- Just When He Thought It was Over-

It was right when Angel felt that he couldn't go on when it happened. Something suddenly changed. The alley was now all but empty. The hordes of demons disappeared and all that was left were the bodies of his friends.

Gunn had his chest ripped out and was lying in a heap not far from where they had started fighting. Illyria had gotten farther down the alley than Angel had but it was on the ground face down and not moving. Spike had been fighting side by side with Angel 'til almost the end when Angel saw him get hit by a blast of green light. Spike was lying on his back, staring at the sky, looking dead. But he wasn't dust so Angel had at least a little hope for him.

Then Angel looked around to see who or what was responsible for ending the carnage. And he found, at the end of the alley, a woman with long white hair who upon looking closer turned out to be Willow. Her hair was turning back to red now and she was walking towards him with a grave look on her face.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner." Then she was on her knees next to Spike, hands on his chest.

Angel didn't know what she was doing, but he hoped it was going to make Spike better. Spike may have been a pain in the ass for the last year but when the chips were down, he could always be counted upon. Angel wanted him to be okay. He wanted to finish arguing with him about over who would win in a fight cavemen or astronauts. Because now he had an argument that just might work, at least in part.

Minutes ticked by like hours.

They went to the Hyperion. They laid Spike out in one room and Illyria out in another, neither of them having woken up.

Willow cleaned the place up better than new with just a few chanted words in Latin and Angel was glad that he never stopped paying the bills there and the electricity worked. Willow dealt with the police and Gunn's body. She also claimed Wesley's body a few days later. She made funeral arrangements for both of them, kindly for at night so that he could be there.

Angel mostly held vigil at Spike's side. If it weren't for Willow bringing him blood he wouldn't drink it. She also had set up an IV drip of blood for Spike so that he wouldn't emaciate while he was stuck in this… stasis… mystical coma… whatever it was.

He knew that Willow was researching into why Spike was still unconscious, and he left her to it. She was good at research and Angel couldn't bring himself to look at a book… not with Wesley's death being so fresh. He at least told her what he knew about the green light, which wasn't much but it was better than nothing. He hoped she found something soon.

Angel wasn't particularly kind to Willow. In his eyes things wouldn't have turned out so horribly bad if she had shown up earlier. How much earlier he wanted her to show up depended on the day. Sometimes he wished she had shown up early enough to save Fred. Other times he knew that Fred's death was inevitable and he wished that she had shown up at least early enough to save Wesley and Gunn.

She never asked him what he was thinking and he didn't offer to tell her.

At first she had tried a couple of general spells on Spike that she hoped would bring him around, but they had failed so she was looking for something more specific.

He wondered if Spike was dreaming, or if this coma was silent and black. And if he was dreaming, what was he dreaming about? Every day when he showed up in the room he would ask Spike what he was thinking, but Angel never got an answer.

Things were starting to feel entirely way to unreal to Angel. He was certain that he could walk in the sunlight and not be harmed and he was certain that if he just concentrated hard enough that he could put his hand through his mug of blood like it wasn't even there. He was thinking way too long and hard on the deaths of his friends and Spike's stasis. It was all beginning to feel like a dream or more accurately a nightmare. So the rules of reality didn't apply to him at the moment. Of course they didn't because in no reality would he ever do something so foolish that it would get all his friends killed.

This had to be a nightmare.

But the heat of the blood on his tongue told him it wasn't. This was real and reality was that he had taken all his friends to Wolfram & Hart and now they were all dead. And Spike who had shown up out of the blue was now in a mystical coma that seemed more and more with each passing day like he wasn't going to wake up from it. Whether Angel liked to admit it or not, Spike was a champion and this was no way for a champion to end up.

Suddenly, Angel couldn't look at Spike anymore and he left the room. For the first time since laying it out he checked on Illyria. It looked like Willow had cleaned Illyria up, just like she had done with Spike.

He wondered if Illyria had gotten hit with the same green light that Spike had or if it was dead. The old ones didn't die like the rest of the world did. He wondered if they really died at all or if they just hibernated. If Illyria didn't wake up soon it was going back to the Deeper Well.

