Title: Penance: Everything I Am
Author: Northlight
email: uzenet@videotron.ca
Summary: Willow's guilt leads her to make a lifetime commitment.
Rating: PG13, probably, for implied sex. I don't do actual sex scenes -- in fact, I don't even do implication very well. Ah well. You'll just have to use your imaginations :)
Setting: After Becoming... An alternate to All Men are Beasts (?) sans Buffy.
Distribution: Ask -- I'll say yes. Also heading off towards "http://members.spree.com/sip1/northlight12/will/index.htm"
Disclaimer: Joss'.
Date: Oct. 23, 1999
Note: Explanations are at the end, should you need them.

She could feel his presence before she even opened her eyes -- an unnatural stillness that her mind, clouded by the lingering remains of her dreams, slipped past rationality and towards the primal recognition that Death itself waited beyond her closed eyelids. A slight shudder of apprehension worked it's way through her body as she fought the instinctive urge to tense beneath Angel's heavy gaze. He growled slightly, a guttural sound deep within his throat, and Willow knew that he had caught to scent of her fear. Despite her conviction that the man she had known still rested within him, she had seen the animalistic fear and rage in his dark eyes. Even now, months after she had accepted the burden of guiding Angel back across the chasm of his Hell imposed insanity, that inhuman look still marked his features.

Willow's eyes fluttered open, straining against the darkness. The only light that pooled within the room she had claimed as her own was the night-light she had purchased after her first torturous night lost within the impenetrable darkness that filled the mansion after night fell and the flames within the fireplace had been put to rest. It was enough to give shape to Angel's form, dancing across the smooth expanse of exposed white flesh.

He was crouched at the foot of her bed, and Willow's eyes easily fell downwards. She swallowed, pulling her gaze away and directing it towards where she imagined Angel's eyes to be, lost in the dark -- her own wide and round like that of an animal caught in the sights of a predator.

She _couldn't_.

And she had promised him, as he struggled helplessly against the chains that had bound him, that she would do whatever he needed to help him become the man he had been before her actions had helped shatter him. He didn't move towards her, merely waited, needing her touch but unwilling to risk angering her as he had angered all that was good and decent by the path he had followed, one which had led him towards a hundred years in Hell where mind and body both had been shredded apart.

Willow licked her lips nervously as her decision crystallized in her mind. "Angel," she breathed, opening her arms to him. He moved towards her, looming above her as her legs slid apart under the crisp bed-sheets. The sheet was torn free, a white blur in the darkness as it was cast towards the floor. Cool palms skimmed her heated flesh as the hem of her nightgown was bunched up around her waist. She arched her hips up, flushing in the dark as her cotton underwear were pulled away from her with such impatience that she could hear the material tear before they had passed her hips.

His cold hands were pressing her thighs further apart as Angel shifted above her. "Angel! Wait, please!" Willow gasped out, her tiny hands pressing against his still chest. Balancing on his arms, he loomed over her, waiting.

She wasn't ready. Oh Goddess, she was so very far from ready, still more prepared to run that accept him into her body. Before this moment, there had been only one other man in her bed. She wasn't capable of doing this, of reaching past his unreasoning need to banish his demons within her and showing him what she needed. He was making sounds above her, small, growling whimpers.

Her face flaming, Willow's fingers scrambled between their bodies, dipping between her legs. Angel shifted again, rearing back onto the balls of his feet, hovering. She could imagine him, head cocked and eyes dark with emotion she had never dared try to imagine, watching her fingers glide across dampening flesh. She was glad that she couldn't see his face. Willow clenched her eyes shut.

After a long moment, Angel pulled her hand away from herself. His finger replaced hers, feeling the wetness seeping from her body. "Please?" he hissed, his voice tense with need as he begged entrance to her body.

She nodded, biting her lower lip as Angel moved over her. It didn't hurt when he thrust into her, nor did she feel the heat that had raced through her when she brought Oz into her arms. It wasn't love, and even before Angel hoarsely cried out the Slayer's name, she knew it wasn't even her.

He dropped down beside her, his body still shuddering. Willow slowly drew her legs together, damp thighs clenching together. Her shaking hands roughly pulled at her nightgown as Angel nuzzled against her. Finally abandoning that, her newly freed hand wound it's way through Angel's hair. "Just like I promised, Angel. Everything I am, for everything you were."

He didn't answer, still as the dead at her side. Holding him against her stared up towards the darkness shrouded ceiling. She couldn't ever recall feeling so very... empty.

~End~

There was going to be a few parts before this, but they didn't really work out like I wanted (okay, okay, I got two pages and then gave up. Happy now? :). Anyway, if teaser and story didn't give you enough to work with, Angel wasn't quite all together when he came back from Hell -- and he didn't get over it in the two-three episodes worth of time that it took him to get better in the show. Buffy is still gone, and Willow, feeling guilty for giving him a soul in time to get sent to Hell with it, is taking care of Angel.