes, but how many days of migraines and nosebleeds would you suffer
afterwards? With our implants, you wouldn't even need a nap after a
spell like that."

Willow didn't dare admit how nice that sounded. Surely there was a
catch. There was always a catch. Usually a nasty one. "You really
think I would let your people poke around in my brain?"

"It's very safe. You could even have someone there in the room that
you trust. Fred, perhaps? She would be able to tell if they were
doing something wrong. Or Angel even, if you trust him more," she
said with a wave of her hand, indicating it was of no consequence
who watched the procedure.

"And why would Wolfram & Hart, the big evil law firm, be so generous
to me, fighter of evil? What's in it for them? What's in it for
you?"

"Like I said, it's simply a perk offered to certain valuable
employees. And Willow, you do fall in that category. Just in the
short time you've been here, your hacking skills have solved four
cases weeks ahead of schedule and your magical abilities have
eliminated several demons that were giving our clients trouble. Why
wouldn't we want to help you in any way we can?"

Unable to come up with a good dispute for that, Willow
muttered, "I'll think about it."

"Great! That's all I ask."

Just then the elevator started again and soon after, the two women
parted ways on the 18th floor.

End 5

Part 6


Reaching her office, finally, Willow booted up her computer and
slumped in her chair, hitting the massage button she'd discovered
just the day before. Closing her eyes for a moment as she waited
for the logon screen to appear, she mentally replayed the
conversation in the elevator. So, Wolfram & Hart wanted to tap her
magical powers. That much was clear, but why? Would they really
risk making her more powerful than she was already? Or was that
just a big lie to get her under the knife? Either way she was
excited. Eve had given her a huge lead into discovering her plans.

Three hours later, Willow was deeply engrossed reading a wide array
of reports detailing the activities of the magic users at the firm.
Their powers were used for everything from casting spells on
weapons, to stealing priceless artifacts, to killing enemies
remotely. She still wasn't sure where she fit in. What could she
do that none of the others could? It didn't make sense. Why did
they need her? She pounded the heel of her hand against her
forehead, willing her brain to make the connection.

Her thoughts were soon interrupted by a knock at the door. A moment
later, Angel appeared, a cup of coffee and tuna salad on a bagel in
his hands. "Hey, brought you lunch," he said. Harmony had almost
instantly disregarded her order to be nice to Willow and
always "forgot" when asked to bring coffee.

"Aww, thanks Angel, that's sweet."

Placing the food on the desk, Angel settled into one of the side
chairs and pulled the newspaper out from under his arm. He unfolded
it and extracted the envelope it had concealed. "I brought you
this, too."

Taking it from his hands, Willow slit it open and squealed with
delight when she saw the contents. "My first paycheck! Oh my god,
Angel, it's so much. It's too much, I can't take this. I don't
deserve it." She tried to hand it back to him, but he waved it
off.

"Willow, it's a very standard amount," he insisted.

"But I don't even have a college degree! Or any work experience.
You can't tell me this is the average starting salary here."

"Well, no," he admitted. "But Willow, you're smarter than the 10
smartest PhD's we have here put together. Trust me, you've earned
it."

Willow looked down modestly and put the check away in her
desk. "Thank you, Angel. I do feel like I have a purpose here."

"That's great! I was hoping you'd say that. I'm glad this is
working out so well for you. Here, I brought you one more thing."
Now he handed her the folded newspaper. She took it uncertainly and
glanced at the section he had opened. It was the real estate
section. Specifically, the part that listed apartments for rent.
Several listings were highlighted.

When she looked back up at him, he said, "I figured since you'll be
staying in LA, you'd want your own place, so I took the liberty of
picking out a few potentials in your price range. You should be
able to afford something nice with what we're paying you."

Willow was crushed. Of course she should want her own place. Who'd
want to live with a vampire? Weird hours, never anything but blood
in the fridge, always coming home to various refugees camped out in
the living room waiting for Angel to solve their problems. She was
embarrassed that she'd come to think of the penthouse as home and
hadn't even looked for an apartment. For the first few days she had
of course assumed the arrangement was temporary, but when Angel
hadn't kicked her out, she'd kind of settled in and had stopped
considering that he might not want her there. She felt so stupid.

Trying to smile, she said, "Oh, of course, I'd love my own place.
Sorry I've been underfoot for so long. I'll look these over now and
schedule some appointments." Looking down and pretending to scan
the listings so the vampire wouldn't see the hurt in her eyes, she
missed the way his face fell at her apparent enthusiasm for moving
out.

"Sure. Well, take your time. There's no hurry, I'm not kicking you
out. I just thought you'd like a space of your own, you know,
without all the weird vampire stuff. And your own bathroom, maybe
even with a mirror. I know how girls like their time in the
bathroom." Willow's head shot up and as she stared at him and his
now twinkling eyes with her mouth open, she knew that he knew about
her spying. `Stupid, stupid, of course he knew you were there.
Hello? Vampire, remember!' she silently berated herself.

"Sure, Angel, it's a good idea for me to move out. Be on my own.
Leave you to your brooding in peace." She couldn't make her voice
sound quite as cheery about it as before since she found herself
wondering how lonely it would be to live all by herself in a strange
city.

Angel got up to leave. "See you tonight. Don't forget to pick a
place for dinner."

As she watched him go, Willow speculated whether their nightly meals
would carry on after she moved out. Angel had continued to take her
to dinner every night since she'd come to LA. His rationale was
simply that his apartment was not set up for cooking. He had no
plates or pots and pans, and there were often things in the
refrigerator that wouldn't be healthy if they came in contact with
food.

With a sigh, she picked up the paper again and read through the
available apartments with no particular interest in any of them.
Finally, she picked up the phone and called three at random, setting
up showings for the following day which was Saturday.

That done, she turned back to her computer, remembering her big
mission to discover what the firm wanted from her. Suddenly, it
didn't seem very important to her what they wanted. She wasn't
stupid enough to let them play with her mind so what difference did
it make what they would do if she did? When Angel had come into her
office she had felt alive with purpose and full of ambition. Now,
not 20 minutes later, she couldn't remember what that purpose had
been and she had all the ambition of her tuna salad bagel that she
threw away after the first bite, which tasted like shredded
cardboard to her moping taste buds. She took a sip from the paper
cup and?

"Bee in your bonnet, Love?"

Willow looked up and sprayed bitter coffee all over the top of her
desk and several documents as she caught sight of the ghost of Spike
sitting in the chair in front of her desk where Angel had been only
minutes ago. Of course, she had not heard him come in. Pulling
several tissues up from the box beside her phone Willow began to mop
up the mess she made, glaring at the intruder.

"Spike, do you think you could knock? Ok, no you can't knock, so do
you think you could just not do that? I don't know if it's a ghost
thing, or a vampire thing, or what, but you really shouldn't just go
around sneaking up on people."

"What sneaking? I walked right in through the door, conspicuous as
you please! Not my fault if you're sitting here having a little
self-involved temper tantrum and not paying attention to the outside
world," the vampire huffed.

"I was not having a? arg! Spike, what are you doing here?"

"Just came in to see what you said to Angel that has him in such a
snit. Never seen him so brassed off. He'd a ripped my head from my
neck, if it was really there."

"What are you talking about? We were having a calm, rational
conversation. He brought me some apartment listings and lunch, then
he left. Whatever he's in a mood about, it's not my fault."

"Oh, right. His little missus is moving out and it's got nothing to
do with that," Spike made a grand gesture of rolling his eyes as if
he couldn't believe that humans could possibly get any stupider.

"Spike, I'm going to ask you one more time. What. Are. You.
Talking. About?"

"Please, the two of you are enough to make me vomit, and that takes
a lot seeing how I don't have a stomach." In a high squeaky voice
he continued, "Here's your blood honey. Oh thank you darling, you
know just how I like it. Here's your outfit for today. Here let's
share the paper. Oh goodnight sweetie, kiss kiss." Spike shook his
head in disgust. "Honestly, I've never seen anything so revolting.
And I've never seen Angel so bloody happy."

"Well if you weren't always skulking around the apartment then you
wouldn't have to feel sick, and wait, you think he's all happy and
that has something to do with me?" Willow asked, still disbelieving.

Spike got up and paced the room. "Of course it has something to do
with you. Do you know he sings in the shower now? He never did
that before."

Willow decided not to ask how Spike knew about Angel's shower
habits, not wanting to reveal how much she knew herself. "So, if he
was so happy, why did he come in here and show me apartments?"
Willow asked, triumphantly slapping the paper down on the desk
facing Spike, as if that settled the matter.

He walked over and glanced down, then made a motion to push the
paper away, which resulted in nothing more than his hand passing
through the desk. "Well, that's obvious, isn't it? He's an idiot.
He doesn't want to be happy. He wants you to be happy. He's got it
in his head that living with him isn't going to do that and some
nice little flat with some nice normal neighbors will."

"But I don't want to move out," Willow whined.

"So tell him that," Spike said, as if it were the most obvious thing
in the world.

"I can't. I already said I wanted my own place. And what if you're
wrong and he thinks I'm just a big mooch?"

"Oh hell, I can't deal with you whiny women," Spike announced before
walking back out through the closed door, leaving a distraught
Willow staring after him.

She turned her thoughts over and over in her head as she mindlessly
tried code after code to break into a rival law firm's database.
She looked surprised when one went through and the data she was
after popped up on the screen. Waiting for the printouts to finish
on her private HP laser jet, she made up her mind. She would go to
the apartment showings tomorrow. If Angel really wanted her to stay
with him, he would just have to come out and say so. She was
through playing games.

End 6

Part 7

"They call this a luxury apartment? I've seen nicer sewer tunnels,"
Angel scoffed, striding through the three small, grungy rooms.
Willow watched him, arms folded across her chest.

"All it needs is some new paint. I'm sure it cleans up nice," she
tried to reason with him.

"Look at this," he stared down into the kitchen sink. "Rust
stains. Those don't come out."

"The price is right," Willow countered.

"It's in a bad neighborhood," Angel pointed out.

"Alright fine, let's go see the next one." Willow turned to leave,
muttering under her breath, "Don't know who asked you to come along
anyway. Middle of the day, gotta drive the car right up on the lawn
to the door. Must think a woman doesn't know how to pick an
apartment, stupid vampire, get with the 21st century. Sheesh!"

To its credit, the next apartment was considerably nicer. The
bright, airy rooms were of decent size and it was located in a nice
middle class neighborhood where children played in front yards.
However, Angel was not impressed. "It's on the first floor. You
can't live on the first floor. What if someone or something breaks
in? You'd be the easiest target. This one is definitely out."

Willow took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "You know, not
everyone can live in a penthouse. This is a very nice little
place. I think it's perfect."

"Wait! Listen to that. I think it's the toilet. Yes it is, the
toilet runs. You'll never be able to sleep at night with all that
noise."

"Angel, I don't hear anything!"

"Look at this door." He swung the bedroom door back and forth
rapidly. "It's almost coming off the hinges! This place is falling
apart. We should go."