Months passed and nothing changed. Spike was still unconscious and Illyria hadn't moved either. The only difference was now he was looking into the causes as well as Willow. He was utilizing every contact he had ever made, and he was making some new ones in hopes to find some kind of cure for Spike. He didn't really care about Illyria. Most of him hoped that it didn't wake up and he could return it to the Deeper Well.

It was the middle of the day and he was stuck inside doing nothing. The books they had had been exhausted a while ago. And he could no longer just sit next to Spike's inanimate side doing nothing but hope. So he was pacing the lobby. Not that worked out much better.

Willow was out. She was meeting with a mystic halfway around the globe in hopes of finding an answer.

It never occurred to Angel to wonder why Buffy or Giles or Xander never bothered to look for Willow. Those three never even crossed his mind. Instead he wondered if Wesley got to go to heaven or if Gunn was hanging out with his sister. He wondered if Fred's soul was truly destroyed by the rebirth of Illyria. He hoped that all the fallen had found peace. Even if Fred was truly no more he figured that was better than some of the alternatives. Being nothing wasn't going to hurt her any. It wasn't like she was in hell. And for that he was grateful.

When Willow came bursting through the doors, at first Angel thought that something was after her, but then he saw the smile on her face.

"I think I got the answer," she said.

The answer was an ancient spell that was very specific. The mystic that Willow went to see speculated that the green light Angel saw hit Spike could only have been from a Draflinion Mage something that hadn't been seen in this dimension for… well a really long time.

The spell worked on Spike but not on Illyria telling Angel that Illyria was for all intents and purposes dead.

Spike's depression had him drinking himself into oblivion for about a week, but when he came out of it he and Angel made arrangements to get to England and the Deeper Well with Illyria's body. Willow insisted on coming along which went fine for about three days.

Until Spike could no longer hold his tongue. "Where the hell were you when we needed you?" he seethed at Willow.

Willow didn't even flinch. "No one called me. I didn't know about anything until I felt the dimensional shift and then it took me a little while to pinpoint where the disruption was. Or I would have been there sooner. No one called me."

"We called you," Spike protested. "When Fred was dying we called you."

"You called Giles," Willow corrected. "No one called me or I would have come. I don't think there was anything I could have done but I would have come."

"Oh really?"

"Yes really." Willow stood toe to toe with Spike and didn't back down.

Angel watched and listened. This was the first he had heard any of this. He hadn't wanted to ask why she had been absent when Fred was dying. He was afraid he wouldn't like the answer. And he didn't. Now he had a whole new set of what ifs in his head about that because it had never occurred to him to call Willow directly. He took Giles's word for it that she was "unavailable."

"Well okay then," Spike conceded backing off. "I guess I should thank you for waking me up."

"You're welcome."

Spike stayed with Illyria's coffin for most of the really long sea voyage and Willow split her time between quietly sitting with Spike and quietly sitting with Angel. None of them spoke much. Willow made trips to get fresh blood for them when they ran out being that she could teleport to get the stuff. She just wasn't able to teleport all of them to the Deeper Well or she would have already done that. So they were stuck with the long sea voyage.

It was shortly before dawn and Angel was on deck alone waiting for Willow to get back, when Spike approached him. He had been looking out at the ocean and thinking about how small the world really was. When he tried to suck it into hell with Acathla would Acathla stopped with just the world or would the demon have sucked the entire dimension into hell?

"Penny for 'em," Spike said leaning against the railing next to him.

And for the first time since the battle Angel felt like sharing some of his thoughts.

-Beginning Bliss-

The three of them had been traveling together ever since Willow had brought Spike around from his stasis and they took Illyria back to the Deeper Well. They didn't always get along, but they had gotten as close as three people can get without actually having sex. However, the sexual tension was thick and Willow was worried about it snapping one day. So she had been on a mission to find a way around the happiness clause in Angel's curse. This was a selfishly motivated goal for the most part, but she figured Angel wouldn't argue.

It took her months to finally figure out the solution, but when it finally hit her, she felt like a moron for not having seen it sooner. If she wanted to anchor Angel's soul and make it permanent there was an easy way to do it. She would just attach it to another soul. It took her a week of searching and a little disappointment that she couldn't attach Angel's soul to Spike's, but she found just the right ritual. Still it was at least a temporary fix.

