I decided I would post tonight, give everyone a bit more time to read before dlline posts her new story tomorrow. Besides, I think you'll like this update...
Rating by chapter: PG-13 For descriptions of violenceDisclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all its characters are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I’m just sneaking Willow and Tara out for a night-time stroll… Neither the author nor this site receives compensation for this work.
Spoilers: This is an Alternate Universe fic, but it does contain some spoilers for ‘Chosen’ of season seven.
Feedback: Yes, please. This is my first Buffy fanfic. Reply on the forum or send email to
tara_the_phoenix@yahoo.ca Author’s Note: This is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Also, this update is quite a bit longer than the others, but I don’t think you’ll mind all that much…
Chapter Fourteen
The Arms of the Angel
Willow Rosenberg was running for her life. Caleb was hot on her heels, and she felt an overwhelming desperation come over her. He was going to catch her, again, and do things to her, again, and it will all happen, again, and again. And though the breath hitching in her lungs and the blood pumping through her veins all felt real, she knew she was dead. She must be. She was dead, and this was hell, and it was far worse than any prognosticating Jew could have imagined. How else could she be thus entrapped?
She stumbled on a piece of rubble and fell heavily to her knees, crying out in pain as she felt the crunch of concrete scrape into her skin, drawing blood. She was dead. She must be. She had spilt buckets and buckets of blood, again and again, painting every darkened street in Sunnydale with it. How else would it be possible to lose so much blood and still be alive? She heard wild laughter behind her as the preacher casually caught up to her and loomed over her, a sardonic smile twisting his lips, his eyes dancing in hellish delight.
“Now, you’re not even trying anymore,” he complained, hunkering down next to her on his knees, careful not to let his pristine clothing touch the reviled ground. Everywhere Willow had run, trying to escape him, she could see a similar destruction, as if earthquakes, plagues, and fire had all beset Sunnydale at once, turning it from a familiar, if hellmouthy, city into an unknown dimension of pure evil. And everywhere she ran she could see the bodies of the dead, and smell them, and when she fell on them they would burst into ripe showers of decay.
Yes, this was hell.
The preacher slowly brought a scalpel from his inside jacket; it’s edge gleaming in the dark, lamplit devastation that used to be Sunnydale. Not again. Willow began to sob, tears etching furrows of cleanliness down her dirtied cheeks, and she scrambled with her arms and legs as if to run, but he casually threw her to the ground.
As the preacher flipped her on her back and sat astride her hips, pinning her arms underneath her body, Willow could only thrash and moan. She felt the hard bite of chunks of concrete in her back, along her legs, but that was nothing next to the evil bite of maliciousness she could see in Caleb’s black eyes. With the point edge of the scalpel, Caleb popped off the buttons from her blouse, slowly, with devilish intent. “You are a dirty girl. A whore. And your sin is in your blood. We let out the blood, we let out the sin. Any questions?”
He tilted the blade of the scalpel and slowly slid a shallow cut from her neck to her sternum. “No screaming?” he asked amiably. “I do so like it when you scream…” Willow did scream, then, but the sound lost all intensity in the emptiness of Sunnydale, since she knew that no one would rescue her. There was no Buffy anymore, no Xander, no Giles. She knew because she kept stumbling over their rotting bodies, again and again, as Caleb played his tricks on her.
Willow felt like a lab rat, a plaything, a toy. He would chase her, then catch her, and then slowly and maliciously slice her flesh from her bones, or use her in ways no man ever should, and when she was a hairs breath away from dying, she would rematerialize in a darkened street, her flesh and clothes intact, hearing his most dreadful approach.
How many times has he killed her?
And now, as Caleb continued to make his shallow cuts, her blood running in rivulets on the despairing ground, Willow shook with grief. Was there to be no end? Was this her fate then, to be hunted, reaved, and broken for all eternity? What crime had she ever committed to warrant such punishment? Willow cried, and gasped in pain, and ever and ever the scalpel gleamed wetly, and she knew despair.
But then something changed.
Caleb apparently heard something, for he lifted and cocked his head. Willow watched as his eyes narrowed, and he suddenly bellowed, “NO!” Rising powerfully from her body, Caleb ran toward the park, a lean and powerful menace, and Willow cried in relief. She watched him run away, and then he disappeared behind the thick black wall.
