Title: Before
Author: Northlight
email: uzenet@videotron.ca
Spoilers: The Wish
Summary: A meeting between Angel and Willow before he got turned into her 'puppy'.
Disclaimer: Joss owns the characters in the following story.

Willow screamed, a loud, long sound torn from the very depth of her being. She stumbled back a step, her shaking hands held before her body in a futile defensive gesture. Her scream ended in a choked sob as the vampire's fist smashed into her pale face, sending her body careening to the cold ground.

Forcing back the panic that threatened to overwhelm her, Willow scrabbled in the pockets of her baggy overalls for the cross that had been issued to all Sunnydale residents after the Master rose. Fear made her fingers slow to respond as the vampire approached her, sensing an easy meal. Cold metal met her questing fingers, and with a whimpered cry of relief, Willow pulled it out, brandishing it at the creature.

"Keep away..." Willow whimpered, holding the cross out towards the snarling creature as she rose to her feet unsteadily. She clenched at it with such strength that the metal bit into the soft flesh of her palm. If she were to loose the fragile protection that it offered her, she would be dead in an instant.

There was no escape in running. Others had tried. They had merely ended up in the monthly service in honour of the dead.

Willow had known this creature once. Theresa had sat behind her in biology class. Willow remembered that she had lent the other girl her notes once. She also remembered hearing the girl's name numbered among the dead.

As she herself was close to being.

"Keep away," Willow repeated, her voice slightly more authoritive as she noted the vampire carefully keeping a safe distance from the holy symbol. "You just stay right there," she continued, carefully backing away from the angrily snarling vampire.

Her driveway was only a few steps away. And from there... if luck was smiling down upon her... she could probably make it up to her door and into the relative safety of her house.

Unless Theresa decided to smoke her out. Some of them did that, setting fires around the homes of their prey. Either their victims would flee the flames and run straight into the grasps of the monsters who stalked the street, or they would burn and choke inside their homes while both vampire and human watched.

She could see faces peering out at her from the windows of neighbouring homes. The eyes that followed her slow progress watched her with a mixture of pity and fear. They would not help her. No one ever helped... not even when their own family members lay slowly dying on their doorsteps.

"Hungry!" Theresa wailed, her gleaming teeth flashing beneath the street lamp that barely managed to illuminate their immediate surroundings. She rubbed at her flat, leather clad stomach and peered at Willow from slitted golden eyes. "Hungry!" she repeated, her voice slightly slurred as she spoke around her elongated canines.

"Well I don't intend to be your snack tonight!" Willow stuttered out, still moving backwards with awkward half steps. She waved the cross around as if to emphasize her point. The vampire hissed in protest but remained firm.

Luck was very rarely with the weak... especially not when the weak sat upon the Hellmouth itself. Willow's cautious backward pace quickened slightly, trying to increase the distance between her own incredibly vulnerable self and the demon standing uncomfortably close.

Her increased pace served no greater purpose than to send her stumbling when her sneaker met a loose rock. It wasn't enough to send her back to the ground once more, but it did serve to throw her off balance.

Willow nearly screamed again as her cross tumbled from suddenly nerveless fingers. It flew through the air, a streak of gold marking it's passage in the dark night. With a dull clink, it fell to the cement... close enough to reach but not in enough time.

Theresa smiled, a twisted mockery of the friendly smile that she had once worn so often. With a triumphant growl, her body thrust forward, heading straight at the petrified girl.

Willow squeaked, scrambling towards the meager protection of the cross. As distant a possibility as it was, the symbol was her only chance. The house was still to far to reach and she doubted that anyone watching the drama unfolding before them would take pity on her and emerge from their house with a super-soaker filled with holy water.

Her finger brushed the edge of the cross far too late. She collapsed to the ground beneath Theresa's weight, the cross kicked away from her by the short black boots that adorned Theresa's foot. Her breath knocked out of her, and her body pinned to the ground, Willow could only watch as her only hope of staying alive bounced away from her.

"Hungry," Theresa hissed against Willow's ear before casually rolling the teary eyed young woman over. Willow lay flat on her back on her driveway, staring up at the stars unseeingly as Theresa straddled her waist and bent her dark head down to Willow's throat.

Willow's eyes clenched shut against the sight of the demon's face. Her body stiffened and a low cry of pain tore out from her constricting throat as Theresa's fangs broke the skin on her neck and began to drink eagerly. 'Oh, Xander...' Willow thought, tears spilling out from her eyes at the thought of her best friend. She knew how he had felt, now.

Her head was growing fuzzy and thinking was becoming difficult. So much so, that when Theresa's weight vanished from on top of her, it took her a full minute to realize so. Willow's eyes wearily peeled open, and then widened as she took in the form of two fighting vampires.

"Angel?" Willow mumbled, recalling the name of the man who had saved her. He had come to Sunnydale only days before the Master had arisen, warning them of the impending events. Nobody had listened to his impassioned cries. Some of them had even lived to regret it.

He turned towards her slightly, his hands still wrapped around Theresa's bare neck. "Run, Willow!" he shouted, ignoring her wince when she saw his transformed face.

For the second time that night, Willow pulled herself to her feet. This time, her upward journey was even more strenuous than the first. Her head swimming and her body trembling, Willow forced her legs into action. She warily limped past the struggling vampires, moving towards her door shakily.

She heard a harsh cry come from behind her and couldn't resist turning back. Angel stood before Theresa, watching impassively as her body convulsed and shook apart in a cloud of dust. The stake that had been impaled through her heart clattered to the ground.

His eyes met hers from across the driveway. "Get inside," he commanded, his voice weary as he withdrew the stake from the pile of ashes that had once been Theresa.

"Thank you," Willow replied softly, her hand resting against the two bloody puncture holes marking her smooth neck. She looked at him a moment, unsure of what else to say. 'I'm sorry that none of us believed you' It was true, but the words couldn't even begin to make up for the fact that they hadn't.

His dark eyes widened, his lips parting to deliver a warning. "Willow!"

The hand winding around her waist informed her of exactly what his warning had entailed. "Hey, Will. Miss me?" an achingly familiar voice whispered into her ear.

"Xander?" Willow sighed, her heart freezing and then shattering to pieces as the realization of her situation struck her. "Oh, God, Xander!" she groaned.

"Not quite, Willow," he laughed before his teeth replaced Willow's hand against her neck.

She could distantly make out the forms of more vampires surrounding Angel, their voices speaking of the Master and vengeance. The world spun around her, and Willow sagged against Xander as her knees gave out beneath her. She saw Angel fall beneath the combined forces of the Master's apprentices, and what was left of her hear cried out in horror.

Xander's bleeding wrist rose to her mouth, his blood trickling down her throat. And Willow ceased caring at all.

~End~