Title: Twisted, Broken and Rebuilt
Author: Northlight
email: uzenet@videotron.ca
Summary: Angelus is gone, but the memories of what he shared with
Willow remain.
Rating: Um... PG13?
Warning: Totally fluffed ending which doesn't fit the rest of the story!
Distribution: If you have any of my other stuff, go ahead. If not, ask
and I'll say yes :)
Disclaimer: Joss owns these characters... although, for some strange
reason, he seems to like _Buffy_ and Angel! Can you imagine _that_?!
Date: May 4, Jun 22 1999

***

He entered her room easily, trying to squash down his uneasiness as he
remembered exactly when the barrier that had kept him out of her home
had fallen. He fought the urge to fidget, and found himself strangely
adverse to meeting the clear eyed gaze of the young woman sedately
seated on the bed.

"So what is it that you wanted to speak to me about Angel?" she asked,
one red eyebrow climbing up her smooth white forehead inquisitively.
Her voice was smooth and calm, the utter... _normalcy_ of it forcing
Angel's head up. He met her eyes and winced imperceptibly at the dark
emotions brimming beneath the surface.

He drew in an unneeded breath, held it a long moment, and then let it
hiss past his teeth. "You... Angelus," Angel stated, fumbling slightly
as he spoke the name he had terrorized his lover and her friends under.

Willow snorted, the darkness in her eyes threatening to disrupt the
placid green surface. "Oh? I thought you were too busy running away
from me to talk."

"I... I didn't know _what_ to say, what to _think_, Willow. Loosing
my soul, getting it back... I couldn't handle thinking about..." he
trailed off helplessly, wondering how the little girl seated before him
had managed to throw him so completely out of balance.

"_Us_?" Willow ended for him, her lips twisting into an expression
caught halfway between a smile and a grimace. She slipped off the
slippers adorning her feet before drawing her legs up onto the bed.
"What do you want to say, Angel? What can you possibly tell me that I
don't already know? You love Buffy. What happened with me and Angelus
wasn't anything more that sex. And that wasn't even you. Am I
travelling in the right direction, here?" Her voice was cracking, pain
flowing into her harsh words.

"I..." He shook his head helplessly. "Why Angelus, Willow? Why a
monster? Buffy..." He looked away from Willow, trying to forget that
the last time he had been in this room, he'd had Willow on her back,
screaming in pleasure beneath him. The knowing glint in Willow's eyes
told him that she knew exactly what he was trying so hard to forget.

"Why did you let him do it?"

"You're upset that I enjoyed it," Willow stated. "I think you wish
that he had just raped me! At least then you'd have the luxury of
knowing how to feel about--"

Angel's soft hiss cut off the flow of words pouring past Willow's
trembling lips. "No. I don't wish that at all, Willow. I don't
believe that you could think so little of me--"

She waved off his words with a small gesture. "I enjoyed it, Angel.
He -- _you_ enjoyed it. Live with it." Her hands twisted in her lap,
fretfully picking at the soft cotton nightshirt she wore. She bit at
her lip, fighting the urge to throw herself into his arms and beg him to
hold her until the pain faded away.

"I don't know what to feel," Angel admitted. "I love Buffy. But I...
he did care about you, Willow." It burned inside him even now, the need
for her.

"I bet you hate _that_, don't you, Angel?" Willow said harshly. "I...
cared, he cared -- and you can't figure out what to do with either set
of emotions! You don't desire me like he did -- I'm nothing more than a
silly little girl, Buffy's friend, barely visible in the background. I
shudder to think what you must feel about my response to Angelus!"

It had hurt immensely when Angel's soul had been forced into Angelus.
It had hurt even more to see the horror in his dark eyes when he had
looked down at her in the bed they had shared and fled from her and what
she represented. It was agonized seeing him with Buffy and knowing that
to him, she was nothing more than another source of guilt to haunt him
the rest of his days.

"That isn't it!" Angel snapped, his emotions breaking free of the
constraint he had placed upon them. "I don't think that you're silly or
unnoticeable or any of that other nonsense that you're continuously
wallowing in! I just wish that it hadn't been _him_, Willow. You're
the brightest most beautiful thing in my life... and your _his_."

The words hung in the air, Willow's eyes going wide as she absorbed
their meaning. "You're jealous of yourself?" she finally managed to
choke out, uncertain whether the tightness in her chest was laughter or
tears threatening to erupt.

Angel stiffened, unwilling to bear hearing what she thought of his
revelation. He turned on his heel, intending to leave before anything
more damaging to their already fragile relationship could slip past his
guard. Willow's soft words held him in place.

"I'm yours, too, Angel," she sighed. "I hated that he killed and that
he tried so hard to hurt my friends. But I loved the rest of him... the
passion, the playfulness, the intensity. And that's _you_, Angel. I
would have gone to you, without Angelus, if you had ever shown _any_
interest in me."

Angel turned to look at Willow. Her head wasn't bowed, nor were her
eyes averted. She stared him straight in the eye, her emotions laid
bare, ready to take his acceptance or rejection without crumbling. She
looked hopeful and... proud and determined and years away from the shy
little girl that he had first admired.

His words died unspoken, and Angel moved towards her. Willow smiled
and drew him towards her eagerly.

They pulled apart a long while later, and with a sigh, Willow rested
her head against his shoulder. "This isn't going to be easy," she said
calmly. "You and me, trouble enough in that alone. But when you add
Buffy to the mix, and all the rest... Are you up to it?" she asked.

Angel grinned into her hair. "That's supposed to be my line. But yes,
I'm ready to face them all. It's time I start living my unlife instead
of staying trapped in what was. And I plan on living it with you at my
side."

"Like I'd be anywhere else," she smiled.


~End~
Yes, I know it's a fluffy and simplistic ending -- but if you didn't
notice, I've had this thing half written since May 4. I thought it was
time to finish it off, even if the ending did have to consist solely of
fluff :)