Willow rarely had occasion to inspect this black wall that enclosed her prison, her hell. Sometimes Caleb would take his sweet time in finding her, and she would have precious moments to run her hands over it, it’s strength as of steel. Once before he had disappeared behind it, and had returned in a rare fury, even for him. The things he had done to her then… and Willow shook her head. Don’t even think it, Rosenberg.
Consumed with curiosity, and hating herself for it, Willow shakily got to her feet. She moaned in pain as she took off her outer jacket and then slipped off her ravaged blouse. Wadding up the blouse, she pressed it to her upper chest and breasts where Caleb had concentrated his carving, panting with pain all the while. And even though she knew there was no one around, her sense of modesty prevailed, and she pulled on her outer jacket once more, doing up all the buttons to cover her nakedness. Stumbling through the dead black street she entered the park, then finally arrived at the wall. Her legs no longer strong enough to support her, Willow collapsed at the base of the wall, and received the shock of her life when the wall budged.
Her heart pounding fiercely, Willow touched the wall with her begrimed fingers. It was slick and wet, also something that had never happened before. She poked it with her finger, and it retreated like the skin of a balloon. Filled with hope for the first time since she could remember (for ever her imprisonment ran back in her mind) Willow lurched to a nearby tree and broke off a branch. Returning to her knees before the wall Willow jabbed it with as much force as she could muster. The wall didn’t breach, but it did sink inwards a little. And it was growing thinner. Like a dark fabric, she could almost see through it.
Willow concentrated even as she held her bleeding wounds, concentrated with all her might on seeing what was beyond the barrier. And what she saw astounded her.
There was a woman there, who was dressed an awful lot like Buffy when she was on patrol. And the woman was fighting Caleb, fighting him with the…
No. It cannot be.
There was no way Willow could ever forget the scythe, and the power of it. She could remember the white power that surged through her veins, the incredibly deep reservoir of magics she tapped into. And then, the feeling of being connected, of activating some latent control, as girls all over the world awoke to a new sense of being, a new sense of power and responsibility. And then, the feeling of her life’s work approaching, her awesome task to fix the breach in dimensions, to finally eradicate the First.
And then, and then…
Utter destruction. Ruination. Ubervamps dining on her neck, and Bringers slashing her skin, and the walls of Sunnydale High crumbling around her. And Faith. Faith picking her up, and carrying her to the bus that had too few, way too few Slayers in it. Even as she realised it, and cried out for Buffy, and Xander, and Giles, and Dawn. And the roaring, a great mouth emerging, devouring the city beneath them, and they weren’t fast enough, she was never fast enough, she was always getting caught, getting reaved…
And as Willow watched through the thinning barrier, the woman’s body was sailing in the air, and crashing into the ground, and Caleb was rejoicing. “NO!” Willow screamed from beyond the barrier. This unknown warrior was going to be killed, and there was nothing Willow could do except watch, and be imprisoned forever. Willow sat at the edge of the wall, pressing into it, willing it to burst, even as she watched the woman fight for her life. Willow cried, and sobbed, and Caleb was holding the unknown woman far off the ground with his powerful hands around her slender neck, and Willow knew that all it would take was a crushing grasp and yet another life would be over.
Yet the woman rallied, and pulled off a complex kicking-crouching manoeuvre that would have made Buffy proud, and Caleb went reeling away. “NOW!” Willow screamed, and her heart soared in jubilation as the scythe crunched hideously into Caleb’s side, and he was borne down into the dust. And Willow wept great gulping sobs of uncontrollable joy, and she continued to watch the tableau through the black wall that was growing ever thinner.
And what she saw she did not understand.
For Caleb dissolved into a whirling tornado of dust that the woman sucked in, breathing it in, swallowing it again and again until she fell alone to the ground.
And the wall burst.
Willow was thrown violently back in the thunderous clap, slamming into a tree with tremendous force, and there she lay, stunned and disoriented, for long minutes. Blood continued to weep from her chest, soaking into her slashed blouse, and her head swam from where it cracked into the tree trunk. Scared and witless, Willow could only open her eyes and notice the unthinkable.
The sun was rising.
Never in her long imprisonment in Sunnydale had she seen the sun. Ever she fought, was caught, was reaved in darkness. She stared at the horizon where the sun was rising in holy fury, and she believed that she could see into the hidden depths between earth and sky, a place like a highway to the very sun that if she only had the courage to tread, she would discover the very secrets of life and living. Rippling shocks coursed through Willow’s skin, and she drew closer to true ecstasy than she ever had in her entire life.
And an angel approached.