"Hey, Angel," Willow said as she joined him and Spike at the cafe below their apartment in Venice. "Wanna marry me?"

Angel started to gag on his coffee. "What?"

Spike was laughing and slapping Angel on the back. Willow grinned and supposed that the ice was broken. "I found a way to make your soul fairly permanent. Or at least permanent until I die. So how about it... wanna marry me?"

Looking a little better, but still unsure, Angel said, "I think you need to explain things a little more."

"You're taking all the fun out of it. A beautiful girl just proposed to you. The only thing to do is accept graciously," Spike said, which earned him a glare from Angel and a smile from Willow.

However, Angel just waited for Willow to explain herself.

"At first I thought about bonding your soul to Spike's, but I haven't been about to find anything to allow for a demon to demon bond like that. However, I was able to find a demon to human marriage ritual that binds the souls of both together that should do the trick. If your soul is connected to mine then it isn't going to go anywhere. And the connection dissolves in the case of death, so there isn't any danger. So come on... wanna marry me?" Willow asked yet again.

"Are you sure this is going to work?"

"Positive!"

"Then okay. Let's get married." Angel finally smiled.

Willow turned to Spike. "Would you perform the ritual on us?"

"Just tell me what I have to do, Red." Spike figured it was about damn time. If they hadn't found a solution soon and got this sexual tension taken care of then he was going to explode because Willow wasn't going to have sex with one when she couldn't have sex with both. So he was all for this idea. His own research had been coming up with nothing. "So when are we going to do this?"

"As soon as possible, I would think." Willow's face was so bright that both men found themselves smiling back at her.

"Is this marriage ritual difficult?" Angel asked.

"Not at all."

"Good," Spike said, relieved. "What all do I have to do?"

"Say a few words and anoint us with some rose oil."

"That's all?"

"Rose oil is really expensive. I got this tiny little bottle and it cost over 350... so don't say "that's all" like that. It's plenty."

"Are the words difficult?" Spike asked.

"Depends on how well you speak J'lyptian. The good news is that I have it all spelled out phonetically in the English alphabet for you, so it shouldn't be too difficult."

"Let me guess... you already thought of everything." Angel said to Willow.

"I sure hope so. I've been going over this thing for over a week." Willow took a sip of Spike's coffee because he liked his with cream and sugar which was much closer to her tastes than Angel's black coffee. "So shall we go upstairs and get the show on the road? This marriage ritual isn't going to perform itself you know."

The three of them headed upstairs to their apartment and Willow showed them that everything was already set up in the living room.

When the ritual was over all that was left was to test it out. To see if Angel's soul was really anchored to Willow's, and there was really only one way to do that, so Angel started to kiss Willow.

Spike who didn't want to be left out pulled Angel's shirt off him and started to kiss the other vampire up the back. Willow, who was prepared for all this, took her dress off and was completely naked underneath.

Angel's hands were caressing her skin, down her shoulders over her breasts. "I love how soft your skin is," he said.

She just kissed him deeply, while undoing his belt buckle.

Soon the three of them were all naked and laying on the floor of their living room, surrounded by pillows. They took turns making love to each other and it was all fine. There were no souls lost and nothing terrible happened (unless you count getting candle wax on a pillow terrible). And that was the true beginnings of their bliss.

It was too bad that trouble was lurking right around the corner.

Fine

-Dystopia/Utopia-

Willow was looking through her journal, back on the time not long after the Cleveland Hellmouth had erupted and there had been no one there to stop it. The multitudes of Slayers had all died off by then and only one was being called at a time again – and she'd been on the other side of the planet trying to keep a village from being overrun by Hellions at the time.

Spike, Angel, and Willow had been up to their necks in myglorgian breeders in South America and hadn't even known that the Hellmouth had been in danger of opening.

No one had seen it coming.

I wish I had better news, but cell phones stopped working today and the land lines have been dead for months. Long distance communication is pretty much a lost cause. Society was already breaking down. This is a blow that's going to be felt worldwide, but the only reactions we'll see are the ones in our immediate vicinity.

