Fic: Soul Of An Angel (1/1) Revised.

["buffythebushkangaroo" <buffythebushkangaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just started to go through my back-catalog of unfinished fanfic and 
see what I can straighten out or complete.

I'd forgotten about this one. :>

Anne-Lise.

--


Nothing made sense. The words of the spell... she didn't really 
understand them. They'd been left for her, a tragic legacy of Miss 
Calendar's. God, how she missed Miss Calendar. The words spewed from 
her as if she were possessed. She tried not to think about what she 
was doing although she couldn't forget for one moment the being she 
was trying to save had murdered the woman she'd most admired and 
respected.
But she was doing this for Buffy, and she loved Buffy.
"Lasa orbita sa fie vasul care-i va transporta, sufletul la el."
Shadows crept menacingly at the periphery of her vision as the 
litany spewed onward, gathering momentum. Last page now. Willow 
closed her eyes. She didn't need to see the words anymore. They were 
indelibly written in searing letters of fire across the tableaux of 
her mind.

*

There were no regrets. Only sorrow. Buffy stared at the empty space 
where Angel had been standing. Only moments before, she'd killed him. 
Took the sword and run him through. Sent him back to hell. She'd 
wished Willow could have brought Angel's soul back from the 
wastelands of the damned; but it had been a selfish wish and she knew 
it for what it was.
Buffy shivered. Nothing left for her here now. Nothing but lost 
hopes, shattered dreams; Maybe a once-happy memory. But she still had 
her friends. Wonderful friends. She ought to get back to them. Maybe 
her mom could sort out Snyder. She hoped so. She had to go and find 
Willow. She needed her best friend. Now, more than ever.
She turned and left. Miserable, but with no regrets.

*

"Oh god!" Willow screamed in agony as energy rippled over her.
"What's happening?" Giles cried out over the whistling of 
preturnatural wind. Rapidly fluctuating weather patterns were 
something you least expected to come across inside a hospital ward.
"The spell went wrong... I guess I failed to summon Angel's soul!" 
Willow bit her lip, then screamed again, helplessly, as once more 
irridescent energy washed over her. Then all the lights went out.
Except it wasn't dark. The room was lit by the bright light 
emanating from the Orb of Thesulah. It was beautiful and mesmerising. 
It exploded.

*

Giles sat beside Buffy's hospital bed and cried. Here, alone and 
helpless, he could finally allow himself to cry. Stiff upper-lip be 
bolloxed. Buffy wasn't physically injured. What physical bruising 
she'd received fighting Angeles had faded before she'd even arrived 
at the hospital; But she'd had to be sedated when she'd lost all 
control at the news of Willow's death. Or possible death. Xander was 
in a critical condition and being looked after in Intensive Care. 
Shards of metal from Willow's bed had punctured a lung in the 
explosion. He was in bad shape, but under observation and stable. For 
whatever that meant.
Joyce and Sheila were both on their way, although Xander's white-
trash parents didn't really give a damn. Bastards.
Willow. Oh god, Willow. Giles broke down once more and grieved for 
a young woman who'd become almost like a daughter to him. Gone, 
erased in a moment of dark magic and fire. Vanished without a trace.

*

She awoke to the warmth of the dawn. Almost by instinct the air-sac 
at the base of her syrinx contracted and she joined the dawn chorus. 
The breeze picked up, riffling the smallest, most delicate feathers 
that cloaked her elongated fingers. She lifted her stubby arms to the 
open skies, revelling in the joy that suffused her when the breeze 
caught her blue-tipped wings. She launched herself into flight.
Sounds rushed unfiltered through her mind. The rustle of leaves, 
the rush of a creek over three miles away. The steady roar of her 
heart which pumped highly oxygenated blood to her extremities and 
feather-stems as it managed over one hundred and eighty beats per 
minute.
She tried to laugh, to cry, to scream, but to no avail. Flickers of 
memory came to her in meaningless collage. She couldn't seem to think 
properly. Her overly-rounded eyes narrowed as she caught sight of a 
road maybe twelve miles away across the forest. She slowly banked and 
headed in that direction.
Cars! She remembered cars. Cars used roads. Why couldn't she think 
properly? What was she doing here? Her wings beat faster as she 
hovered. Soon she would need to hunt, to find food. But she felt 
there was a journey for her to begin. She could see the path in her 
mind as clearly as if it were really there. She could sense it, feel 
it. So she began to follow it.
Willow began to *home*.

*

Terry Jennsen swallowed a mouthful of beer as he drove his pickup 
along I-90. A real 'good old boy', he'd just finished a drinking 
session with some drinking buddies over at Arthur's bar, and now he 
was just a-followin' the road back home. One hand gripped the wheel, 
the other nursed a Bud.
Not completely drunk, he kept a periodic check on the rear-view. 
You never knew when some State trooper might take it into his head to 
creep up on you; hammer you with the tea-total fist of Justice. And 
that's how he became the first person to witness the breath-takingly 
wondrous angel; the naked red-head with gossamer-white wings flying 
carefree in parallel to the Interstate. It might have made him 
famous, if he hadn't doubted his own eyes and continued home to sleep 
it off.