Willow lay at the base of the tree, her face transfixed in joy. She started to stumble to her feet, but her consciousness swam, and pain once again knifed through her body. Cursing her clumsiness, Willow just sat back again and watched the approach of a being too radiant and too beautiful to be described. The sun was behind the angel, casting her face in soft shadow, surrounding her in a halo of light. Willow fed on the light; she had not seen any sunlight for what seemed weeks, years, even. It soaked into her skin, irradiated her muscles, causing her to tingle in anticipation.
And the angel ever approached.
Willow found the strength to prop herself against the tree, feeling the incredible power advancing on her, her heart aching as if to break, an indescribable longing filling her gut. Willow began to cry, and she bowed before the heavenly being that was so calmly walking to her.
And her soul filled with glory, for the knowledge that she, little Willow Rosenberg, was the sole intention and purpose of this being. That there was nothing that would stop this gentle advance, that she was actually worth something to someone, there was another reason for her life. Was she being redeemed from hell? Was this her saviour?
Unknown stirring filled her gut, almost frightening in its intensity, as she was relentlessly showered in waves of love. And not just the brotherly love you’d expect from an angel, but all-reaching, soul-shattering, body-wrenching romantic love that you hope for your entire life and never experience
(not with Xander, not with Oz, not with anyone)and it only hints of a power far beyond anything mortals should ever experience.
Finally the angel stopped before Willow’s prone form, and Willow looked up through tear-filled eyes. It was the same woman who had fought Caleb, but she was no longer dressed as a Slayer. She was garbed in a shimmering gown of starlight, of moonlight, of wishes. The white gown encircled her slender neck and hugged her voluptuous curves, leaving her back and shoulders bare, then discreetly flared out to pool like snow on the ground. Two shimmering white wings extended from her shoulders, and the angel used them to cast a light shadow over Willow’s eyes. No longer having to squint, Willow wiped her eyes and gazed fully on the angel for the first time.
The angel’s face was young, and her brown hair intricately braided and swept up. Her face was clear and glowing with health and vitality. Her eyes, oh gods, her eyes! Her eyes were the clear blue of the first spring bellflower, and they were warm and tender, and looked on her with such love and devotion that Willow’s breath caught in her throat. The angel’s arms were generously proportioned, and Willow spent a moment staring at her breasts, soft globes of perfection that Willow always wished she could have for herself.
And something within Willow bloomed, a gentle flowering, and Willow remembered a time in junior high school when she had had her first crush. It was with a girl in high school, a girl with generous lips, breasts, and legs. The girl never once looked at Willow that way, and as soon as Willow realised what it was she was thinking, horror took over her, and she bottled those feelings deep inside her. And rare moments with Xander or with Oz, when they had used her in the ways boys like to, and part of her had liked it, and part of her didn’t, she cast a single thought back to that unknown and nearly forgotten girl, and wondered if things could ever be different.
Similar feelings had assaulted her at times over the years. Willow remembered when her evil, vampire self that had come on to her, filling her with irreconcilable feelings, part of her disgusted, part of her exulting and curious. And as the years passed and she grew more and more dissatisfied with men, she would look upon other women and wonder. But the same shyness that had kept her from Xander and others in the very beginning of high school assaulted her again, and she could think of nothing witty to say; her mouth would open, and various vowel sounds would emerge, and she would stop, feeling stupid and worthless and nothing. So nothing had ever happened, but the yearning was there, and no one knew, not even her closest friend Buffy, that when they went to the Bronze Willow was starting to look at the girls, not the guys.
The angel bent down to grasp Willow’s hands, and they were warm, and lithe, and delicate. With gentle pressure, the angel helped Willow get to her feet, holding her as Willow staggered up, and didn’t let go of her hands when Willow was up. In the past that would have worried her, half of her liking the feeling of another woman’s hands on her, half of her afraid of what it meant, but here and now it didn’t matter. The angel’s hands were a lifeline to a barely remembered reality, and Willow never wanted to let go.
They stood there holding hands, facing each other, and Willow once again felt small and ugly and no good, familiar feelings from junior high, and a little part of her overactive mind began to run a movie reel of slights and insults of the past. Willow closed her eyes, feeling weak with loss of blood, ever feeling the crunch of concrete under her bones, the devastating slice of the scalpel blade, the slamming force of the tree as it hit her head, and the devastating knowledge that who could ever love Willow, poor silly little Willow.
