Work Text:
If He's Yours
by Lucinda
Willow blinked as someone knocked on her bedroom door. Nobody knocked on her door. Well, maybe Xander if there was something causing trouble on the homework. And Angel had that once, when he was worried about Ford... but it was daylight.
"Willow, come on and open the door already!" Buffy's impatient voice carried into the room.
Making her way to the door, Willow wondered why on earth Buffy had shown up at her house. She peered through the gauzy white curtain, seeing no blood or any other suggestion of serious injury. Puzzled, she undid the chain lock and turned the handle, "Buffy? What's going on?"
"You have to help me figure it out, I don't know what to do!" the blonde's voice wasn't quite a wail, and she half turned to fall back onto Willow's bed.
"Figure what out?" Willow blinked, suddenly glad that her parents were on a trip to San Diego. Buffy was many things, but quiet and easily ignored wasn't on that list.
One hand picked up a pillow, holding it against Buffy's lavender sweater. "I found him, but he's not himself. I don't think he knows who I am, and he hasn't said anything. I'm not asking for serenades, or poetry, but can't a guy say hi? Maybe a couple compliments here and there?"
"The occasional compliment would be nice," Willow agreed, trying to figure out what Buffy was talking about. While Scott Hope had never flirted with her, well just that once to get her to help him study for the big math test in eighth grade, but not for real, because she was Willow, after all... Scott normally offered plenty of compliments when he was dating someone, or trying to date them.
The pillow was being crushed with Slayer strength as Buffy kept complaining, "and it's not like it would kill him to say thanks either. If I hadn't found him, something horrible could have happened. He wasn't himself, I had to take him back home and everything. He should be glad that I was there, and he hadn't said anything! He didn't even ask me where the key was."
Blinking, Willow decided that Buffy couldn't be talking about Scott. If he'd been injured, then Buffy would have taken him to a hospital, not home. Right? And what was she talking about a key for anyhow?
"And it's not like the chains are that big of a deal! He had them in there already, so it's obviously not a problem for him. Though really, chains are a bit too kinky for this girl. I'm just waiting for him to ask me to let him out..."
Willow's confused thoughts came to a jarring halt at those words. Chains? there already? Waiting to let him out? Obviously, Buffy didn't mean Scott Hope. But that meant, "Whaa?"
"You have to help me sort this out! It's just getting too hard to keep going, to keep pretending everything's okay when it is so not okay," Buffy sat up, looking at Willow. "I can't ask anyone else
about this."
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Willow insisted. "Who do you have chained up in his own house?"
"Angel, of course," Buffy snorted, as if there was no other possibility.
Willow could only blink. Wasn't Angel in hell? Hadn't that been the whole reason why Buffy had run away, away from her duty, from her friends, from her mom? And people just didn't come back from getting sent to hell, it wasn't, couldn't be that easy. Besides, if he had come back, who was to say it would be Angel and not Angelus? No, he couldn't have just popped back, and Buffy would have warned them, would have said something...
"I chained him up in the mansion. I found him on patrol a last week, and I didn't know what to do. But you can help me, right?" Buffy leaned forward, her eyes wide and full of need and the confidence that Willow would come through, solve the problem for her.
Again.
Regardless of the danger, or the cost. Buffy thought Willow could take care of everything. She hadn't even bothered to tell her that Angel - if it was really Angel - was back. Not until she decided it was too stressful and she couldn't handle things alone. She wanted Willow to fix things.
"Damn it, Buffy! How could you do this? You found him on patrol last week, did you bother to tell me, tell Giles? Did you make sure that he's really Angel and not Angelus? Are you sure he's not crazy and evil and planning to kill us all?" Willow glared at Buffy, anger boiling inside her, her head pounding and her palms hot and damp. "Angelus tortured Giles, he almost killed me. You should have told us that he might be back, let us help find a way to be sure who you found. But you didn't tell us, didn't warn us. You just want me to deal with him so you don't have to handle the stress anymore?!?"
"I..." Buffy gaped, her eyes wide. "Willow, you..."
"You keep saying that he's your true love, that he's your soul mate. If you love him half as much as you say you do, helping him shouldn't be a burden. If you care for the rest of us at all, you should have told us that you found him, told us about your concerns. We could have helped you from the start, and maybe helped him as well. Now, you're telling me that you've been keeping the person you claim to love chained up for a week? Have you been making sure he had something to eat? That he's out of the range of the windows? If he came out of hell, have you done anything to make sure he knows you aren't just another tormentor playing with him?" Willow's angry words spilled out.
She couldn't feel sorry for Buffy as each word made the Slayer's eyes wider, as Buffy's face paled. When she mentioned hell's tormentors, Buffy flinched, and tears started to roll down her cheeks.
"But... Willow, I'm not a demon! I just... I wanted to keep you safe," Buffy protested.
"I live in Sunnydale, that's not safe. I've been on patrol with you three times in the last week, that's not really safe. You just meant that you didn't want anyone trying to tell you what to do about Angel. You've railed against your calling as a Slayer for as long as I've known you, don't you dare try to claim that it's your job to fight and we should let you go alone. Don't you dare. We've all suffered and paid too much because we chose to help you, and because you chose to get involved with Angel so that he could fight with you, beside you. Don't you dare tell me that you didn't tell me because you didn't want to hurt me," Willow glared at Buffy.
Buffy wilted, her eyes falling to her knees as she clutched the pillow tighter, "I just don't know what to do with him anymore."
Willow shook her head, and sighed, "First, you're going to go tell Giles everything about how you found him, and anything that might help us figure out if he's Angel instead of Angelus, and if he's still sane. While you do that, I'll... wait, Buffy, how did he look when you found him? Was he injured?"
"Yeah, he was injured. He had all these burns and long, narrow cuts. I think he'd lost weight too," Buffy whispered.
"And how much blood has he had since then?" Willow demanded.
"I've taken him a couple packets every few days," Buffy protested. "That's what he was... eating... before."
"Does he seem to be doing better now?" Willow pressed.
"ummm..." Buffy stared at her knee, mumbling something that Willow couldn't decipher.
"You aren't feeding him enough for him to heal. You have him chained up, injured, hungry, and mostly alone. Why would anyone thank you?"
"Oh my God..." Buffy looked up, her eyes darkening and her jaw dropping. "But... But before, he never seemed to..."
"Just because he wasn't drinking blood in front of you doesn't mean he wasn't drinking blood. He probably wanted to spend his time with you being with you, like you'd rather spend your time with him instead of having pizza that he couldn't share. How much and how often do the vampires you hunt feed? And it takes more to heal than to maintain," Willow shook her head. Buffy wasn't dumb but why didn't she think more often? Why did she live up to the blonde stereotype so often?
Buffy dropped the pillow and darted for the door, something about Giles and talking emerging as she fumbled with the doorknob.
And Willow was alone in her bedroom again.
"I wouldn't be saying 'thanks' either with care like that," she whispered. "And if he's Angel, if he's anywhere close to sane, I don't know if he'll still love her after care like that."
For the first time, she was glad that she didn't have someone like Buffy loving her. She was glad of the quiet caring that she shared with Oz, though she hoped that it would grow stronger. And she found herself wondering yet again just why everyone came to her with their problems and not their joys.
Dragging out her shoes, she decided that she would go to Willie's. If the vampire was really Angel, he'd need more blood than Buffy had been giving him, and she wasn't about to give him someone to drink. And maybe she could sort out answers where Buffy hadn't found anything.
Angel didn't deserve to suffer more because of Buffy. And if he was Angelus, she'd stake him herself.
She didn't even realize that this was why her friends came to her with their problems again and again.
end If He's Yours