Fic info.
Moving Forward

Part Three
Doyle settled Willow down on the couch, sitting next to her and wrapping his arm around her. “You gonna be okay?”

She nodded. “At least until 2AM.”

“Angel and I aren’t goin’ ta let anything happen to ya.”

“I know.” She nodded and looked over at him. “I do know that, Doyle. I trust you.”

He grinned gently. “Ya. Well, you’re a crazy thing for doin’ that. But I appreciate it.”

“Will you do something for me?”

“Ya mean besides save yer life?”

“Kiss me?”

He nodded, moving closer. “That, my dear lady, I can do.”

“And do quite well.”

Both Willow and Doyle froze at the voice, their eyes moving to where a figure stepped from the shadows. A beautiful young woman stood there, auburn hair cascading down her back in soft curls and brown eyes that reminded Willow of Xander’s, so dark you could lose yourself in them.

“Hallo, Doyle.”

“No.” He shook his head, his eyes widening.

“And you must be Willow.” The woman walked over and sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of the couch. “I’m Meredith. Meredith Alexander.”

“Mere…”

“Although, by all rights, I should be Meredith Doyle.” She grinned in Doyle’s direction as two demons walked up behind him, holding his shoulders to keep him sitting on the couch. “But someone broke a promise to me. And a promise made is a debt unpaid, isn’t it Francis?”

“Mere…”

“But Francis doesn’t like to pay his debts.” She turned her eyes to Willow. “So he gets someone else to do it for him.”

“I…I don’t…” Willow looked around, noticing the gathering of women surrounding the couch. “I don’t understand.”

“The reason you couldn’t read the summoning stone is because the message wasn’t meant for you at all. It was meant for him.”

Willow looked at Doyle. “Doyle?”

Her soft, curious voice was like a knife running through him. “The debt…” He looked away from her, unable to meet her eyes as everything became clear. “The debt is mine.”

“I don’t…”

Meredith smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ll explain it all before we take anything you might miss.” Two of the women grabbed Willow and forced her to her feet. “She’s powerful, Francis. You did good.”

“Meredith…”

“I was worried for a bit that it was going to be the beauty queen upstairs.” She laughed softly, leaning in to place a soft kiss on his lips. “I should have known better. You were always partial to redheads.”

**
“You what?!!”

Doyle flinched at Angel’s question, both from the content and the volume. “I sort of let the coven take her.”

Cordelia placed a restraining hand on Angel’s arm. “I’m sure he couldn’t have stopped all of them, Angel.”

The vampire started to relent until he looked at Doyle’s face. “Doyle?” He lowered his voice to a soft, dangerous level. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Hunkering down further into his chair, Doyle refused to look at either of his co-workers. “Well, you know how I mentioned that I knew all about blood debts?”

“Because you’d paid one before?” Cordelia’s question was laced with suspicion.

“I was supposed to marry this girl. At least, she thought I meant to marry her…” Casting a quick look at their angry faces, he continued, “Mostly because I told her that I was going to…”

“And…” Angel drew the word out as though he was offering Doyle enough rope to hang himself.

“That was the promise I made. The promise I broke. The debt I owed. The reason I don’t get all too drunk around the ladies no more.” He flinched at their growing annoyance. “I figured, sittin’ there on the damn altar, ‘bout ready to have my heart and liver cut out by the woman who, just the night before, had been swearin’ her undyin’ love, that it would be an easy promise to make and an even easier one to keep.”

“What. Promise. Doyle?”

He’d never heard Angel use such a harsh, clipped tone. “I swore that I would sacrifice the next woman…to them.”

Cordelia shook her head. “As resistible as I find your charms, even I find it hard to believe you haven’t been with a woman in all this time.”

Doyle blushed. “Not the next woman.” He looked away from them both, staring down at his hands.

“Oh.” Angel’s eyes widened.

“Oh what?” Cordelia looked at Angel then Doyle, then back again. “Oh what?”

“Not just the next woman, Cordelia.” Angel tried to explain until Doyle cut him off.

“The next woman I loved.”

Cordelia took a step back and leaned against the desk. “Oh.”

**
“All right.” Angel finally broke the silence that had filled the room. “We have a few hours. I’m going to do a little investigating, specifically around this club. Doyle, see if you can get anything from the summoning stone. Cordelia, call Giles…wait. Don’t. They’ll want to talk to Willow. Email Giles, see if he knows anything about this group.”

“Okay,” Cordelia nodded as Angel headed for the sewers. As soon as he was gone, she turned to Doyle. “Okay. Dish.”

“What?”

“Tell me.”

“Right.” Incredulity shone from his blue eyes. “I’m supposed to trust Miss Tactless and unburden myself to the most unsympathetic person on the planet?”

“Do you really love her?”

Doyle sighed. “I barely know ‘er.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yeah. It is. I haven’t had time to love her yet.” He sat silent for a moment, staring down at the necklace in his hands. “Could I? Yeah.” He shrugged and met Cordelia’s eyes. “She reminds me of Harriet. All accepting and loving, curious and vulnerable, strong and vibrant…” He broke off at her look. “What?”