There were other entries that weren't quite so depressing.

Our hair just continues to get longer and longer. The boys ran out of razors and have been using knives to shave with. Some of the cuts have been brutal. I gave up shaving a long time ago. My boys don't seem to mind. At least my hair is light, so it doesn't look too bad.

She flipped ahead a little ways, looking for when they'd found their tribe – the people that had accepted them and hadn't tried to kill them from go.

Great news... we were able to find people that we can fight for that don't want to kill us off. Spike, Angel, and I have been wandering around for so long that we were beginning to think that we would never find a place to belong again. Perhaps people are finally far enough removed from the way it used to be that magic is no longer the worst of all evils to them. We were almost accepted because we saved one of the children from a big spiny demon. They called the demon a noth. We've never seen them before, but we've never traveled this far north before either. None of these people know what vampires are. I'm beginning to think that vampires have become rare with their food source all but extinct. Angel and Spike feed from me and have for a really long time now. Bloodletting has never killed me before. So far we haven't found anything that has been able to kill me, though we haven't exactly been looking for a way to do it, either. We will continue to protect these people and help them hunt for food until they accept us. If we offer assistance they will surely take us in.

Willow thought about the fact that people didn't speak English anymore and none of them could read. The only paper they had ever seen was her journal, and those glimpses were rare. Willow guarded her journal carefully and made sure that nothing happened to it.

I want to go into the ruins of one of the cities sometime and see if there are any books that would help us get along better, but Angel and Spike won't let me. They tell me that I'm much too needed here, but I know that they are really worried that I would never come back, devoured by some horrible demon. Some demons are bigger than what I remember of dinosaur skeletons. There is little we can do to fight against them. That is why we stick close to caves where we can hide. Sometimes if I'm strong enough, I can cause enough damage to get them to go away, but we've never successfully killed one.

Spike curled up behind her while she read. They were avoiding the sun. She didn't need to, but she kept the same hours as her boys and didn't like to stray far from them. Angel was lying with his arm around her waist.

I wear the skin of the demons I've killed, as do Angel and Spike. Our tribe wears clothes made out of animal skins mostly. Only the fiercest of the warriors have any demon in their clothing. The world has completely reverted back to the primitive ways of hunters and gatherers. Angel, Spike, and I are always hailed for our bravery and get the nicest of the spoils. I made a comb out of bone. It's nice to be able to slide my fingers through my hair again. There aren't even stories about the time when technology ruled the Earth unless one of the three of us tells the tale. To them that kind of world is unimaginable. They like hearing about the men on the moon.

She carefully wrapped her book in the folds of an oiled deerskin. There were no pages left that she could write on, and even if there had been, there was nothing gentle enough to write with. The cave walls were filled with her etchings. One day she would teach someone English and teach them how to read. But not today. Not today.

She curled up next to Spike because he was awake and she needed to be with someone because otherwise the long years of life would weigh her down. Sometimes it felt like the world the way it used to be had happened only in her dreams. The only proofs that it was real were her journal and her constant companions. Though if she ever got to, she could roam into the ruined cities and see the collapsed buildings and the useless autos for herself. That would be proof too. But where they were now, it was all forest, mountains, and caves. They lived off the land and the idea of chocolate was a fairytale.

They didn't have to share their cave with the others, but voices traveled and so the three of them spoke English to each other on a regular basis. It was partly for privacy, but partly because none of them wanted to forget.

"Did you find what you after in your book, pet?" Spike asked her in a whisper.

"Yes and no. I just don't want to forget, and I only wrote down the broad strokes. There were no details. I'm starting to forget the details. Like do you remember the tribal elder's name? The one from when we were first accepted into the tribe?" she asked.

"Fillian wasn't it?" Spike asked, sounding a little unsure.

"I thought it was closer to Philip than that." She bit down on her lower lip in thought.

Angel rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow. "Her name was Philipian and she wasn't real keen on us at first. Remember?"

"She didn't like any strangers. The last set of strangers that had come through had put on a nice face but then robbed them blind in the night," Spike said, grabbing Angel's hand and pulling him closer to them.