See, Xander didn’t, even when Willow was in love with him. No, he was all about Buffy when she first arrived, and expected Willow to help him get her. And then he was all about Cordelia, and what the frilly heck was going on with that, everyone knew how shallow and useless Cordelia was. And yet Willow finally got her smoochie with him, and it almost ruined everything with Oz.
Oz. Her first true love. And she had loved him, in her Willow-y way, but deep in her heart she knew she was more excited about the thought of being in love with him. She had only wanted to keep up with everyone else, with Buffy and Angel, and Xander and Cordelia. She had no desire to be the odd one out, so she had recklessly thrown herself into a relationship that was always about his satisfaction and never hers.
And she kept taking him back, even after he cheated on her with that other werewolf. Even after he left her for months at a time to go on tour. And then, this past year, just as the First was emerging
from beneath you it devourshe left her for good. She was always getting left behind, and as she thought these horrifying thoughts, and played this insane movie reel over and over in her mind, she began to sob in despair. No one could love Willow, poor silly little Willow.
As if reading her mind the angel started to pull Willow into her body. Willow’s eyes flew open as she briefly considered the horror of getting her useless blood all over the angel’s gown, but the angel would have none of it, encircling Willow within her arms. They were the same height, but Willow was a little smaller, and when she folded herself into the angel’s bosom she felt an incredible measure of peace, along with a very pleasant thrill along her bones. The angel reminded her of her grandmother’s cookies, of playing with crayons, of swinging on the playset. It was comfort food, and Willow eagerly closed her eyes and sank into the embrace, running her arms along the angel’s bare back, her fingers curiously running up to where the strong wings protruded from her shoulder blades.
Thus enveloped, Willow allowed herself to stay, and she could feel her heart beating in tandem with the angel’s heart. And once again she wished she could freeze time, for there had never been pleasure to equal this. Willow cast her mind back, and could see only blackness, only death
only the preacherand she choked back a sob. The angel had not yet spoken, and still did not, only tightened her grip on Willow’s besieged body. Encircled protectively, Willow allowed herself to cry, and she burrowed her head into the comfortable little hollow of the angel’s throat. She clutched desperately at the womanly body, and sobbed and hiccupped in her grief. Still the angel made no sound, only held her, and Willow’s heart melted. She’d never been held like this, certainly her mother had never held her with such fierce devotion, Buffy was too busy to ever give her a sustaining hug as long and delicious as this, and hugs from Xander and Oz were always too pushy, too self-serving.
So Willow cried, and felt the long sensuous fingers of the angel stroke her back, then they would lift and tangle in her hair, then they would drop and encircle her waist. And once again Willow felt a wave of love cascade from the angel, a wave so powerful it made her gasp. She loves me, Willow thought. Whoever this angel is, she loves me.
The thought brought Willow peace, and a small measure of torment. For long minutes had now passed, and Willow thought of excuses for prolonging this most amazing of embraces, afraid that the moment she let go of the angel, the angel would leave her.
Leave her as everyone else did.
Almost as if reading her mind, the angel pulled away slightly, so she could focus her beautiful blue eyes on Willow. “There is nothing to fear, Willow Rosenberg,” the angel said, and her voice was soft as silk yet hard as dragon scale. “It’s time for you to return to the world of the living.”
Willow leaned back, but deliberately stayed in the angel’s embrace, locking her fingers around the angel’s waist, only then noticing that there was no blood on the angel’s gown, for her intricately carved chest had somehow healed while in the angel’s embrace. “You mean I’m alive?” she asked, looking back up into the angel’s eyes.
“Yes, you are alive,” the angel confirmed. “You’re in a coma.”
“A coma?” Willow replied, panicking. “Am I going to wake up? How will I wake up?”
The angel smiled gently, and Willow calmed a little. “This isn’t Hollywood. I can’t snap my fingers and have you wake up. Your head trauma damaged your brain, and you lost the path that leads you to consciousness. All you have to do is create a new one.”
“Create a new one? How do I do that?”
“By visualising the outside world, and willing yourself to join it. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes it takes weeks, and some never wake at all.”
Willow shivered in the angel’s arms, but calmed as the angel smiled at her. “But I will wake,” Willow said, looking for confirmation from the angel. The angel nodded. “Can you stay with me?” Willow breathed, her heart beating wildly in her chest.
The angel lifted one of her hands to caress Willow’s cheek, wiping away her tears, and Willow melted into that hand. “I can’t,” the angel said, her own voice thick with grief. “I have other work to do, on the outside. I go to prepare a place for you there.”
