The Ugly Truth

Blocker





character: Willow
time frame: s1, when we find out that Angel's a vampire

 

She crept home as the first pink rays of dawn were peeking past the horizon. She was glad to escape the eerie silence of the school library; she was afraid of the shadows now, shadows that she was fairly certain were empty, but they scared her all the same - now.

Every sound on the way home made her jump; the footsteps of someone in a Burger King uniform as he made his way to the car in his driveway, the bark of Mr. Bartulzak's new puppy, the rustle of the leaves in the trees. Everything was just too much.

She ran the last hundred yards. When she reached her front door, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. She was safe in her own home at least. She made a quick trip to the bathroom, intending only to run a cool washrag over her face, but the images her mind had created as she read came back to her and she had to run to the toilet. Again. She made it just in time.

When her stomach had stilled, she tiptoed quietly into her bedroom, very careful not to disturb her parents; she didn't want to have to explain herself.

She crawled under the covers of her bed and cried herself to sleep, wrapped in the caccoon of her blankets; soft, warm friends that had seen her through many a sleepless night or fitful slumber filled with unsettling dreams.

When she woke, she wiped away the tears that she had shed in her sleep, pulled her diary out from its hiding place inside her Dressy Bessie doll and wrote:


I threw up. I know I shouldn't have gone into Mr. Giles private files, but I just wanted to better understand Buffy and what she has to fight. To understand what Xander and I have promised to help her fight. To understand what it was that Jesse had become.

I didn't mean to read it, it was just there. But when I saw Angel's name, I had to read it, diary, you understand that, don't you? I mean, he's been helping Buffy, kinda sorta, and he seems real nice and all. But now... I'm just confused.

How could he do that? How could anybody? It was horrible, diary - the things he's done. Or well, had done I guess is the operative phrase, isn't it? I think. I don't know. I don't think I believe in much of anything anymore.

I used to be the smart one. I still get straight A's in school, but I've found out lately that I don't really know much of anything. Not about what counts, anyway. I just grew up and people dying all the time was something I thought happened everywhere. I didn't know about vampires or demons or Hellmouths and I was happy, darn it.

But I wouldn't go back, I couldn't. I have to deal. I have to accept the fact the Angel once terrorized entire towns full of people and found joy in killing them. Happiness is a dead baby - that just doesn't sound right, does it? I think I'm going to vomit again.

Sorry, diary, I'm back. Where was I? Oh yeah, Angel. But even worse is William the Bloody aka Spike. Oh, I didn't tell you about Spike, did I? Angelus is Spike's granddad, I think, in a demony kind of way. And he was there along side Angel and tortured and killed all of those people right along with him.

And he's still out there somewhere, diary. He didn't get cursed with a soul like Angelus did. He's spent the last 99 years still torturing, still killing, still...

I can't finish, diary, I'm sorry. It's too hard, there are just no words to tell it.

I'm not going to tell anyone what I know, not right now. I'd hate for Mr. Giles to find out what I did anyway. But I have to think about Xander. I don't know if this would frighten him or make him want to kill something, but either way, it's not a good thing. I'll put on a smile and pretend that all is right with the world even though I now know that it was never right in the first place. And it never will be right... ever.



The End