"Even after saving Loreena, we had to gradually make friends with the tribe," Willow put in. "We spent months on the outside offering food and protection before they finally let us spend time within the camp."

Angel kissed both Spike's and Willow's foreheads and settled with his arm draped across both of them. "What finally did it was helping to deliver that breech baby."

"Oh yeah," Willow smiled. "I almost forgot about that. Didn't they name the baby after one of us?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "We had a little Spike junior running around for about thirty years or so. Annoying git he was."

"You just didn't like having a shadow," Angel teased.

"We've all had shadows over the years," Spike pointed out. "I believe one of yours wanted to feed you like Willow did."

"I'm sure that would have went over real well with the rest of the tribe," Angel said, dripping with sarcasm. "I would have been staked out for the sun."

"She was princess if I remember correctly." Spike ruffled Angel's hair.

"An ythen, yes," Willow chuckled. "I thought for sure we were going to get kicked out of the tribe for some reason or other over that."

Angel shook his head. "No way, we were too useful at that point."

Willow noticed that the line for the sun was at its farthest point. "That's odd."

"What's odd?" Spike asked, starting to nibble on her fingers.

"No one's come to bring me my water or food yet."

Angel sat up and looked at the cave entrance. "You're right. They should have been here already with your breakfast."

"I'm going to go check on what's keeping them. Last time this happened it was simply a disagreement and it was settled when I worked a little magic." Willow stood up and let the animal fur that had been covering her fall to the ground. She walked over to the pile of clothes and donned her black leggings, and her dark red tunic. She put on her moccasin boots and headed out of the cave. It was still too light out for the boys to come with her.

"Be careful!" Angel called after her.

And Spike called, "Bring back some nice meat."

She walked down the path and was at the area used to cook meals in a matter of minutes. There was no one there. There was a fire going but there was no one tending it. The meat was still hanging in the trees waiting to be cooked.

That was when she heard it: a warrior's cry from deep in the woods. Armed with nothing but her magic, she ran in the direction of the cry, underbrush whipping at her as she rushed through.

When she arrived at the scene, she was nearly winded. All of the warriors and hunters of the tribe were there fighting off a demon the size of an elephant. It had two horns sticking out of its exoskeleton skull and quills all along its back.

Willow didn't think any of their weapons were going to penetrate the hide of the beast, and she feared for her tribe. This demon was new. It wasn't the normal dronglings or kiplions that roamed these parts. It wasn't even one of the giant lioprods that they had to hide from, or any of the other more tribal demons that mostly left them alone. This beast was far away from its home but was definitely a threat.

She thought quickly about what might work against such a monstrosity and immediately got to chanting. When she was through with the linguistics of the spell, light poured out of her fingers as she pointed them at the monster and his exoskeleton was quickly stripped away, leaving a quivering mass of muscle lying on the forest floor, crying in a mournful wail.

The tribe swiftly swooped in and speared the beast, delivering the killing strokes.

Willow passed out cold from the exertion.

When she woke up she was in the cave she shared with Angel and Spike, covered in many furs. She was overly hot and sweating. She threw the furs aside immediately. "Too hot."

"I told you that was too many furs," Spike complained to Angel.

"But she's usually cold after she's used too much magic," Angel countered, and then turned to Willow. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, Angel, don't fuss." She stretched out sore muscles that hadn't moved in what felt like forever. "How long was I out?"

"It's the middle of the night," Spike said, crouching down next her. "Do you want to take a bath? Or we could go farther up river to the waterfall and shower."

She smiled at him and touched his cheek. "You know me so well. A bath would be fine. We'll shower next time."

"How's the tribe?" she asked as they were walking to the river.

"Trolith didn't make it," Angel informed her softly.

Willow crinkled up her face. "They'll miss him. He was a good storyteller."

While they all felt an attachment to the tribe as a whole, they rarely got attached to individual members anymore. It hurt too much when they died. So while Trolith's death was noticed by all of them, none of them were close enough to really mourn his loss.

"Who spoke over him?" she wanted to know. Funerals happened fast because bodies needed to be buried quickly.

"I did," Spike said. "I figured it was appropriate. I'm the one that first taught him how to throw a punch properly. It seemed fitting that I say something over his body."