Willow threw up her hands and stalked off to the car leaving Angel
to hurry after her if he didn't want to be left out in the sun.

The third apartment never stood a chance. "Oh no, no. There is no
WAY you can live here. Look at what's across the street. It's a
bar! You'll have drunks coming up to your door at all hours of the
night wanting to use your phone or take a piss."

Willow grudgingly admitted that she didn't care to have a bar as a
neighbor.

On the drive back to his place, Angel seemed uncharacteristically
animated and chatty. "It's too bad we didn't find a good apartment
for you. I know you were looking forward to moving out. I guess
you'll just have to stay until something better comes along. You
know it might be awhile. I was thinking we could get a mini fridge,
for real food. This way you could keep a few things around to eat
without worrying about what might happen to it in my fridge."

Willow stared at him and her eyes narrowed as realization dawned on
her. Spike was right! She couldn't believe that thought just
entered her head, but it was true. Angel didn't want her to move
out! Heaven forbid he should just come right out and say so, nope,
instead he tags along and finds minuscule things wrong with the
apartments she likes. On top of that, now it seemed he would go out
of his way to make his apartment more human friendly.

Angel was still yakking on. "And a mirror! We could get one of
those oval ones that goes above the bathroom sink. We can write
messages on it when it fogs up." He turned to grin at her and then
suddenly returned to his normal serious expression when he saw the
incredulous look on her face. "Or, we don't have to do any of that
stuff, I was just saying, you know, if you wanted to," he finished
quietly.

When they arrived back at Angel's place, Willow announced that she
was going to take a nap. The previous night after dinner they had
taken out a large nest of vampires and she was exhausted. Laying
down in her room, yes she still thought of it as Her room, she
started to contemplate Angel's reaction to her attempt at moving out
but fell sound asleep after only a few minutes. Though she meant to
nap for just a half hour or so, she slept away the afternoon and
only awoke because of a strange clinking sound coming from somewhere
in the apartment.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, listening carefully. Unable to
identify the sound, she reached under the bed for her crossbow and
crept to the door, gently easing it open a crack. When she saw what
was out there, she dropped the crossbow to the floor with an unheard
clatter.

The small table was set with two linen placemats. In the center of
one stood a solitary mug. In the center of the other was a full
place setting, which even from her room Willow could tell was made
of fine china. Also on the table was a vase, a real crystal one,
full of yellow roses. The plates and the vase added up to more
breakable items than were found in the entire rest of the
apartment. Angel's bad habit of bringing his work home resulted in
a very short lifespan for anything fragile. The last time an angry
client had come calling, Willow had lost a bottle of perfume, a
glass picture frame with a photo of her and Xander, and a ceramic
soap dish.

Needless to say then that the items on the table were a surprise,
but that was nothing to what she could see in the kitchen. The
clinking noise was revealed to be Angel stirring the steaming
contents of a brand new copper pot with a metal spoon. As she
watched, he put the spoon down, turned and opened a dorm-sized white
fridge, with a red bow on top, Willow noted, and pulled out a
carrot. This he quickly chopped and dumped in the pot before
resuming his stirring.

Willow walked back to her bed and stared at it for a minute. It was
empty, she wasn't really lying there dreaming this. She pinched
herself to be sure. It hurt. Then she took a sniff of the air and
could actually smell cooking food. She sat on the bed. She got up
and then sat down again. He wanted her to stay. Either that or he
was feeling really guilty about wanting her to leave and was trying
to make it up to her. She got up and went to the door, opening it
all the way this time. Angel looked up and saw her standing there.

"Willow! You're up! Great, just in time. Sit down at the table,
dinner's almost ready." Still not entirely sure she wasn't
hallucinating, Willow silently obeyed.

She gently traced the gold-edged rim of the white soup bowl with one
finger. It was set atop a matching plate with a smaller plate set
up and to the left. She leaned forward and inhaled the fragrance of
the flowers, closing her eyes in pleasure at the sweet aroma.

A moment later, Angel bustled over and removed her bowl. When he
returned and set in front of her, it was full of a homemade
stew. `I don't believe it. He made me chicken stew. How?
domestic!' She thought. She was still staring at the stew when
Angel set a basket of rolls and a dish of butter in front of her.
That's when she noticed his apron. It said, "Kiss the Cook".

Next, he cracked open a can of diet Pepsi, her favorite, and filled
her wine glass. That done, he plopped down next to her, swiping the
back of his hand across his forehead. "Well, how is it?" He asked,
eagerly.

Willow obligingly picked up her spoon and scooped up a bit of stew,
blowing on it carefully. Angel leaned closer as she lifted it to
her mouth, studying her reaction. It was good! The vampire could
cook! Willow smiled and made an enthusiastic, "mmmm" sound. Angel
leaned back looking relieved and pleased with himself, finally
taking a sip of his own dinner.

After a few more bites, Angel encouraged her to try a roll. Taking
one from the basket, Willow set it on her plate and reached for the
butter.

"Oh, wait, let me!" Angel removed the roll with plate from her
flustered grasp, grabbed her knife and swiftly spread the softened
butter. He positioned the plate back in its place and made a little
show of dusting crumbs from his hands.

"Um, thanks," Willow said, giving him sideways glances as he watched
her nibble at the roll. She finally put it down and turned to face
him. He met her gaze expectantly. "Angel, what is all this?"

"Dinner," he replied, lifting his mug to his lips and taking a drink
as though to demonstrate his point.

"No, for you, dinner is what's in your mug. This is food that you
cooked for me. This is china and flowers and a refrigerator and,"
she squinted at something on the counter that caught her eye, "is
that an apple pie?"

"Strawberry rhubarb," he corrected her. "You told me it was your
favorite."

Willow scrunched up her nose in confusion. "When did I tell you
that was my favorite?"

Angel shifted in his seat and looked over at the pie. "Five years
ago."

Willow was speechless. She took one of his hands in both of hers,
making him look back at her. They sat like that for a minute or
more, just looking at each other, studying each other, each wanting
to know what the other saw, neither asking.

"Are you hungry, Willow?" Angel asked, breaking the silence.

"Yes," she replied, her voice low, eyes raking over his apron-
covered body.

"Then finish your stew, it's getting cold."

Shaken out of her reverie, Willow let go of his hand and picked up
her spoon. The hearty stew reawakened her taste buds and she
realized she actually was hungry. As soon as she finished, Angel
cleared her plate and urged her to rest while he washed the dishes.
The leftover stew was wrapped up and stored away in her new fridge.

A few minutes later, Angel returned to the table with the pie. To
Willow's surprise, he cut himself a small piece as well. "I just
want to see why you like it so much," was his explanation. "I like
sharing things with you."

At last Willow could hold out no longer. "Angel, this is all very
lovely, but why did you buy all these things?" She gestured around
the table and made a wider motion to include the kitchen.

"I want you to be comfortable while you're here. It's just a few
dishes. I could have bought them before, but I thought you liked
going out to like going out to eat. It wasn't until you spent so
much time looking through the kitchens in those apartments that I
realized you might want a meal at home once in a while."

"But Angel, I was already comfortable here. You didn't have to do
all of this. I love it here, just the way it was. Now, don't get
me wrong, I'm not going to say no to a man who cooks and cleans, and
I'll admit my own refrigerator is a nice bonus, just don't think you
have to buy me things to make me comfortable. You make me
comfortable."

"So then you'll stay? Here with me?" Then as if remembering he was
a powerful vampire he added, "If you're not bothered by all the
blood and violence, that is. I'd understand if you couldn't handle
that."

Willow cleared her throat and raised her hand. "Grew up on a
hellmouth, right here, that's me. Think I can handle the blood and
violence. Now, if YOU can handle living with a witch, and all the
incense and chicken feet that go with that, then we have ourselves a
deal."

Angel held out his hand. She shook it. They smiled at each other
and ate pie.

End 7


Part 8

"Has anyone seen Spike?" Harmony stood behind her desk, bouncing on
her heels and biting her nails.

Angel, who was just exiting the elevator with Willow, crumpled his
face in disgust at the question. "No, and good thing, too. Who
wants to deal with him first thing on a Monday morning?" Seeing
that his answer was not going to get Harmony out of his way, he
added, "Why don't you go ask Fred? He's always hanging around her
lab, goading her for not fixing him yet."

"But he was just here!" She insisted. "Then he wasn't, but he
didn't walk away, he just disappeared."

"Halleluiah! About damn time." Angel stalked off into his office,
leaving Harmony and Willow looking at each other uncertainly.

"He's right, you should check with Fred," Willow offered.

Holed up in her own office catching up on email from the weekend and
new cases that had come in, Willow soon forgot about Spike and his
little disappearing act. When lunch time came, she went on the
Internet and began browsing for a gift to surprise Angel. He was
constantly coming home with things for her or taking her out and she
was determined to return the favor for once. It was hard to shop
for a vampire, much less surprise one.

Willow came across a site advertising a pair of black silk boxer
shorts that she thought would be stunning on him, and then blushed
at the image, quickly clicking a link for a less suggestive item.
It was a rare thing for Angel to make Willow blush these days.
Three weeks had flown by since they agreed to remain housemates.
Their routine remained largely unchanged except that they now ate
dinner at home as often as they went out. They had also become more
comfortable around each other. Angel moved freely about the
apartment in his towel in the morning in full view of Willow, who no
longer had to spy. He had progressed to taking care of all of her
laundry, instead of just her suits, and was now familiar with most
of her undergarments.

Willow finally settled on a couple of Barry Manilow CD's from
Amazon, having them shipped to her at the firm so he wouldn't find
them in the mail before she had a chance to wrap them up. She had
noticed that it didn't seem to matter where she ordered anything
from, when Wolfram & Hart was in the address, things arrived in
record time.

In an even shorter time, Willow would have other things on her mind.

By quitting time, Willow was well aware, once again, of Spike's
dilemma. They were all crowded in Fred's lab, watching in awe as
the scientist wrote out formula after formula, muttering to herself
all the while.

Angel had come into Willow's office about an hour before and
confessed, "I'm worried about Spike." When asked to elaborate, he
admitted that Spike had just recently mentioned how he felt he was
slipping into hell. After asking around at his usual haunts, they
determined that he hadn't appeared to anyone all day. The death of
the psychic they used to try contacting him had everyone on edge and
looking over their shoulders.

Angel and Gunn had just returned from the white room with the tube
full of dark liquid and Willow breathed a sigh of relief to see them
back safely. She didn't know what she was more afraid of, the dark
spirit, or the conduit.

With the last piece of her plan in place, Fred switched on her
machine and waited. As soon as her scanner started to beep, she
yelled for Spike to step inside the circle on the floor. Willow
held her breath, waiting to see what would happen. It was then that
she began to choke.

Her throat constricted painfully as though hands were throttling her
neck. She could see no enemy and flailed her arms uselessly at the
air in front of her. The others saw her distress and ran to her,
but were thrown back immediately. She could hear Angel crying
out, "Willow! No! Get away from her! I kill you! Stop hurting
her!"