“You love her.”

“I do not.”

“And yet you brought her here.”

“Was there a particular reason you thought I needed to be reminded of that?”

She shrugged. “I’m just having trouble with that part of it.”

“Well, the visions aren’t exactly the clearest of things. I didn’t actually know it had anything to do with me when I went after her.” He picked up the summoning stone from where it lay and stared into it. “I never thought Meredith would…”

“That’s the other part I have trouble with. I mean, I buy the whole wife thing. I mean, Harriet was nice and seemed easily deceived by your so-called charms. But this Meredith woman? I mean, two nice looking, fairly smart women and they’ve *both* fallen for you?” Her look of incredulity earned her a sharp look from Doyle. “And now Willow? I mean, come on. This is getting out of hand here.”

“Thanks for that vote of confidence, Princess.” He turned his attention back to the stone. “It’s got to be here. It’s how it’s done.”

“What?”

“Go email Giles. See if he knows anything, like Angel asked. I’ll be downstairs.”

“But…”

“Cordelia? Please?”

She nodded, heading for the outer office and the computer. Doyle pocketed the stone and headed for the elevator and the scene of the crime.

**
Willow moaned as the bonds that held her tightened even more. “It always amuses me when humans get involved with demons,” Meredith had been talking non-stop since they’d reached…wherever they were. “I mean, with all the gorgeous men out there, why go for one that’s got spines or no soul or flaming fingers? Why not find a nice normal guy and settle down?”

“The normal ones aren’t always as normal as you think,” Willow said softly.

Meredith’s eyes focused on her and she smiled. “True. You’d know, I suppose, living on the mouth of Hell.” She sat down across from her captive and tilted her head. “You know what the most delicious part of this is? Doyle is sitting there, right now, probably drinking himself into oblivion, sure that this whole thing is his fault.”

“Isn’t it? I mean, isn’t that what you said?”

She grinned widely – a little too widely for Willow’s taste and shook her head. “Nope. That’s just icing on the cake. We let him think that you’re paying off his debt so that when the next woman he loves does come along, he’ll still owe, only he won’t be aware of it.”

“So why…?”

“The Slayer.” The words came out in a vengeful hiss and for a moment, Willow got a look at Meredith’s true face. Seeing her shivering, the older woman smiled. “She’s going to regret ever knowing you, little witch. You’re going to be the death of her. In more ways than one.”

**
Doyle stared at the stone, trying to will it to tell him what he needed to know. He was actually wishing for another vision, simply to tell him how to save her, how to fix things. Looking over at the bar that Angel was nice enough to keep stocked for him, he realized that he hadn’t had anything other than a vision-induced drink since he’d met Willow.

“Damn,” he sighed. “I do love her.” Picking up the necklace, he headed back up the stairs to see if Cordelia had found anything. He walked into the main office, watching her as she printed up the response she’d evidently gotten from Giles. “Anything?”

“A few things. Giles said that the last he’d heard the coven had been dissolved. This might be an offshoot branch run by your little ex-girlfriend. He said,” Cordelia looked down at the sheet of paper in her hand and started reading. “The host party was destroyed when Cluactrious…I think…was summoned forth, rendering them all powerless and…” she swallowed hard. “And I don’t think I like this guy at all.”

Doyle took the paper from her and read it silently, his face paling. “Christ. That’s not Meredith that’s got her, Cordelia. It’s Cluactrious. And it’s not Willow he wants; it’s her power. Aw hell. Email Giles back and let him know everything – and I mean everything that’s goin’ on. We might need their help. Try and get in touch with the boss man. Tell him to meet me at…” Silence filled the room as he realized that, for all his desire to end this, to save her, to…to be the kind of man who deserved to love her, he had no idea whatsoever as to where she was being held. “Hell.”

“We have to save her, Doyle. I mean, I’ll admit we aren’t the best of friends, but I don’t think she deserves to die like…” she gestured to the paper and Giles’ typed description of what had happened to the women of the coven. “Like that.”

He paced the room, twirling the necklace around his finger. After a few moments, unable to come up with a plan, he cursed loudly and slammed the stone against the wall. It shattered into tiny pieces, all of them scattering across the floor of the office. Doyle cursed again, stopped only by Cordelia’s sharp intake of breath. “What?”

She pointed to the wall where the necklace had hit. Blood ran down the clean white surface, forming words as it flowed south. “What…what does it say?”

“Doyle.” He smirked. “2 AM. Our place.”

“Our place?”

“Call Giles. Find Angel. Meet me at my apartment in a half-hour. We’ve still got some time. And I need to find something.”

**
Angel winced as Cordelia slammed on the brakes outside Doyle’s apartment building. The half-demon stepped out of the shadows and slid into the car. “All right. We need to go to Macmillan Park.”

“Why?”