*

Buffy considered leaving Sunnydale. It wasn't the first time the 
thought had occurred to her. The same thoughts had flitted through 
her mind that time she'd learned the Master was going to kill her. 
She'd had a sudden nearly-irresistable urge to flee. But she hadn't 
the strength to leave her mother all alone. Not like that. So she 
found the strength to fight the impulse and do her duty.
Could she now?
"Oh Willow, where are you? Are you still alive?"

*

Giles sank into his rather uncomfortable wicker reading-chair, and 
rubbed ineffectively at his eyes. For company, he turned on the TV 
and saw Willow. At first he didn't understand, or believe, what it 
was he was seeing. Flicking channels, every channel showed the same 
image. An Angel in the skies.
With trembling fingers, he phoned Buffy.

*

"...is KTTS coming to you live..."
"...unable to believe..."
"...sign from Heaven, praise..."
"...appears to be a young woman, maybe in her late 'teens or early 
twenties with red hair and white wings. And boy, can she fly! The 
pilot informs me the helicopter is travelling at its maximum speed of 
just over one hundred forty miles per hour, and even so we're 
beginning to lose ground..."
"... hasn't deviated from her course since she was first spotted..."
Buffy stopped channel hopping at the first channel with a close-up 
of the angel's face. Tears blurred her eyes, and faintly she 
recognised Giles voice coming from the receiver which still lay on 
the floor where she'd dropped it.
"Its really her," she said.

*

Could anything feel more wonderful than this? Sun coated her whole 
body like a glove, yet the frigid air made her skin tingle as she 
increased her speed once more. She was going home, home to where she 
belonged, to where she was loved.
She was going home to Buffy.

*

Xander caught a glimpse of her her before I did which annoyed the 
hell out of me. I couldn't see her clearly through my tears. How 
could I possibly describe how I felt? Only a few days ago we'd buried 
her, or rather an empty cascet representing her, yet now here she 
came held aloft on impossible white wings that glowed in the noonday 
sun. I was breathless and a little in awe. And she was moving so 
*fast*.
I ran a few yards forward then stopped. Did she know how I felt? 
Could she? Was she still the same Willow despite this miraculous 
alteration? Would she still know me? Or was this some sick joked 
visited upon me by the Powers That Be?
Whatever jumble of thoughts were in my mind, whatever madness lay 
upon me, everything dissolved away in a moment of sheer panic as she 
dove straight down towards me, arms extended, and quite literally 
swept me off my feet.
Somewhere down below, Xander shouted after us, but I couldn't hear 
his words. The rush of wind as we spiralled into the air prevented me 
from hearing anything at all and I couldn't care less.
"Willow?" My voice startled her and she dropped momentarily 
groundwards causing me to scream in terror. She gripped tighter, and 
slowed herself so that she landed nimbly within Sunnydale's Parkside 
cemetery; one of the smaller graveyards on my patrol.
She looked at me quizzically, and for a moment she seemed to be 
*my* Willow once more, but everything about her was wrong. She cocked 
her head and let out a cry. A bird's cry.
"Oh Willow, what happened to you?" I put a hand to her cheek and it 
was warm. Very warm, as though she were fevered. She leaned into the 
caress and kissed my hand. Startled, I pulled my hand back and Willow 
stepped forward so that our noses were almost touching. And then she 
kissed me.
How stupid I must have looked, standing there with my mouth open to 
her invading tongue, eyes widening in shock. I pulled back again, and 
she continued to watch me.
"Willow? Are you..."
Again the avian screech, but with it was a smile and she nodded. I 
hugged her. Hugged her, and felt my world collapse around me. That, 
and the feathers lining her fingers tickling my cheek, drove me to 
hysterics.
"Oh Willow."

*

Helicopters hovered over Sunnydale as I sat with Willow in my room. 
I'd taken my mother's less-valued dressing-gown and slit the back 
with a handy axe. I helped Willow to dress although she didn't seem 
to care much for clothes; The cold held no meaning for her anymore. 
But the feelings that ran through me from seeing Willow unclothed, an 
*angel* unclothed... I felt the flush creep past my neckline and I 
had to turn my head away to hide my embarrassment.
Willow still hadn't spoken since our reunion. I figured that 
whatever transformation had changed her body had also stolen her 
ability to speak. I knew she could understand what I was saying 
though, because she obeyed my few commands without pause. She looked 
beautiful, and I cried for her.
My tears confused her, as if she'd never seen tears before. She 
came closer to stare at them, watching as they ran down my cheeks. 
She licked at them dartingly, and my gasp of surprise made her jet 
backwards and extend her wings for balance. Wings that beat 
powerfully a few times before stopping. My bedroom was now a 
windblown mess. A noisy, windblown mess.
My mother ran in to find us like that. Me, standing in the corner 
sobbing away, and an angelic Willow with her eyes clamped shut, clad 
in the ruins of a dressing gown, standing in the centre of a 
maelstrom.
Her reaction was not what I predicted. She laughed; an unexpected 
bark of laughter that made Willow open one eye comically. I couldn't 
help but join in the laughter. I was again hysterical; The world had 
just become crazier. My world had changed forever.