The room began to darken and her vision became gray around the
edges. She couldn't speak to cast a spell and had no target in
sight if she could. She was helpless, drowning in a sea of
darkness. It washed over her head in waves, suffocating her.

Then, just as the last point of light in her eyes was dimming, the
pressure on her windpipe was gone and she took a deep, ragged
breath, doubling over, and grabbing her neck. She sucked in
mouthful after mouthful of air, even though every breath was like
knives in her throat. Her vision brightened and she could see
Wesley and Gunn kicking a strange man around the floor, while Spike
stood over them, telling what he'd seen.

And then Angel was at her side, and she was in his arms, and he was
kissing her. Not on the cheek, but full on the mouth, passionately,
as if the world was ending, which for her it nearly had. As
awareness of the situation entered her oxygen-starved brain, she did
not pull away, but wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head
tilted toward him and she felt her own lips move in response to
his. Years later, it had to be years, Willow thought, the kiss
ended and the two looked around the room as though they'd forgotten
it was there.

In spite of the recent ordeal, the occupants of the room broke into
applause and above it, Spike could be heard to say, "About bloody
time!"

~~

Willow had never been so happy and guilty at the same time. By
saving her life, Spike had given up his own chance for a new life,
not to mention that she felt all of Fred's hard work had gone to
waste. None of them would hear of her considering it a waste that
she was still alive, but she felt guilty anyway. In one instant
she'd been brought back from the brink of death and been given the
gift of Angel's love, finally unveiled. She couldn't bear to think
of what her good fortune had cost her friends.

In their apartment, Willow and Angel sat side-by-side on the couch,
holding hands, discussing the night's events.

"When I thought I'd lost you, I felt like I was the one who couldn't
breathe," Angel told her. "Then when I saw that you were free, and
still alive, I knew I couldn't go on pretending I didn't have these
feelings for you."

"I'm glad I know. I just wish I'd known before. I love you,
Angel. I was afraid to admit it because I didn't think you could
feel that way about someone like me. I thought you just liked
having me around for company."

"Nah, I was always more of a loner. Until now." He looked at her
smiling face and kissed her again, softly this time, and not for as
long, but still passionately.

When they broke apart she looked at him for a moment, then stared at
the floor. "I'm a little scared you know. I think we ought to be
careful."

Angel placed a hand under her chin and turned her head to face him
again. "Willow, what are you worried about? I'm not going to leave
you, or, oh? him. Well, we don't have to do that, you know, if
you're worried about the soul leaving and Angelus coming back."

She shook her head and then nodded. "No, it's not that. Well, not
only that. It's just, last time I cared about someone this much, it
didn't turn out so well. In fact, I'd say that between the murder
and apocalypse, it couldn't have turned out much worse. Last time I
told someone I loved them, I ended up evil!"

Angel cleared his throat. "Hmm, yeah, same here. What do you think
we should do?"

"We need to take this slow," Willow said, resolve face
appearing. "We've both worked too hard to redeem ourselves to let
this destroy us. I don't know if we're soul mates and I don't know
if you'll ever be happy enough with me to be in any danger, but I
want to know for sure before we, well, you know. I do know that if
anything happened to you this city would be in cinders before my
first tear fell. That's not a good thing."

"Willow?" he tried to calm her, but she was having none of it.

"No, Angel, I mean it. I want us to be together too, but not at the
expense of others. We'll do research, we'll use all the resources
we have to find a way to make this safe, but until then, slow and
steady is the way."

He nodded. "All right. You know I don't want to hurt you. I love
you, Willow." She smiled and he kissed her again. He rose and
pulled her from the couch, "We should say goodnight now, it's
late." They walked to her bedroom door and he wrapped her in his
arms, placing kiss after kiss on her upturned face. Their bodies
were pressed full against each other and after a few moments, Willow
could tell that she'd better make a quick exit.

Ducking out of his embrace, she said, "Goodnight, Angel," and
slipped into her room. For a long time, she lay awake, staring at
the ceiling, her body flushed and warm with desire. This was not
going to be easy. She would at least have to buy him a robe for the
mornings. That towel wasn't going to cut it anymore. She couldn't
bear to see how his skin pulled so tight over the muscles on his
back and his chest, skin that she wanted to dig her fingernails into
as he?. `ok so not helping,' she scolded her overactive
imagination. She rolled over and squeezed her eyes shut, determined
to sleep.

The next morning, she stayed in bed for a few minutes after she
heard the shower go off, long enough to give Angel time to dress.
When she finally did enter the bathroom, the mirror wasn't foggy,
and as she touched one of the knobs in the tub, she quickly pulled
her hand away and wondered why it should be freezing like that.
Then it came to her. Angel had taken a cold shower. Sighing, she
reached for the knob again and turned the cold water on for herself,
wondering how long they could keep this up.

End 8


Part 9


"Is this normal?" Willow asked Angel as they came in through the
expansive lobby of Wolfram & Hart together to start what should have
been a regular Monday at the office.

He turned to her. "Not since I've been here." Calling out to Lorne,
who was passing by, Angel asked, "Why does it look like someone's
having a party in here?"

Willow watched in amusement while Lorne explained the tradition of
the Halloween party to Angel, whose face became more and more
tightly drawn as the story unfolded. Willow thought his lips would
be sucked right into his face if he pressed them together any harder.

When the green demon had flitted off to attend to some minor detail,
Angel turned back to Willow, rubbing his forehead
vigorously. "Being the CEO, you'd think someone would clear these
things with me first, but no, not here. I'm always the last to know
what's going on."

Willow wisely kept it to herself that she'd know about the party for
a week. It was the talk of the building and she had no idea how
Angel had missed it. On their way over to the conference room for
a staff meeting, he bounced ideas off her about how he might get out
of throwing the party.

"Just go with it, Angel. How bad could it be? Who knows, you might
even have fun!"

He looked at her as though she had suggested a bath in holy water
might be fun. "I don't know how you keep up that positive
attitude. What could possibly be fun about a bunch of demons
getting drunk and dancing to loud music?"

Willow giggled, picturing a few demons of her personal acquaintance
drunk and dancing. "Well, if you want to learn any moves, I'll be
your teacher."

He looked at her and raised a sexy eyebrow, a smile tugging on one
corner of his mouth.

Willow's face turned serious and she stopped laughing. "Dance
moves," she clarified. "I can teach you dance moves, those kind.
I'm sure as far as other moves, you have lots more and way more
practice and don't need any teacher much less me, she of few moves.
In fact, I think mrufhl?"

Angel snaked one arm around her waist and covered her mouth with the
opposite hand. He leaned into her ear and whispered, "Willow,
you're babbling. I know what you meant, you don't have to get
flustered just for me." He released her and she blushed.

Angel watched with a smirk as Willow shuffled over to her seat at
the long polished wooden table, blush slowly fading to a pretty pale
pink.

With Angel busy worrying about the party, Willow thought this week
would be the perfect time to do more research on Eve and her vile
plots. She had managed to avoid being alone with Eve since their
quality time in the elevator, but she suspected she'd soon want an
answer about the enhancements. Hopefully she would also be occupied
with the party, buying Willow a little more time.

Back in her office, Willow pulled up Eve's employee profile again,
scooting her chair in closer to the monitor and squinting at the
text, trying to find any little detail she might have missed. She
hated still being on square one with her investigation, but square
two just hadn't presented itself.

"Whatcha doing?"

Emitting a high pitched "Eeep!" Willow spun her chair around to see
Spike standing behind her, reading over her shoulder.

"Aw, don't get your little heart all aflutter on my account, Love."
He gave her innocent puppy dog eyes that did not match the smirk on
his lips.

Willing her heartbeat to return to normal, Willow fixed Spike with
the glare she reserved just for him. Though she was grateful enough
to him for saving her, he was still the same old Spike that knew
just how to get under her skin when he wanted to. "Now what do you
want?" She demanded. She had learned some time ago that having a
private office did not preclude regular visits from the resident
ghost. Since Angel had refused to give him an office, he availed
himself of everyone else's whenever he so chose. Usually she didn't
mind, but today she was feeling defensive at his discovery of her
snooping.

"Now, now, let's not get testy. I just came in here to get out of
the way. There's so many bodies out there scampering up and down
the halls, I keep getting run right through. It's disconcerting is
all. So then, why are we reading up on Miss High and Mighty?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You really want to know?"

"Got nothing better to do."

"Promise you won't tell Angel?"

"Oh, keeping secrets from Peaches now, are we? Count me in!" He
came around her desk and settled into one of the green upholstery
chairs, waiting for her to begin.

Willow spilled the beans on everything from how she suspected Eve
was out to seduce Angel, to the feeling she wasn't human, to their
conversation in the elevator. She admitted that the only thing she
had on her so far was the lack of a student record at UC Santa Cruz,
then stopped abruptly, realizing she'd just confessed to her illegal
hacking for personal reasons on company time.

Spike took no notice, frowning and sucking on his lower lip, deep in
thought. "Well, all I can tell you is that I can hear her
heartbeat, so she's not a vampire." Willow didn't find this
particularly helpful. "I saw what you did in Sunnydale. Saw all
those little girls turn to slayers before my eyes, a scary sight for
my kind. It's no big shock they'd want your power, but for what I
don't know. You're right about Angel, he's no help."

"Why do you say that?" Willow asked, frowning.

"He's a man! Not that I'm not, mind, but I can see a little deeper
than him sometimes. He looks at that Eve and all he sees is a
delicate little flower growing in a field of rubbish. Sure, she
might rub him the wrong way about the business, but when you take
that away, you just have a man looking at a woman. He won't see the
threat until it bites him on the ass."

Feeling a bit of jealous bile rise to the back of her throat, Willow
swallowed hard and asked, "And what do you see when you look at her?"

"Me? I see a conniving little bitch! So, what are you and me going
to do about it?"

Willow was surprised at this offer of assistance. "Well, what do
you suggest? I've tried everything I can think of to figure out
what she's up to."

"Hmm, I can follow her around for awhile, for starters. She won't
see me if I don't want her to. I can see if she does anything
unusual, talks to anyone suspicious. I'll report back to you
tomorrow."

"Wow, thanks Spike, that would be really nice of you."

"Don't mention it. And I mean that." Then he was gone leaving
Willow to wonder why he was so eager to help her. She realized
that, not unlike herself, Spike had lately been lacking a purpose
and she had just given him one, however small. Pleased with her new
ally, Willow shut down the employee system and pulled out a case
file to do some real work.

End 9


Updated:






Still shivering from yet another cold shower, necessitated by the
previous evening's make out session on the couch with Angel, Willow
let herself into her office only to find it already occupied. She
quickly shut the door behind her and hurried over to Spike who was
pacing in front of her desk, not even noticing as he passed back and
forth through the chairs. "Did you find something?" She whispered.

"You bet I did. I've been waiting for you all morning, what took
you so long?" He stopped pacing and faced her, arms crossed over
his chest.

"Never mind, what did you find out?" Now it was Willow's turn to
look impatient.