Willow nodded. "That makes sense. Was I missed?"

"Yes, but everyone understood why you weren't able to come. His mother could use a visit from you tomorrow. This is her second child to have died. Her daughter died in childbirth last winter, remember?" Angel put an arm around both Willow and Spike.

"I remember. Now she's got a grandson to raise. And she's a little old. It's a good thing the others help out a lot." Willow wrapped an arm around Angel's waist and rested it on Spike's arm.

Willow was grateful that she had no children. There was little chance that they would end up like her and live forever, and she didn't want to see her child die, so she never took on human male lovers. She never wanted to take the risk of getting pregnant. There had been men who had tried to woo her over the years, but she had denied them all. She much preferred the company of Spike and Angel. They understood her in a way the humans could not.

When they reached the river, they all needed a break from the somber tone, and Spike took it upon himself to be the one to break it. "Last one in eats drongling eggs!"

They were a frenzy of ripping off their clothes, with big smiles on their faces, and running for the water. Spike was in first, followed closely by Willow, who said, "Ah, this is cold!" Lastly, Angel dove in, coming up from under the water to splash both Willow and Spike with a big wave.

"Oh you want to play?" Spike asked Angel with a glint in his eye. "We'll play." And then Spike tackled Angel and dragged him under the water.

Willow knew better than to get in between the two of them when they were like this. The last time she'd tried, she'd ended up with a broken wrist. It had taken weeks to heal. But she loved to watch them. So while she adjusted to the temperature of the water, the boys wrestled one another for dominance. It was always a fifty/fifty chance on who would win.

Angel was trying to get Spike into a headlock as Willow dunked her head under the water. When she came back up, Spike was working Angel's arm behind his back. However, she was betting on Angel winning this round since Spike had gotten the best of him last time. She dipped her hair into the water again and scrubbed at her scalp, missing soap like she always did.

The next thing she knew there were hands on her. Four big hands caressing up her body, making her shiver. Her eyes closed as a hand wrapped in her hair and pulled her head back. Lips bruised her lips, demanding that she open to him and she knew that it was Spike. She could feel the difference. Angel was nibbling at her collarbone. Then she was pressed between them while they kissed each other. She liked watching her boys together, but it seemed that they had decided to make her the main focus of this act. However, that didn't mean they were going to ignore each other.

Willow twined her fingers in Angel's hair because he was in front of her, and when his lips were free she placed demanding kisses upon them while Spike's hands glided over her body.

She loved both her boys, and having both of them inside her at once was a pleasure she cherished. They all rocked in a rhythm that spoke of how familiar they were with each other. Like a waterfall, one after the other they tipped over the edge of completeness and held on to each other for a while after that. This was tame compared to some of their sexual exploits, but it wasn't any less treasured for it. And it definitely served to pass time pleasantly – and there was so much time to pass.

With a groan, Angel pulled away from them first. "We should probably get to sentry duty."

"It's been a rough night on the tribe," Willow said. "They could use some rest."

"You two really know how to kill the fun," Spike grumbled even as he was making his way towards the shore.

"There have been rumblings from the Jelethans that they want to take over our territory. They're pretty nocturnal," Angel commented while he walked out of the water.

Spike snorted. "Captain-States-the-Obvious. Most demons are nocturnal for some reason. There is the occasional daywalking demon, but most of them still avoid the sun. You know that just as well as the rest of us."

Angel clenched his jaw. "I was just comparing them to the peaceful, Illwos that live nearby as well. They're out more in the day."

Willow didn't get involved in the conversation. She never took sides. And this wasn't going to cause a divide amongst them. It was simply how Spike and Angel interacted. They spent more time antagonizing one another than anything else. She always imagined that somewhere along the way it translated as affection.

As they made their way to the large cave everyone slept in to post sentry duty, Willow couldn't help but be grateful that she wasn't alone in her eternity. Her daily prayer to the goddess was that her boys never left her. She put an arm around each of their waists and squeezed. "I love you, guys."

"Love you too, Red," Spike said, kissing her on top of her head.

"Forever," said Angel as he squeezed her back.

End.