*

"Do you want more milk, Willow?" My mother, always the level-headed 
one in times of stress, had figured that Willow might be hungry after 
her long flight. So she'd led us both down to the kitchen where she 
fixed a 'snack'. For the uninitiated, my mother's snacks are 
legendary. They tend not to fit on a table, but instead orbit on 
various counters and worktops and work their way inwards as though 
those who eat here were gastronomic black holes.
Willow seemed to want only two things; milk and cucumber. She was 
on her second carton of milk by now and had an amusing dab of white 
on the end of her nose. I giggled, and tears once more cascaded down 
my cheeks.
Summers' women can be hard as nails when circumstances require. I 
rarely cry at death. Hell, as the Slayer, I'd never stop. But shove 
us in front of a weepy movie and you'd better ensure the Kleenex 
container are well-stocked.
Once again Willow stopped what she was doing to stare at my tears. 
And once again she came over to lick at them, which both mortified me 
and amused my mother.
"Er, Willow?" I tried to gently push her away, but instead ended up 
in a hug.
"She really likes you," came my mother's dry comment. "Or maybe, its 
the salt?"
I didn't answer. My mouth had Willow's tongue in it.
"No, I think its just that she likes you."
"Mmmph!"

*

Mom came to the rescue by taking Willow's hand and leading her back 
up the stairs to the shower. I followed her, my thoughts a whirlwind 
in my head. At the top of the stairs, my mother stood guard outside 
the bathroom with her arms crossed. She firmly pointed me in the 
direction of my bedroom, so I reluctantly went and sat down at the 
end of my bed. Then it occurred to me that Giles and Xander were 
still waiting to hear from me. No doubt Xander would have told Giles 
about my rapid departure. Gods, he must be worried sick!
"Hello?" Giles answered halfway through the first ring.
"Hi Giles." I answered, unsure of what to say.
"She's with you? Now? At home?" He sounded excited, not worried.
"Oh yeah, she's here."
"Shall I come over?" I could just feel him champing at the bit.
"Not a good idea." Especially not while she's naked in the 
shower. "I'll smuggle her over to the library after school tomorrow."
"Oh." I could just see him cleaning his glasses in a disappointed 
way. "Sure. After school, then."
He hung up, and as I turned around, I saw my mother creasing up in 
laughter again in the hallway. So I went to take a peek.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Take a look and see."
I stared around the bathroom door and watched Willow playing with 
the shower. The shower head was dangling from its cord, spraying the 
whole bathroom in lukewarm water as Willow danced about.
"Um?" I asked.
"I don't think she's seen a shower before." my mother said.
How much of *my* Willow was still in there?

*

"Are you two okay to sleep like that?" My mother's frown didn't pass 
unnoticed. Willow, it seemed, would only settle down to sleep if she 
could lie supine on her front with her wings slightly unfurled. So I 
let her have my bed, and I lay on the floor.
"We'll be fine, mum." I replied, feeling the uncomfortable bumpy 
carpet under my back. My mother nodded and closed the door behind 
her. I stared at the ceiling and concentrated on my breathing, trying 
to let my mind empty. This proved to be rather difficult, as Willow 
chose that moment to land on top of me.
"Willow!" I whispered loudly. I could well imagine what would happen 
if my mother saw us like this together, especially after the kissing 
earlier.
Willow trilled, lightly, and laid her head next to mine. And once 
again I felt her curious warmth as her hands explored my body, 
squeezing my breasts...
"Willow!" I gasped, I couldn't help it. Her touch felt so good, too 
good. Willow's mouth found mine once more, and suddenly I had no 
resistance left to give. I succumbed to the pleasure she gave.

*

When I awoke, Willow was gone. I panicked and rushed madly through 
the house; no sign of her. My mother had already left for work. I 
wondered vaguely whether she'd have taken Willow with her, but wrote 
that off as an insane thought. I was just about to give up and call 
Giles when I heard a noise coming from my bedroom. I rushed in.
The noise, I discovered, had come from my wardrobe. My wardrobe 
which now, as well as my clothes, contained a crouching Willow and 
two, small, baby-sized eggs. I think that's when I fainted.

*

Giles arrived with remarkable alacrity. He seemed excited and 
worried at the same time, which manifested itself in manic eyebrow 
movement.
"She's oviparous!" he explained without actually being 
meaningful. "That's why she has no breasts!"
"In English?" I asked, bemused.
"She has no breasts because she raises her young from an egg," Giles 
elaborated.
"Oh." There was that thought again. "Baby Willows?" I asked.
Giles nodded. "Baby angels," he confirmed.
"Oh." Words failed me. "I'm going to be a mother?"

*

END.