"Right, well I followed our precious little lady all damn day and
she didn't do a bloody thing out of the ordinary." He paused for
effect.

Willow made a motion for him to go on. That clearly wasn't what
he'd been waiting all morning to tell her. "So I followed her
home. Nice little flat she's got, but it didn't smell right. Took
me a while to figure out why. Went in the kitchen, stuck my head in
the ice box, and it was empty! Not a bite to eat in the whole
place. Not so much as a salt shaker."

Willow frowned at this revelation, flopping down on her loveseat to
think it over. "Maybe she just likes to eat out," she ventured.

Spike shook his head. "There's more. After she turned in, I spied
on her for a bit and that's when I realized I couldn't hear her
heartbeat anymore. When I moved in for a closer look, she wasn't
breathing either. But she's not dead," he added. "I saw her this
morning downstairs and she's walking about just as alive as you
please, heartbeat and all."

Willow looked at him skeptically. "Are you sure?" She asked. "Maybe
she's just a quiet sleeper."

Spike threw up his hands and started to walk away. "Fine! Believe
what you want. Vampire ears don't lie." He stalked off towards the
door but Willow called him back.

"I believe you, Spike. I don't know what to think of all this, but
I believe you. Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Never. It's beyond me what she is. It's like her heart only beats
when I'm expecting it to. I know being around me has an effect on
some girls, but I can't take the credit for this." He smirked at
her a little, and then turned serious again. "I'll keep an eye on
her again today, see if she actually eats. I don't suppose your
years of fighting the nasties of Sunnydale ever turned up a demon
with a part-time heartbeat?"

Willow shook her head. "No, can't say it did. I'll research it
though, for sure. This is a huge lead, Spike. I can't tell you
what a big help it is to have you on my side in this."

Spike held up a hand to quiet her. "Hold on, now. I'm on MY side.
If this, whatever she is, is plotting something against Angel, that
affect yours truly, too. So, don't get it in your pretty head that
I've suddenly become your personal PI. Got it?"

"Right Spike, of course. I just wanted you to know I'm grateful for
your help. Your motives don't matter to me."

"Alright then, so long as we're clear. Best be getting on with
it." With a sweep of his coat, he was gone through the door,
leaving Willow smiling after him.

After spending the entire day immersed in demonology texts, Willow's
suspicions were confirmed. There was no such thing as a demon that
didn't breathe or have a heartbeat while sleeping, and never ate.
Willow slammed the last book shut in frustration. If Eve wasn't
human, wasn't a demon, and surely wasn't a god, they just weren't
that subtle, what did that leave? Nothing. That was the answer she
kept arriving at. Eve was nothing.

Over the next few days, Spike's reports only added to the
confusion. He hadn't seen her eat anything at all or use the
bathroom, though she frequently entered the ladies room to fix her
hair and makeup. He also discovered that her heartbeat and
breathing ceased as soon as she left the office building. However,
they quickly resumed the few times she'd been forced to interact
with someone between the office and her apartment, such as a tourist
asking for directions.

Willow told Spike to take a break from his sleuthing. There was
nothing more they could do until she made a move. In spite of all
they knew, they were getting nowhere. Whatever Eve was, she was
beyond their comprehension. Spike was aggravated that there was
nothing to do but wait. With the purpose of his existence put on
hold, he resumed his favorite pastime of annoying Angel at all the
worst moments.

Angel seemed to have no shortage of worst moments with the Halloween
party coming the following evening. Willow had never seen him in
such a short temper and she did her best to stay out of his way.
Finding Fred in the lab, she discovered that no one was immune to
party fever. Soon the two women were inhaling as much helium from
the giant green tanks as they were using to blow up the balloons
that floated lazily around their heads.

Hours later and giddy from the lack of oxygen, Willow took another
hit off the tank and declared in a high squeaky voice, "We're the
chipmunks!"

Giggling uncontrollably, Fred sucked a breath from a balloon she
held pinched between her thumb and forefinger, and responded in an
equally high, squeaky voice, "Alvin, Simon, Theodore!"

Willow grinned at Fred and then grabbed another balloon. Untying
it, she inhaled its contents and squeaked out as much of the silly
song as she could in one breath.

Fred broke up again and then stopped abruptly, staring wide-eyed at
something behind Willow. Whirling around, Willow found herself
facing Angel, who was standing in the doorway, looking at them with
one of his unreadable expressions. "Hi Angel," she said, voice
still a few octaves to high. She cleared her throat and tried
again. "Hi Angel." This time it came out right.

He finally smiled and came towards her, batting a few balloons out
of his path. "I came to see if I could take you to dinner. You
know, to make up for being a little unpleasant today."

Willow bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing at his
understatement. "Sure, that would be great. See you tomorrow,
Fred." Fred waved goodbye to the couple, not yet trusting her
voice.

Settling into a corner booth at their favorite Italian restaurant,
Campagnola Trattoria, they ordered a bottle of red wine and started
to relax a little. After staring out the window at the dark street
for a few minutes, Angel turned back to Willow and reached across
the table to take her hand.

"I'm sorry I've been so cranky lately. It's just this party. I
can't believe I agreed to entertain half the demon population of LA
in my building tomorrow."

"I know, it is kind of scary when you put it like that. Just try
not to think of them as demons. Tomorrow, they're just like anyone
else looking for a good time. Besides, I've seen the security
system you set up. They'd have to be crazy to start anything."

Angel smiled in spite of himself. "Well yeah, I guess it is pretty
good. Did you see the poison sniffing demon dogs in the basement?
They just came in this afternoon."

Willow just shook her head at him in disbelief. "Did anyone ever
tell you that you have some serious trust issues?"

He shrugged. "I trust you."

Now Willow smiled. "Well, that's a start."

"I want you to be able to trust me, too. That's why I brought you
this." He reached into a pocket of his coat and brought out a small
lumpy package, passing it over the table to Willow.

She accepted it gently with both hands and unwrapped it carefully.
When she saw what she held, she sucked in her breath. "An Orb of
Thesulah!"

Angel nodded. "Wesley, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne all have one, too.
Put it in a safe place and don't tell me where."

Willow frowned. "Angel, what's this all about?"

"I told you, I want you to be able to trust me. I want us to be
together, but if something goes wrong, we can't risk letting Angelus
loose in LA. Between the five of you, someone should be able to
perform the curse before things got out of hand. But it won't come
to that."

"What makes you so sure? It's happened before, and I like to think
that with me, well, never mind. The point is, it has happened."

Almost under his breath, Angel muttered, "I sang for Lorne."

"You what? Why?"

"I sang for Lorne and he could see that it's impossible for me now.
I can't ever achieve a moment of perfect happiness. Too much has
happened, some stuff you know about and some you don't, but all that
matters is that I'm safe now. Maybe sometime in the distant future
I won't be, if time really does heal all wounds, and that's what the
orbs are for, but for now, you don't have to worry about Angelus."

"Angel! That's wonderful!" She got up and went around to his side
of the table to hug him. He embraced her and kissed her until she
pulled away, a concerned look crossing her face. "Well, wait, no
that's not wonderful. That's terrible! Your life is really so
awful that you can never achieve perfect happiness? That's so sad,
I mean, how can you live with yourself? What happened?"

"Shh, Willow." He kissed her again. "I said that doesn't matter
now. You do make me happy and if there's just one spot in my heart
that stays dark, that you can't reach with your light, so much the
better for us." A longer kiss followed, the two of them oblivious
to the variety of looks they drew from the restaurant's other
patrons, some indulgent, some disgusted.

When they parted Willow looked concerned again. "I guess that just
leaves me. I want to be with you so much, but I know if we were
that close, I would lose myself in you, and if anything happened,
well, let's just say Xander is kind of far away to come save the day
with a crayon story."

Angel nodded his understanding and Willow returned to her own
seat. "I've been looking into it though. There's got to be a way
to bind my power, some spell. I just can't find one that makes the
binding conditional on another person. I know I'll find it, I can
tell that I'm getting closer."

Smiling at her, though with a hint of wistfulness in his voice,
Angel said, "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."

Willow finished her pasta, excited to know that there was a real
possibility that she could have a romantic relationship with Angel
without one of them destroying the world. She had honestly been
more concerned about unleashing Angelus than her own evil. With
that out of the way, it was only a matter of time before she learned
of a spell to eliminate the threat of Dark Willow.

End 10



!!!WARNING!!! If you haven't seen Life of the Party, this part
isn't going to make a whole lot of sense. It also contains spoilers
for that episode.


Music thumped and pulsated in Willow's head as she pulled Angel
away from greeting the latest arrivals to the much-anticipated
Halloween Bash. "Come on. I wanna dance!"

Angel resisted the tug on his hand, "Willow, I don't dance."

"Sure ya do! There's nothing to it. Just press your body up
against mine and move your hips."

Angel swallowed hard, dragging his eyes down his girlfriend's
body, which was wrapped in a tight, black cocktail dress. By the
time his eyes made their way back to her face, his feet were already
moving with her towards the dance floor, unable to resist her
command.

The disco ball spun over their heads bathing them in intermittent
flashes of red and blue lights. Willow stood in front of Angel with
her back to him and began to sway to the beat, brushing against him
lightly. When he just stood there, she reached back and took his
hands, placing them on her hips with her own hands covering them.
His arms now moved with the sway of her body, but he remained stock
still. Willow pressed herself back into him and put her hands on
his hips, encouraging them to move in time with hers.

At last she felt him make his first hesitant movements against her.
She bent her knees deeper as she moved back and forth, always
keeping her back tight to his front. He followed her movements and
was soon into the rhythm, needing no further prodding to keep up.
He slid his hands down her hips and back up her body, slowly,
deliberately, in sync with the beat.

Willow raised her arms over her head and Angel slipped one arm
around her waist pulling her tighter to him, while the other hand
continued to stroke up and down her side. She could feel that her
close proximity had aroused him so she turned to face him, putting
her arms around his neck and drawing his head down to her level.
"I thought you didn't like to dance," she whispered in his ear.

"Well, I never danced with you before. I think I might have to
change my position on that." He grinned at her and then gave her
a light kiss on the mouth, putting his arms around her. They were
still moving rhythmically, though neither was aware of the music any
longer. Angel brushed back Willow's hair and placed soft kisses
around her ear and down her neck while her fingers trailed up and
down his back.

Eventually they realized that the song had ended and the new
arrivals to the party were being announced. They ceased their
affections reluctantly, looking up to see who was coming in. Angel
recognized the newcomer as an important guest and excused himself
from Willow, though she could see his turmoil in leaving her sight.
She smiled happily at his retreating form and contented herself with
dancing to the next song with Spike, who seemed to be in the rarest
of good moods.

They danced with a euphoric energy, though without touching each
other, of course. Spike teased her gently about Angel and she
laughed, blushing lightly. After a few dances with the tireless
ghost, they were approached by a stumbling Fred and Wesley who asked
with slurred words and more than a few giggles, if they'd seen
Lorne. A moment later, Gunn joined them, followed by the sought-
after green demon.

