Title: Penance: Downward Spiral
Author: Northlight
email: uzenet@videotron.ca
Summary: Willow's guilt leads her to make a lifetime commitment.
Rating: PG13 (probably lower for this part, though).
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. 24, 1999

Angel was staring at her when she woke, his expression caught somewhere between regret and need, hovering somewhere between man and animal. Willow drew her arms over her chest, the thin cotton of her nightgown suddenly seeming as insubstantial as air. A brief flicker of something passed through his eyes at her defensive movement.

It hadn't been like this with Oz. She had waken in the circle of his arms, his voice low and awed, telling her how beautiful she was, how much he adored her. Willow smiled at the silent vampire, a tight, awkward motion. "It's okay, Angel," she said softly because it seemed the thing to say, even as her own mind struggled to accept what he had asked from her, what she had given him.

"Willow," he said, in that harsher, more guttural growl that shaped the few words she had been able to coax from him. He reached out towards her, and she jumped, expecting his hands to light upon her breasts or nestle between her legs. Her breath caught when his fingers brushed across her cheeks, tracing the path of the tears that had begun to trickle unnoticed from her eyes.

He was worried for wanting, while wanting more. And she... she had promised him everything he needed. Willow pulled away from Angel's touch, ducking her face so that he wouldn't see the confusion and sudden pain spelt out across her features. "It's okay, Angel," she stated again, firmly. She tumbled from the bed, reached her dresser, her hands blindly searching through the top drawer for a new pair of underwear. She looked over her shoulder.

He sat on the bed, skin exposed to the air and her eyes, his hands resting upon his thighs. She flushed, quickly turning back towards the drawer. Her hands were trembling when she pulled out a pair of underwear. Simple, pale blue Hanes, three per pack -- surely not something a woman who had sex with her best friend's ex-lover would wear, her mind commented almost hysterically.

She took the time to calm herself before she spoke. "Go to sleep, Angel. I have a shower to take, and then have to get ready for school." School, gloriously normal _school_ away from Angel's dark eyes, beyond the suddenly crushing weight of the walls around her. "And everything is going to be fine. Just fine."

He just watched her, child-animal-man, needing her, wanting her, devouring her. Holding her clothing in hand, Willow let out a short whimper and fled the room.

"Angel!" Willow shrieked in protest, shoving the vampire back into the protective shadows cast by the ledge protruding from the mansion's wall. His flesh was still smouldering from where the sun's rays had struck him as she followed her out beyond the confines of the mansion. "What were you thinking?" she hissed at him.

He flinched back at the anger in her words. "Don't leave," he pleaded, his hand cupping her cheek.

Goddess, she was going to cry. She couldn't handle this, didn't know what had made her believe that she could. "I've been going to school like this for the past week, Angel," she stated as calmly as she could manage. Every day, walking away, leaving him looking after her with eyes better suited to an abandoned puppy. It tore at her heart. She hated it -- hated _him_ sometimes, too, for making everything hurt inside so very badly.

"Don't leave me," he insisted, every word a struggle as he reached past the pain that had broken him to draw forth the request that could hold her at his side. "Not you too." Confusion in his voice, uncertainty of how and why Buffy had left him -- but the facts immaterial compared the emotional reality of that event in his mind.

Oh Goddess, just let me go. I can't stand this, she wanted to wail, to beat aside his hands and run -- leave behind her guilt, his pain, duty and need.

She caught his hand and nodded slightly. "I'm staying. Everything's fine, now."

Nothing was fine. She didn't know him. She didn't even know herself.

He had led her back towards her bed, the floor littered behind them with her clothes. He had moved over her, touching her, searching for acceptance and comfort within her. It had been better that time, her body following his over the edge rather than trembling beneath him with the faint stirrings of desire that hadn't fully spread and exploded within her.

It hadn't felt anymore _right_ for all that, though.

Giles' voice startled Willow out of her thoughts, and she looked up at him, flushing guiltily. "What?" she asked.

"Are you alright?" he inquired, his eyes stating that he knew that she far from that. He hated Angel, she knew -- for taking away Jenny, and Buffy; for taking away a sliver more of their innocence; for taking away his belief in his own strength and dedication. He hadn't wanted her to tend to Angel anymore than had Xander, both of them quiet supporters of the vampire's destruction turned vocal when she offered to take up the burden of his recovery.

"It's... hard. Harder than I thought. I suppose I imagined that he'd see how much I care and come skipping back down the road to health. Silly, huh?" Her head dropped, shoulders trembling.

Giles' hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and Willow tensed briefly. "What happened? He didn't... hurt you, did he?" he asked, his voice tense. Angel had seemed a monster, a two hundred year old creature grasping and sucking away Buffy's youth. Sending Willow to him, softer, more innocent, has seemed an act of utmost folly when paired with the vampire's taste for younger flesh.

"No! At least not like you mean..." Willow sighed. Her shoulders straightened, and she shifted in her chair so that she could see him. "We had sex."

Giles' hands twitched.

The young woman waited a moment, ensuring that Giles wasn't about to explode before she began to explain. "He didn't pressure me, just... sat there and _looked_. You know how he is now, so afraid to get anybody angry enough to punish him... I was the one who put things in motion. I don't regret it, or not exactly. I just feel... guilty. Wrong... I don't know -- skanky times two, or something." She looked out at Giles from the corner of her eye and laughed lightly. "Bet you regret asking now, don't you?"

"Oh, Willow..." Giles sighed. "You shouldn't have to put up with this--"

She shook her head. "But I _do_, Giles! There's nobody else to take care of him. And even if there was, it had to be me. I'm right up there with Buffy on the guilt-o-meter for sending Angel to Hell--" The sobs she had been holding back tore free. "It's just so damned _hard_." She fell forward, her head resting on her crossed arms.

Giles answer was a long time coming. "There, there, Willow. Everything's going to be just fine."

She only cried harder.

~End~

I have two more parts planned out, "It All Came Tumbling Down" and "The Next Best Thing" (titles possibly to change depending on how the actual story works out :). I'm not sure about the very last part -- it's either going to be kinda happy, or less so.