“Am I going to forget you?” Willow asked, her voice hitching over a great lump of sorrow in her throat.
“I don’t know,” the angel replied, crying softly. “I really don’t know.”
The angel’s eyes melted into Willow’s own, and the angel slightly parted her full and luscious lips.
She’s going to kiss me, Willow thought, and part of her mind freaked out (that is so wrong!), but a stronger part needed it, needed to feel the difference between a man’s lips and a woman’s lips. Besides, it was just this once, and no one would ever know. Heck, she may never even remember this moment at all upon awakening. Why not enjoy it, and then forget it?
But the angel hesitated, her blue eyes sorrowing. And Willow made up her mind.
Willow lifted her hands from the angel’s waist to cup the back of the angel’s neck, and she pulled slightly. For the briefest moment the angel was stiff and unyielding, but then responded with a measure of passion that startled Willow. Willow pulled her face closer, then softly planted her lips on the angel’s lips. For a long moment Willow just stood there, feeling the exquisite softness, the fullness, the depth of those lips, so different from a man’s. This was good, but Willow wanted more.
So Willow used her hand to tilt the angel’s neck, and Willow’s whole world
shifted, as the angel’s mouth opened slightly, and Willow rejoiced. She began to move her lips, first softly, almost teasing, skirting the open infinite expanse of the angel’s mouth. But then she felt the angel’s hands convulse around her back, clutching her with ardent intensity, and a wave of lust cascaded through Willow’s body. She had never felt anything like this, not ever before.
Willow ran one hand up the angel’s neck, and encircled the angel’s waist with the other. With the total tilting of her world, of the mouth that suddenly gave meaning to her entire existence, Willow ran her tongue over the angel’s lips and suddenly plunged it into the angel’s mouth. The angel began to make small, needy growls in her throat, and Willow was pierced with joy.
I did that.Their conjoined lips began to move faster, turning from a soft exploration into a wild fury. Willow felt branded, and each kiss the angel pressed to her lips Willow knew that the world as she had known it was changing irrevocably.
And the pleasure slowly turned into torment, as Willow was faced with the awful truth. This, this kiss, this love, this feeling was greater than she had ever experienced in her life, and she wouldn’t even remember it. When she woke she would be in a barren wasteland, bereft of this joyous hope, and she would wander all the days of her life looking for something she could barely remember, a moment hidden out of time, lost in the coma, down a black hole of memory. And Willow wept, and pulled her lips away, and was astonished by the surge of passion she yet felt, her lips kiss-swollen and needy. Loathe to give up the feelings, yet constantly crying for the angel’s imminent departure, Willow used her hand behind the angel’s neck to tilt it upwards, and she planted slow, soft kisses down the angel’s jaw line, down the smooth expanse of her creamy throat, feeling relentless pressure building between her legs. She finally stopped at the base of the throat, laving a final kiss over the angel’s pulse point, then buried her head once again in the angel’s shoulder and sobbed, a little in sorrow and a little in shame. How dare she feel like this, in the arms of a woman?
But then the angel spoke, and Willow was astonished by the seeming laughter in the angel’s voice. “Oh, no, Willow, this is not the end.” One of the angel’s delicate hands gently lifted Willow’s chin, so they stared at each other again, and Willow desperately tried to memorise the angel’s eyes, nose, mouth… “It is just the beginning.”
The angel disentangled her limbs from Willow’s, and Willow felt cold. The angel folded her wings and the sun hit Willow in the face. Before her startled eyes the angel turned, and Willow could see the angel departing into that highway of the sun, waltzing down it to a place that Willow could never follow, except in death. For how else to experience the arms of an angel?
Willow looked down at her healed chest, and put her hands on her fluttering stomach. Maybe the faster she got out, the better she could remember the angel, her touch, her lips, her sighs. How did the angel tell her to get out?
By visualising the outside world, and willing yourself to join it. What a Giles-y thing to say.
Maybe the angel was a Watcher when she was alive, Willow mused. No, not with the way she fought Caleb. A Slayer. The angel must be the ghost of a Slayer. Fighting Caleb. In her brain. Yeah, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch really tasted like Cinnamon Toast.
Better stick with the vowel sounds, Rosenberg. Leave critical thinking to sometime else.
to be continued with Chapter Fifteen: Scars
current plan is to post it on Wednesday, but we'll see how it goes.
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