Willow listened with great interest as each described their strange
behavior and attributed it to Lorne, Spike chiming in with his own
suspicions about his new and improved attitude. She agreed that
they'd better find Angel and get it all straightened out. The
six of them headed towards his office, where he was last reported to
be. Entering the darkened room, Willow saw no one at first, but
then heard a muffled sound from behind the couch.

"Angel, are you in here?" Fred called out. In response, two
heads appeared, looking out over the back of the couch at the six
intruders. Seeing Willow, Angel stood up quickly, grabbing a
cushion off the couch to cover his nudity.

"Angel! Wrong one, you ponce!" Spike yelled at him, even
while he grinned uncontrollably.

"Oh, no! Willow, it's got to be Lorne's spell. I'm sure he didn't
mean…" Gunn turned to comfort the redhead, only to find that she
was already gone.

At the sight in Angel's office, Willow had frozen for the space
of a heartbeat, disbelieving her own eyes until she saw her
boyfriend rise naked from the floor where her enemy sat, still
covered in the sweaty sheen of their activities.

As soon as he stood up, reality crashed down upon her and she fled
the room, making her way blindly to her own office. Reaching this
sanctuary, she slammed and locked the door before throwing herself
down on the loveseat and sobbing her heart out.

How could he do this to her! She finally opened her heart, and he
stomped on it. She should have expected as much. Isn't that why
she had so readily accepted Tara? Because she had learned that men
couldn't be trusted? It was her own fault for forgetting that
lesson. It was over for her and Angel. She had waited so long and
tried to be so careful to build their relationship safely and he had
thrown all that out the window the second the opportunity presented
itself. How stupid she was! Well, that was done. She wouldn't
make any more mistakes.

Getting up, she tried her best to wipe off her face and then went to
the door, pressing her ear to it. She couldn't tell if anyone
was in the hall over the throb of the music, so she opened the door
a crack and peeked out. Empty space greeted her. He hadn't even
tried to come after her. Her angry thoughts produced another sob,
which she choked back with considerable effort. Slipping from her
office, Willow made her way to the elevator without being seen.

Up in the penthouse she threw together an overnight bag and took a
taxi to the nearest motel where she checked in under a phony name.
She would go back for the rest of her things in a few days when she
had found an apartment. She was sure finding one would be much
easier without Angel around. Everything would be much easier
without Angel around, she told herself. Now if only she believed
that.
End 11



Saturday dawned bright and cool, the unusual amount of sun in the
room waking Willow from a deep sleep. Her first thought was a
sudden panic that she hadn't closed the curtains. What if Angel
came in? He could get hurt!

Attempting to swing her legs off the side of the bed, Willow
encountered yet more bed. That's when she remembered where she
was. This was a motel room with a king sized bed, wide open
windows, and no chance that her boyfriend, no, make that ex-
boyfriend, was going to come in and get himself singed.

An unbidden idea entered her mind that maybe a little scorching
would be well deserved, but she quickly pushed it aside. She
refused to succumb to bitterness and despair. That road led to
places she didn't want to go. She knew she could get over it.
After all, she had lots of practice mending her heart, thanks to its
tendency to get broken. Repeatedly. No, she would not sit around
and feel sorry for herself. She would be action girl. The first
action would be to move into her own place. She needed to put some
space between herself and Angel. That way, she would be less likely
to kill him.

After a shower and the world's worst cup of coffee from one of those
little machines they have in all the motel rooms, Willow was feeling
more herself. Today would be the day she reclaimed her
independence.

So thinking, she pawed through her bag only to realize she'd left
her contact list of apartment managers at the office. She had
stuffed them in a drawer after Angel had convinced her to stay with
him and hadn't been thinking clearly enough the night before to grab
them on her way out.

Resigning herself to a trip into work on a Saturday, Willow headed
out, stopping at the front desk to extend her reservation for a few
more nights. She didn't want to stay in the motel any longer than
necessary, but she knew that moving took time.

The offices of Wolfram & Hart were eerily quiet and deserted.
Willow recalled that several of their high powered attorneys often
worked on weekends. The Halloween party must've turned out to be
quite the event if everyone was still home recovering. Willow
noticed a few bizarre stains on the walls and some missing pieces of
furniture, which served to reinforce her theory that she had
definitely left before the party really got started.

Shaking her head, she made her way up to her office and located her
list. Looking it over, she remembered the nice little first floor
apartment she'd toured. There wasn't much chance it was still
available, but it couldn't hurt to try. She dialed the number for
the woman who had patiently shown her around the apartment so long
ago. As she feared, it was already rented. However, there was a
similar apartment on the next street over that was available, would
Willow be interested in a showing? She certainly would and yes 1 pm
was great for her.

Pleased with her progress, Willow decided to treat herself to
brunch. She had a couple of hours to kill and her stomach was
painfully reminding her that one awful cup of coffee did not a
decent meal make.

On her way back to the elevator, she passed Angel's office and
paused in front of the door, assaulted by the painful memories of
the previous evening. Unsure of what she was doing, she found
herself opening the door and going through into the room where her
life had come apart. Her feet drifted her over to the couch where a
cushion still sat askew and the rug still bore a dent from where the
leg of the couch had been shifted from its usual location.

She walked around behind the sofa, mindlessly straightening the
cushion as she went. Looking down at the spot where Angel had
stood, naked and guilty, Willow was overcome by her heartache and
sank to the floor.

She kneeled there, hands splayed in front of her, squeezing back the
tears that threatened and trying to get a grip on herself. That's
when she saw it. There on the pale carpet, lay a dark hair, swirled
carelessly next to the leg of the couch. She reached for it,
tweezing it between two fingers, and held it up to the light. It
was too long to be Angel's.

Unwelcome images slammed through her mind. Eve laying naked on her
back, legs spread. Angel kneeling between those legs, pounding into
her, maybe grabbing at her breasts, maybe running his hands through
her hair. Eve. Laying here. Hair. Eve's hair. Human hair. Or
not? Now she would know for sure.

Hurrying back to her office, Willow found an envelope and tucked the
hair inside. She sealed it and wrote "Demon DNA" on the outside.
On Monday she would go to Fred and say it was a sample of hair from
a demon she had fought over the weekend. Yes, a female demon she
couldn't identify and wasn't able to kill. If Fred could just have
her people do a DNA test, she would know what she was dealing with
and could research how to dispose of it.

Willow smiled. She was feeling better now. Soon she would be able
to prove all of her suspicions about Eve and then wouldn't Angel
feel foolish for trusting her, much less sleeping with her. But
that wasn't why she wanted to know, she told herself. Of course she
was still just trying to save herself and her friends from whatever
evil plots Eve had in store for them. If in the process Angel
realized how stupid he'd been and begged for her forgiveness, well,
that would just be a little icing on the cake. Not that she would
forgive him. Nope, she was not into that whole forgive and forget
thing. She was more of the belief that those who forget the past
are doomed to repeat it.

After a lovely brunch at a local café, Willow was in excellent
spirits when she met with the apartment manager. These spirits were
only slightly dampened when the woman, who remembered her perfectly,
inquired about her handsome friend. Seeing that she'd nearly lost a
sale, that subject was quickly dropped and the conversation turned
to all the fine features of the new apartment.

Willow felt right at home in the roomy one bedroom unit. It had
everything she wanted, including a full sized refrigerator and a
huge mirror in the bathroom. She had a momentary twinge looking in
the mirror and thinking of the one Angel had bought just for her,
but she pushed it away and moved on into the living room which was
fully furnished with a decent couch and a small TV. There were no
curtains in the place, only mini-blinds, which did a poor job of
keeping out the sunlight, but Willow supposed that wasn't much of a
concern anymore. There were hardwood floors throughout, reminding
her of how Angel preferred carpeting since it muffled the noises his
sensitive ears would otherwise pick up.

Her decision made, Willow signed a three month lease and was told
she could move in the following weekend. Perfect. That would give
her time to get her things out of the penthouse and check out her
new neighborhood. Giving the apartment one last glance, she shook
hands with her new landlady. She would be on her own now. She
would depend on no one. Willow, the single white female. Great.

End 12

~~

As planned, Willow sought out Fred first thing Monday morning.  “Willow, what are you doing here?” Fred asked.

She was answered with a puzzled look.  “I work here, remember?”

“Oh, of course.  I just thought that, you know, after Friday… you might…”

“What?  Did you think I was gonna just quit my job because my boss is an idiot?  Please, if everyone did that the unemployment rate in this country would be like 90%!”

Fred continued to look uncertain and Willow sighed.  “Look Fred, this job is really all I have going for me right now.  I’m good at it, and I like it.  I’m not going to let Angel ruin that for me too.”  She noticed how her voice was beginning to rise and quickly calmed herself by changing the subject.

“Anyway, the reason I’m here, in the lab, is because I need you have some tests run on this demon hair.  I don’t know what species it is and it got away from me before I could kill it.  Do you think you can help me identify it?”  She handed Fred the envelope.

Slitting it open, Fred held the hair up to the light, much as Willow had done two days before.  “Wow, it almost looks human.”

“Yeah, it was one of those pretty demons that you can never get the men to kill.”  Willow tried desperately to keep the irony out of her voice and barely succeeded. 

“Okay, I’ll send it to the bio lab.  You should have the results by the end of the day.  I’ll call up to your office when they’re ready.”

“Great, thanks Fred.  You’re the best.”  She turned to leave, but stopped when the other woman spoke to her again.

“Willow, I just wanted to say, I’m sorry about you and Angel.  I hope you work it out.  I know he didn’t mean to hurt you, but I can’t blame you for being mad.”

Willow considered pouring her heart out right then and there, but changed her mind and only smiled before leaving the scientist to her work.  She hoped she was doing the right thing by not telling Fred it was Eve’s hair.  The results of the tests would undoubtedly influence her reaction when she eventually learned the truth.  Willow was torn between hoping that Spike was crazy and Eve was just an ordinary human with no evil intentions towards her friends, and the desire to be vindicated in her suspicions.

As the elevator doors closed behind her, Willow realized that when they opened she would be right in front of Angel’s office.  Though she had imagined their confrontation a million different ways, she realized she hadn’t even considered what she would do if she ran into Eve.  The tension that built inside her as the elevator hummed along was immediately dispersed when the doors opened onto an empty hallway.  The door to Angel’s office was closed and Harmony’s desk was vacant, as usual. 

Letting the relief wash over her, Willow made haste down the hall to her office, where she locked the door behind her and then leaned against it, letting out the breath she’d been holding.  That’s when she saw her visitor, standing in front of her desk, arms crossed, foot tapping impatiently, but making no sound. 

“Spike, what do you want?” She asked, wearily.  She was in no mood to explain herself to the ghost. 

“I want to know where you’ve been for the last 3 days!  You don’t call, you don’t come home, what were you thinking!”

Willow couldn’t help the small giggle that escaped at Spike’s apparent concern for her well-being.  Realizing how odd it was that he was the only one she was ever completely honest with, she told him all about the motel, the apartment, and the hair.  He was visibly upset at the prospect of her moving out.

“You can’t do that to him!  He’ll brood about this for 100 years and I don’t think I can put up with that again!  You don’t think he actually wanted to sleep with that little slut, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t he want to?  She was there, she was willing, he’s a man.  I know how it works.”

“No, you don’t know a damn thing!  Did you know about Lorne having his sleep removed?”

Willow had to admit that she did not. 

“Apparently sleep deprived empaths get lots more than empathic.  Did you know that everyone did everything he said to them that night?  Yeah, that’s right, even me with my jolly good mood.  That was all him.  Nobody was in their right mind until that big monster Lorne was gone.”

“Big monster Lorne?”  Willow was beginning to see that she’d missed more than a wild party.  Spike filled her in on everything from the rampage caused by the manifestation of Lorne’s subconscious, right up to when they put Lorne to bed and realized Willow was gone. 

“He went looking for you right away, wanted to explain what happened.  Hell, everyone was looking for you, until we figured you went home.  But you weren’t there either.  I’ve never seen a vampire beat his own head against the wall before, but that’s just what he did.  I think he was trying to knock himself out.  I woulda helped him with that myself, but, you know.”  He tried to punch a chair and his arm passed through the other side.

“Aww, poor baby, feels bad that he got caught.  Why am I not feeling the sympathy here?”

“Well, yeah, of course he feels bad that you saw him like that, but you’re still missing the point.  He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Lorne felt some sexual tension, said to get a room.  So, that’s what they did.  Not Angel’s fault at all really, much as I hate to say that.”

“Spike, you’re really not helping his case here.  You’re just told me that he was sexually tense when Lorne saw him with her.  Doesn’t that just go to show that he wanted to fuck her anyway?”

Spike flinched at her choice of words, not used to seeing the witch quite so angry.  “No, love.  He wanted to fuck YOU, to use your colorful expression,” he told her calmly.  “I saw how you were all over each other during that disco number.  Next thing you know, Mr. Sexually Repressed is trying to have a business conversation and not think about your hot, tight, little body, Lorne walks by, makes some offhand remark, and there you have it!”

Willow sat behind her desk and gestured for Spike to make himself comfortable.  He chose to remain standing.  “So, that’s what Angel told you, huh?  That it was really all about me?  That it was my fault for getting him all worked up, so he just had to go ahead and do what Lorne told him?  Isn’t that nice?  How is it that men do that?  No matter how low they go, they always manage to turn it around and act like it’s not their fault!  Unbelievable!  Spike, get out of my office.  I don’t want to hear anymore of this bullshit!”

He turned to go and then paused when he reached the door.  “So you’ll let me know about this business with the hair then?”

“GO!”  He went.

Willow put her head down on her desk for a minute, trying not to think about the things that Spike had told her.  She was unable to help herself though, something about what he’d said seemed important.  Then it hit her.  Wolfram & Hart had removed Lorne’s sleep!  They had messed with his head and something bad had happened.  Wasn’t everyone always wondering when Gunn would experience negative effects too?  That’s what she needed to research to find out what they were planning for her.  She’d mistakenly categorized herself with the magic users and reading about them had told her nothing.  What she should have been reading were the files on everyone who’d received some sort of enhancement.  That information wasn’t even encrypted, it was available to all employees.  How silly of her not to have thought of it before!

Quickly logging on to the system, she figured she might as well start with the most recent case she knew.  She brought up the file on Lorne’s sleep removal and scrolled through pages of technical documentation on the brain of the Pylean.  She had just reached the “known side-effects” section of the file, when she was startled by a knock on her door.  Calling out an invitation, it occurred to her that the door was locked and that was a good thing.  What if it was Angel or Eve?  She really didn’t want to deal with that just yet.  Especially not when she was in research mode.  Still, she got up and went to the door.

“Who is it?” She asked.

“It’s me, sweet cakes.  It’s Lorne.” 

In spite of Spike’s insistence that she should blame Lorne for Angel’s activities, she didn’t.  She unlocked the door and smiled at the green face peering at her uncertainly.

“It’s okay,” she assured him.  “Come in.”

She locked the door behind him and invited him to sit down.  As soon as he did he began, “Willow, dear girl, sweet friend, I’m here to beg your forgiveness.  Oh, I can’t even tell you how sorry I am.  I’ve ruined everything!”

“Lorne, stop.  I don’t blame you.  How could this be your fault?  He’s a guy, she’s a girl, these things happen.  I know your other self got a little out of hand, but everyone is safe now.  Why are you still beating yourself up over this?”

“No, you don’t understand!  You’re the best thing that ever happened to the big guy and it’ll kill him to lose you and that will all be because of me.  He wasn’t even thinking about Eve when I saw him.  I made such a stupid little comment, I never dreamed of the consequences.”

“What makes you think he wasn’t thinking about Eve when you were getting all those sex vibes?”

“He wasn’t even looking at her!  He was watching you, dancing with Spike.  I don’t even think he could hear what she was saying to him.  Unfortunately, he heard me and so did she.  Of course I meant you and Angel should get a room, but since you weren’t close enough to be affected…”

“And they were.  Uh huh.  Did Angel put you up to this?”

“What?  No, of course not!  That’s what happened!  He doesn’t want anyone but you.  I could see it when he sang for me.  Eve wasn’t in there anywhere.  It was all about you, sugar plum.  I swear it.”

Willow wanted to believe him.  She really did.  Lorne had nothing to gain by lying to her.  Still, the image of them naked behind that couch was burned into her eyelids and she didn’t know if it would ever fade.  She began to cry.  Nothing in her life had ever been easy, especially when it came to love.  When she realized she was in love with Angel she thought all that had changed.  It seemed like the easiest, most natural thing in the world.  And now it was turning out like everything else.  Complicated.  Hard.  Painful.

 Lorne got up and walked around behind Willow’s desk, snatching up a tissue and handing it to her.  As she blew her nose, he rubbed her shoulders, making soothing noises and shaking his head sympathetically.  “Where is he now?” She wanted to know.

“I don’t know.  No one has seen him all day.  I know that on Friday he told Eve not to come up here for awhile.  I imagine you weren’t looking forward to seeing her.”

Willow sniffled a little and nodded.  “That’s true.  I’m not sure what would happen, but I don’t think she would like it.”

Lorne chuckled and stood up to leave.  “Please think about what I said, Willow.  I couldn’t stand it if the two of you were miserable forever because of me.”

She thanked him and he left her to her sobbing. 

Angel did not appear at his office all day.  Willow felt a strange gratitude that she could put off seeing him a bit longer.  She immersed herself in her research of the enhanced employees at Wolfram & Hart.  She began to notice a disturbing trend among the humans whose brains had been tampered with.  Although their ages varied widely at the time of the enhancements, most of them had “retired” within two years.  She wrote down some names and social security numbers, meaning to cross reference with the state system and see if any of them were receiving Medicare or residing in nearby hospitals.

The phone rang, startling her out of her deductions.  She said a terse hello, hoping to get across to the other party that she was in the middle of something.

“Willow?  It’s Fred.  I have the results of the tests on that hair.  I think you might want to come down here.  You’re not going to believe this.  I know I don’t.”

~~

Bursting into the lab,Willow demanded, “What did they find?”

Fred handed her several pages of computer printouts and began pointing to the relevant data.  “See this column here?  It’s supposed to list the chromosomes of the specimen.”

“There’s nothing here,” Willow observed.

“That’s because there aren’t any.  This thing that you fought, it doesn’t exist.  It’s not alive.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Willow frowned and then had a revelation. “Oh!  Could it have been a robot?”

Fred shook her head.  “The hair was made of organic material, like a real hair.  If it was from a robot, it would be synthetic fibers.  Whatever it is, it’s trying to pass for a living creature.”

“Well, it seemed pretty convincing to me.  What does this mean, Fred?”

“I really don’t know.  It would help if I knew a little more about it.  Anything else at all.”

Willow took a deep breath and decided to tell the truth. 

“Would it help if I told you it was Eve’s hair?”

“What?  Eve?  I don’t understand.  You fought Eve?”

Willow explained everything.  She told Fred how Spike had discovered that Eve wasn’t what she seemed, and how she found the hair.  When she was done, she stood quietly with her head down, expecting a lecture.

“Wow, Willow.  I wish you had told me.  I don’t know what to say.  I believe you of course, this is all just so strange.  So, Eve is just some sort of… illusion, not a person at all.  We have to find out why she’s here and what she wants.”

Willow looked up in surprise.  “You mean, you’ll help me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?  This affects us all.  She’s fooled everyone with this elaborate persona.  Nobody who does that ever has good intentions.  The most important thing is to find out who sent her here.  Since she doesn’t even really exist, I doubt she’s acting on her own motives.”

“I think we can safely assume that she really is working for the senior partners.”  Willow described to Fred how Eve had approached her about enhancing her magic. 

“That could explain a lot.  Creating such an elaborate illusion of life would take tremendous power.  We know how powerful the senior partners are, but it would get draining to keep it up, even for them.  If we assume that it’s in their best interest to conserve this energy, that would explain what Spike experienced when Eve was sleeping.  She only has to be human enough to convince whoever she’s around.  When she’s at work, she has to have a heartbeat to fool the vampires.  At home she only needs the most basic human form to be able to respond to whatever situation might arise.  I suppose a digestive system would have been too much work.”

Willow looked at Fred in awe.  Everything she said made perfect sense, given the evidence.  She couldn’t help being a little jealous that Fred had figured out in one day what she’d been working on for months.  “So in a way, she actually IS the senior partners, or at least, she’s controlled by their consciousness?” Willow asked.

“Exactly.  She’s just a mental projection of their will, the perfect vehicle for carrying out their plans.”

“Which are what?”

“That remains to be seen.  We better tell Angel about this.  He needs to know what he’s dealing with.”

“No!” Willow objected immediately.

“It’s ok, I’ll tell him.  You don’t have to talk to him.”

“No, it’s not that.  I just don’t think it’s a good idea.  What if they find out that we know and just decide to kill us all?  Why would they keep us around once they realize we’re on to them and they can’t manipulate us?”

“Yeah, that would be bad.  Angel ought to realize that though.  We could keep playing the game at least until we find out the rules.  I just think he’d be better equipped to win if he knew more about the opponent.”

“Maybe you’re right.  I don’t know.  I just feel like if anything bad happens I’m gonna feel like it’s all my fault because I’m the one who couldn’t accept her and had to go snooping around.”

“Well he’s your boyfriend, sort of, and you’re the one who really uncovered this information about Eve, so I’ll leave it up to you.”

“Ok, thanks Fred.  I’ll sleep on it and let you know in the morning.”

~~

Willow took the elevator to the penthouse to pick up some more clothes for the week.  On the way up it occurred to her that Angel might be there and she still hadn’t seen him since the party.  She began to wonder if he was avoiding her.  Why else wouldn’t he show up for work?  He wasn’t the kind to suddenly become a slacker.

The doors opened to reveal a dark and silent apartment.  Relieved, Willow looked through her room and realized she’d better start packing if she wanted to be ready to move in a few days.  It amazed her how much stuff she had accumulated in such a short time.  She had soon filled the few suitcases brought from Europe and still there were drawers full of clothes and her closet was not completely empty. 

Leaving a bag open for items she would need for the days before the move, she searched through the bathroom for a misplaced hairbrush.  Turning away from the sink, Willow noticed a dry-cleaning bag containing two of her suits hanging from the back of the bathroom door.  The receipt stuck to the hanger was stamped with the date November 1^st, the day after the party.  She removed the clothes from the door and stared at them as if she’d never seen a bag of dry-cleaning before in her life.  After sleeping with her least favorite fake person, Angel had gone to the drycleaner and picked up her suits as if nothing had changed.  As if he fully expected her to come home and find them in their spot.  Could he really be that oblivious?  Where was he anyway?

As if in answer to her question, she heard a key in the front door.  Willow quickly closed the door to the bathroom and stayed perfectly still, knowing it made no difference and that Angel would hear her heartbeat and smell her presence the second he entered.  She heard him close the door and walk in her direction, whispering softly words that she couldn’t make out.  She frowned and strained her ears to hear what he was saying, but there was no answering whisper, no other set of footsteps coming through the apartment.  Who was he talking to?  At last she heard him enter his bedroom and close the door. 

Seeing her chance, Willow darted from the bathroom to her own former bedroom, taking the dry-cleaning with her.  Throwing the last of the necessities into her overnight bag, she slung it over her shoulder and hurried out, suddenly wanting to put off the moment of confrontation a little longer.

Fate was not on her side however, and as she attempted to sneak from her room, there was Angel standing before her in the hall, looking uncertain, but blocking her exit.  “I have to go now,” she told him and attempted to brush past.

He took her gently by the shoulders, holding her in place.  She shrank away from him, retreating backwards and fixed him with a defiant glare.  How dare he attempt to detain her!  “Willow, please don’t go.  We need to talk.”

“We don’t need to talk and I need to go.  Please, just let me go if you care one bit about me.”  Her voice thickened as the words passed over the lump growing in her throat.

“I care a lot more than one bit about you.  You’re more important to me than anything, which is why I’m asking you not to go.  Not yet.  Just give me 5 minutes, Willow.  Please.”

Looking into the dark, pleading eyes of the man she thought she loved, Willow’s heart was softened the tiniest bit.  She put her bag down on the floor and crossed her arms over her chest as if to protect herself from what he had to say.  He reached for her elbow to guide her, but she flinched away so he settled for gesturing that they should have a seat in the living room.  She followed him and sat as far away as she could, arms still firmly crossed. 

“What you saw, I just wanted you to know, it wasn’t anything I ever wanted to happen.  I never, ever would have hurt you like that if I’d had even one ounce of my free will.  It was a horrible misunderstanding, and that, combined with some powerful psychological suggestions, well, that makes a pretty big mess.”

Willow just continued to glare at him, unmoved.

“I love you, Willow.  Only you.  You’re the only one I want.  I’m sorry I hurt you.  I would do anything to make it up to you, and I don’t know what else to say.”

“Did you like it?” She asked, her face pale and expressionless.

“Like it?  What?  Willow, no.  I barely even remember it.  The whole night was like a weird dream, it doesn’t seem real at all now.  The only way we know that it really happened is because, well, there was a lot of stuff broken, and you.  You weren’t under Lorne’s spell and you obviously remember it, so it had to be real.”

“It looked like you liked it.”  A tear coursed down one pale cheek and the other green eye gleamed with a tear of its own that threatened to spill over her lower lid. 

In a motion so swift no human could have followed it, Angel procured a tissue from somewhere and knelt before Willow, reaching up to her cheek and blotting at the tear.  She took the tissue from him and finished wiping her eyes herself with harsh swipes that left her skin reddened.  Angel stood up and gazed down at her hunched over form, trailing a soothing hand down her back as the occasional sob hitched at her breath.

“Willow, I’m so sorry.  You don’t know how sorry I am.”

“I know,” she replied.  “I do.  It still hurts, though.”  She began to get her emotions under control and was sitting upright again.  Angel returned to his seat and looked at her with a longing that made her wonder who was really in more pain.  Suddenly, there was a small thunk from Angel’s bedroom.  His eyes widened and shifted back and forth.  Willow frowned in renewed suspicion as she recalled how she thought she’d heard him talking earlier.

“Oh!  I almost forgot!” He exclaimed, jumping to his feet.  “I got you something.  It took me 3 days, but I found it and I really, really hope you like it.  It was so hard to find and, well, I think you’ll be happy.”  With no further explanation, he hurried off to his room leaving Willow thoroughly perplexed.  She wondered what he had bought her that he thought could possibly make up for betraying her, since certainly that’s what this was, a makeup gift.   How much had he spent to make her forget what he’d done?  What was the standard sorry-I-screwed-your-worst-enemy gift?  A diamond necklace?  Keys to a new Lexus?  Tickets for two to Tahiti?  No, maybe with a regular guy, but a vampire in Tahiti wouldn’t be very much fun.

Her musings were soon put to rest when Angel emerged from the room, concealing something in his hands, which he then deposited in her lap.  Looking up at her with huge yellow eyes and mewling softly was a tiny black and white kitten.  Grinning widely, she picked it up and held it under her chin, closing her eyes as it purred blissfully and rubbed its silky soft head against her neck.  It couldn’t have been more than 3 months old.  Holding it up again, she determined that it was a girl kitty and possibly the cutest kitten in the entire world.

Catching Angel’s glance, Willow’s grin faltered and she was confused.  This was a kitten, not diamonds or luxury cars.  Why a kitten and how had it taken him days to find one when the shelters in the city were full of them?  Seeming to guess her thoughts, he said, “That’s not just any kitten.  That is the daughter of a certain Miss Kitty Fantastico.”  He looked very pleased with himself following this announcement.  “I wanted to find the original of course, and I did, but she seemed happy there with those kids.  I didn’t think you would want her life disrupted again.  She had some kittens and the family was trying to find homes for them, so I thought you’d like one.”

Amazement filled Willow, looking back and forth between the kitten and the vampire.  Could it be true?  Was the beloved cat she’d shared with Tara really alive and well?  And a mom?  “How did you do this?” Was all she could think to ask. 

“Like I said it took a while.  Lots of phone calls and questions, a few bribes, some beatings…” he stopped at the look of horror on her face.  “I’m kidding!  I’m kidding!  No bribes or beatings.  I used a few connections to get the numbers of everyone who used to live in Sunnydale who had registered a cat under 4 years old.  After that it was just a matter of going through one by one until I found someone with the right kind of cat who’d found her around the right time in the right place.”

“You did all of that to find my cat?”  Willow was still stunned.

“Well, yeah, I had to do something for you.  I knew that just buying some big expensive gift wouldn’t impress you.  It had to be something meaningful, and I knew that cat meant a lot to you.  I would’ve stolen her if I thought it would make you happy.”

“No, I’m glad you didn’t.  I’m just happy to know she’s ok.  And to have this,” she patted the kitten who had curled up to sleep in her lap, “This is wonderful, to have a little part of her.  Thank you so much.”  Though her words were sincere, she did not reach to give him a hug.  “I’ll have to check my lease and make sure they allow cats.”

Now it was Angel’s turn to look confused.  “Lease?”  For the first time, he glanced towards her room and noticed the suitcases sitting in the middle of the floor.  “You’re moving out!” 

Her happiness at receiving the kitten quickly fading, Willow snapped, “Of course, what did you think?  That I would stay here with you, after what you did?”

“No.  Well, yeah.  I don’t know, I guess I thought you’d stay away at first.  But to move out entirely, no.  I didn’t think about anything that permanent.”

“Well, it is.  I can’t stay here.  I need to be away from you for awhile.  A long while.  Thank you for the kitten, it was very thoughtful and I… I love her, but that doesn’t change what’s happened between us.”

Angel bent over and buried his head in his hands with his elbows on his knees.  Willow wondered if he was going to cry.  She’d only ever seen one vampire cry and that was Spike crying when Drusilla had left him, and again when Buffy had died.  She didn’t think that telling Angel that he was acting like Love’s self-proclaimed Bitch would be a very good idea so she only stood up to get her bag, cradling the kitten in one arm.  “I can’t take her with me to the motel; she might get out by accident.  I’ll take her this weekend when I move.”

“So that’s it then.  It’s really over between us.  Forever, before we even really got started?”

“Is that what you want?” Willow asked him.

“No, of course not!”

“Well, that’s not what I want either.  But if you want there to be any chance for us, you need to give me this time away.  Time to heal and to try – try to forget what I saw.  That’s the hardest part.”  She shuddered and walked away from him, heading down the hall to pick up her bag.  Going into Angel’s room, she deposited the kitten on the bed and saw that he had set up a bowl of food and a litter pan for it.  Turning to go, it immediately jumped down and ran to her, purring and rubbing against her ankle.  She smiled and kept walking, watching as it ran ahead into the living room and jumped up on the back of a chair to get her attention. 

“Willow?”  She turned to face him, expecting more begging for her to stay.

“I’ll give you what you want.  I’d give you anything, you know that.  I’ll be here when you’re ready.  And I’ll take care of Luna until you come back for her.”

“Luna?” 

“The kitten.  That’s what I named her, but you can change it if you want.”

Willow smiled, “No, it’s perfect.  I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.  You’re coming in, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

With one last goodbye pet for Luna, Willow left the vampire to his brooding.

Willow looked at the array of goodies and said, “You didn’t have to do all this.  I can afford to take care of her.” 

“I know.  But when I gave her to you, I didn’t know you were moving and I thought she’d be ours.  I don’t think it’s fair to expect you to provide for her by yourself since I’m the one who promised to give her a home.”

Willow couldn’t argue with this so she only thanked him and put away the boxes of food.  She let Luna out of the bedroom so Angel could see her and rolled the ball across the hardwood floor to see what she would do.  Willow and Angel stood and watched as Luna wiggled her rump and then pounced as the ball tried to roll past her.  They laughed at her antics like proud parents and it was a few minutes before they realized they weren’t supposed to feel this comfortable around each other.  As the laughter died away, Angel gave himself a quick tour of the apartment. 

“Nice place you’ve got here.  I see you went with the first floor.  It seems like a decent neighborhood at least.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t really have a lot of time to look around for anything better,” she told him, not bothering to hide the bitterness in her voice.  She didn’t want him coming there and criticizing her housing.  If it wasn’t for him she would still be perfectly happy up in her little room in his penthouse.  No, if it wasn’t for Lorne, she reminded herself.  She was trying desperately to end her mental Angel bashing. 

Before he could come up with a response the timer buzzed and Willow hurried to remove the loaf from the oven and shut off the rice.  Clearing his throat, Angel announced, “Well I guess I’d better be going.  Just wanted to drop off Luna’s things.  See you Monday.”  He was out the door almost before she could express her thanks for the bag of supplies. 

Willow wondered at his true motives for the short visit.  Surely he wouldn’t come all that way to drop of $10 worth of cat care items.  Was he just checking up on her?  Or did he really miss her?  That last thought almost made her lose her appetite for her carefully prepared dinner.  Sitting at the little round table for two, Willow pushed her rice around on one of the cheap white plastic plates included with her rent.  It was Saturday night.  Did Angel have any plans?  Somewhere in her head an evil voice suggested that perhaps he was going to have a late night at the office with a particular short skirt. 

She threw down the fork, which clattered on the table, startling Luna who hissed adorably.  It was happening to her at last.  She was brooding.  Hadn’t Spike playfully warned her that hanging out with Angel too much would lead to this?  It was ridiculous that she should sit there alone in her little apartment thinking about him, imagining all sorts of absurd things and making herself miserable. 

Setting the plate on the floor to see if the kitten had a better appetite than she did, Willow returned to her unpacking, desperate to have something to do to keep her mind off a certain tall, dark, and handsome brood-machine who insisted on haunting her every thought.  Though she’d always been a hard worker, Willow had also been able to appreciate her free time as well.  Now she found herself eagerly anticipating the coming work week when she could bury herself in cases and not think about the occupant of the big office down the hall.

~~

Monday came at last and on this particular morning, Willow’s office contained an extra tall vase with a half dozen sunflowers on three foot long stems. The card read simply, “Good morning, Sunshine. You are the light of my life.”


Suppressing a groan, Willow slipped the card into her pocket and thought with not a little irony how, not too long ago, this particular light of Angel’s life would have liked to really be sunshine to set him on fire and burn him to ashes with her mere presence.

She’d been at work only a short time, occupying her mind with all things non-vampire, when a knock came at her door. She called out an invitation and immediately regretted it when she saw who stood on the other side. Eve stepped into the room, closed the door, and sat down in a chair in front of Willow’s desk, without being asked.

“Good morning, Willow. I think it’s time you and I had a little chat, wouldn’t you say?” Willow, as usual, said nothing. “I think enough time has passed that you should be able to tell me your decision.”

Barely hearing what was said to her, Willow stood up from her chair. Leaning over her desk, her face scrunched up in a never-before-seen scowl she said, “I don’t think enough time will ever pass for you to come in here and act like I would have a conversation with you. I have no interest in talking to you about my relationship with Angel, so why don’t you just go take
a…”

Eve cut her off. “I’m not here to talk about Angel. What happened at the Halloween party was an accident. Neither of us did anything wrong or have anything to apologize for, not to you, or anyone else.” Seeing that Willow could only stand there with her mouth hanging open, none of the comebacks going through her mind being nearly good enough to respond to what had just been said, Eve continued, “I’m here to talk about you. It’s been a long time since I asked if you’d consider having your magic enhanced. We’ve really tried to be patient on this issue, but I’m beginning to feel some pressure to extract a definitive answer from you. I’m sure you understand.”

Sitting back down in her chair, Willow found her voice at last. “I understand that you expect me to let you mess around in my brain. There is no way that’s gonna happen. I’ve read the reports on those other poor people you’ve “enhanced”. Their minds start to break down after a couple of years and then you dispose of them. Don’t bother trying to deny it!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You’re absolutely right. We have had some disappointing results in attempting to enhance the ordinary human mind. But Willow, your brain is far from ordinary. We believe that you are the best candidate we’ve seen for a successful, long-term enhancement. It’s too bad that you didn’t feel you could come to me with your concerns. We could have had this all worked out by now and been benefiting from your improved capabilities. Do you have any other misconceptions I can help you with?”

“No, just the original one. That you’re all a bunch of evil mad scientists and there is no way you’re opening up my head.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you’ll change your mind. I’d hate to have to change it for you.” With that threat left to hang in the air, Eve showed herself out of Willow’s office.

Willow slumped back down in her chair, feeling drained in spite of the short duration of the conversation with Eve. Had she really thought that being at work would be better for her mental state than being at home in her apartment and watching the ever adorable Luna carry little furry mice about in her mouth as if they were her babies? Maybe she was closer to losing it than she thought. As if to make her Monday morning complete, a familiar blonde head drifted in through the bookcase.

“So, here she is, Miss Leave Me Alone to Die, Cruel World.” The rest of the ghostly form appeared in the office and Spike commenced pacing back and forth in his favorite route in front of her desk.

Willow groaned. “Spike. What do you want? Can’t you see I’m brooding?”

“Oh, that’s rich! Where have I heard that before? Oh right, just yesterday in the penthouse. And the day before, and the day before, and the…”

“Spike! The point. What you wanted. That would be…?”

“Right. Just wanted to tell you I think you ought to move back. You made a big mistake leaving. You don’t know how it’s been.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me? Then you can go. I’m having a bad day.”

“It’s Angel. He’s not been himself. Not eating right. Those same packets of blood have been in the fridge for a week. I can’t remember the last time I saw a mug in the sink. Not to mention the brooding, and I told you that would happen. It’s ten times worse than ever before! It’s no fun even picking on him when he’s already in such a rotten mood all the time.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me this is all my fault?”

“You bet I am! How else do you explain it? Before you left he was so happy it made me sick! I could rib him for hours before I got a good reaction out of him. I swear he even started wearing less black for a while.”

“Look, Spike, I think it’s cute that you’re worried about him, but he’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. He survived hundreds of years without me, I’m sure this time apart isn’t going to kill him.”
“So you are coming back? Someday?” The pacing ceased and Spike moved to sit on the corner of Willow’s desk, just to the left of her chair. She suddenly had his full attention.

“Well, that’s the plan, I think. If he’s willing to wait and not get into any more… compromising situations, then yeah, someday. You’re really worried about him?”

“Maybe a little. Nothing wrong with that. Besides, it’s just more fun with you there. We’re friends, aren’t we Red? Can’t a ghost just miss one of his regular haunts?”

Willow smiled. “Yeah, of course we’re friends, Spike. You saved my life. You could come haunt my new place sometime if that amulet will let you get that far away.”

“And you could come up to the penthouse now and then, even if it’s just to see me. I’m not foolish enough to think that if you could see a certain someone else, that wouldn’t be a better incentive, though.” Spike suddenly smiled the most conniving, mischievous, smile Willow had ever had the horror to see upon his face. If he didn’t have a soul she would have been running for her life. “I’ve got something for you. You wait here and open the door when I tell you. It’s a real something so I can’t float it through the wall. Could take me awhile, hold on.”

Before Willow could ask anything further, Spike had leapt off her desk and was gone. Shaking her head, she tried desperately to recall what she was doing before her visits from the building’s strangest occupants had distracted her.

At last she found her focus and went to work studying a particularly puzzling case involving a band of demons harvesting human body parts for sale on the black market as delicacies to other demons who favored the various parts.

She’d made contact with one demon that preferred to serve earlobes at his social functions. Using a simple truth spell, she hoped to uncover the name of his supplier at their next meeting. So far, he hadn’t been very forthcoming even though the firm was representing some of the demons who were being ripped off by the high prices. Thankfully, this meant they were interested in shutting down the operation.

It was over an hour later when Willow at last heard Spike’s muffled voice demanding that she open the door. Doing so, she saw him crouched on the floor, a deep crease of concentration on his forehead as he tried to push a small piece of shiny paper over the ridge where the hardwood floor of the hall ended and the plush carpet of Willow’s office began. Taking pity on the ghost, she stooped and picked up the paper, ushering him inside and closing the door. “Is this for me?” She asked, before turning it over and gasping.

“Yup, it’s all yours. How do you like it?” His frown had turned into a huge grin when he saw her reaction.

“Spike,” she hissed, closing the door quickly. “Where did you get this?”

“Took it myself this morning. Had a helluva time picking up the camera and pushing that sodding little button, but it was worth it. I thought if you saw what you were missing, you might consider a reunion with the Gel-Headed Wonder.”

“Spike, I’ve seen what… I mean, I know what… this one time, I… well this is really unnecessary,” she concluded, trying to pretend she wasn’t studying the picture like an art critic standing in front of a Monet.

Spike took her meaning just fine, however garbled the delivery. “Oh, have you now? Well, I had no idea! When did this happy little occasion occur? I thought that you two never made it into the sack.”

“No! We didn’t. But, you know, two people live together for awhile, sometimes you just have bad timing, and well, these things happen. Nobody’s fault really,” she muttered.

“So, now you’ve got a little reminder. Just in case you forgot. Now, me, I wish I could forget. Like I really needed to remember what that sculpted ass was… ah never mind. Picture’s yours. Enjoy!” Once more Spike dissolved through the wall and Willow was left to admire his gift.

Alone in the room she felt no shame as her eyes traveled down the full-length shot of Angel just emerging from the bathroom after his shower, apparently no longer fettered by the towel he’d felt obligated to wear during her residence in the penthouse. His mouth was open in a perfect O of surprise. Willow giggled as she imagined how his face had shifted into a look of annoyance and fury when he realized what had happened.

Recalling the difficulty Spike had getting the picture down to her, she couldn’t imagine that Angel would have had any trouble taking it away from him. Surely he’d been gone so long because of the amount of concentration it took him to move things any distance at all. A sly smile appeared on her lips to match the thought in her head that perhaps Angel had guessed his purpose in taking the shot and let him get away with it. She couldn’t pretend that the picture had no effect on her. In fact, she was sure it was having exactly the effect Spike, and maybe Angel, had hoped for. No matter, she had resisted the charms of the freshly showered vampire when she’d lived with him; certainly she could resist a picture of the same. Just to prove it to herself, she tore her eyes away and placed the image in her pocket along with the card from the sunflowers.

She looked back at her computer and was startled to see that the time in lower right hand corner of the monitor indicated that nearly 15 minutes had passed since Spike had left the office. Had she really spent all that time looking at the picture? Of course not, she must have just read the clock wrong earlier. Right, she could tell time when she was two years old, but now she read the clock wrong. Uh huh.

“Stupid sexy naked vampire! So not thinking about you! Sitting here, working on my case with the yucky body parts, definitely NOT thinking about you! You hear me? NOT thinking about you!” Willow muttered to herself.

Her door opened and she looked up to see Angel stick his head in. “Do you think you could keep it down a little in here? I’m having trouble concentrating with the monologue going on. Practicing some performance art?” Giving her a smirk she wanted to slap right off his face, he pulled his head back out and shut the
door again.

The next month passed uneventfully for Willow and before she knew it, people and other creatures around the office were beginning to talk about their holiday plans.  She was looking forward to a little time off herself.  It hadn’t taken long for the lawyers of the firm to realize that Willow was the one to go to when you wanted something done quickly and done right.  She cast protective spells for some who had meetings scheduled with unpredictable clients.  Others needed weapons enhanced or potions made. Occasionally, she had a hard time sleeping at night, wondering just what she’d helped Wolfram & Hart dispose of.  In her contract there was a clause that prevented anyone from asking her to harm a human being, but from plenty of personal experience, she understood that not all demons were evil.