Doyle glanced into the back seat at Angel, nodding when he saw that he was in full battle gear. “That’s where she is. When Mere and I were dating…we used to end up in the park. We’d spend all our time there, me drunk off me ass and her hangin’ on, tryin’ to keep me on my feet. We laughed a lot. That’s where I asked her if she’d marry me someday. I didn’t expect her to think it was goin’ to be so soon…”

“Where in the park?” Angel looked out the window as the trees seemed to fly past. “I don’t like walking in blind.”

“She’ll have her by the fountain. There’s a series of sculptures there; one of which would serve as an altar. Willow’s going to be sacrificed and the demon, and Meredith, if she’s still in there at all, is going to absorb her powers, enhancing their own. Then Cluactrious will be able to take the shape of Willow and use her face to fool whoever she wants.”

“To fool Buffy.” Angel whispered the words, but they seemed to fill the car nonetheless.

“Yeah. I get the feeling they’re goin’ after your girl.”

Angel nodded. “What do we have to use against her?”

“Whatever you brought. I had Cordy ask Giles what we needed to kill the demon.”

“Salt, terragrum root, willow bark and a big sharp pointy sword.” She managed a grim smile. “The sword actually comes first, but it didn’t have the same dramatic effect the other way.”

“So we stab it?”

“Nope. Giles said you have to slice off its head, separate it from the body and then cover the exposed cut with the mixture of the other stuff to keep it from reattaching.” She grimaced and shivered. “He’s going to detach from Meredith’s body most likely. Giles said that you’re going to have to be prepared for that. He said it’s not even close to pretty.”

Angel grinned quickly. “Giles said *that*?”

“Well, he didn’t quite use those words, but at least my sentence made some sort of sense, which is more than I can say for him.” She sniffed and pulled the car into a parking space on the edge of the park. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Angel and I go in after Willow. You stay here and mix the herbs together. In about fifteen minutes, come out to the statues.” He pointed to a gathering of rocks not too far from them. “Be careful, Princess.” He turned and looked at her and, for a moment, Cordelia could finally see what all that damned Irish charm was all about. “I don’t want to lose you either.”

“You guys be careful. The acting world doesn’t quite seem to be ready for my vast talent, so I actually need this job.” She looked at both of them, her fear firmly etched in her eyes. “Don’t let him hurt her?”

“We won’t,” Doyle assured her, climbing from the car, carrying the bag he’d brought with him. “Angel? You got the sword?”

“Right here.” He stayed back a bit, knowing that Doyle needed to do this, needed to prove to himself, and perhaps Willow, that he could. That he was still the kind of man a woman like Harriet – a woman like Willow – could fall in love with.

Doyle opened the bag he was carrying and set it on the ground. He pulled both a short and long sword from it and hefted them both. “I loved Harriet with everything I had in me,” Doyle whispered, knowing somehow that Angel was listening. “But when everything happened, I got scared and I lost the most important thing in my life. I never thought that anyone would ever love me again. When Mere came around, I thought that was it, until I found out that she wanted something more – not just marriage, she wanted me to embrace my demon side and use it to our advantage. I couldn’t do that. Not just because I had trouble with the demon half of me, but because I knew that wasn’t what being a demon was all about."

Angel didn’t say anything, simply watched as Doyle stared down at the swords, hiding his eyes from the glow of moonlight and a vampire’s too keen gaze.

“I thought she was me last chance. I thought, when the beauty queen back there thought I was a waste of ‘er time, that I was doomed to be alone. But that…But Willow seems to see something in me that she likes and I’ll be damned, more so than I already am, if I let her go.”

“So why are we standing here talking?”

Doyle looked up, his demon in full effect. “Because if I die doing this, I want you to make sure she knows all that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He grinned and gestured to the statues. “Shall we help the hopeless?”

“I prefer rescuing the damsel in distress.”

“Semantics, my friend,” Doyle whispered as they neared the area, his nose quivering as he searched for her scent. “Mere semantics.”

They both stopped short as one of the statues moved. Turning slowly, the large gray creature smiled down at both of them. “Hello Doyle.” The demon’s true countenance was hidden, Meredith’s face covering it like a mask, the skin frayed and curling along the edges. “You don’t look happy to see me. I don’t suppose you’d still be willing to give me a kiss.”

“Where’s Willow?” Doyle asked harshly.

“You’re too late.”

“You said 2.”

“That was for the victory. Not for the sacrifice. She’s so powerful, Doyle. You should drink from her and join me, just as Meredith did.”

Doyle looked over at Angel. The vampire shook his head, his eyes glowing golden in the pale moonlight. “Where is she?”

“Dead.” The demon reached out and lifted Doyle off the ground, his hand at his throat. “Just as you’re going to be. You and your little band of heroes.”

“Not heroes,” Doyle gasped, shoving the longer of his swords into the demon’s stomach. It groaned and loosened its grip, allowing Doyle to swing the shorter sword and sever its hand. He fell away, rolling as he landed, putting distance between them. “Just doing a job.”

“Right. You were always too much of a joke to be a hero.” Meredith’s voice taunted him. “And too much of a bastard to be much of a joke. How did you always manage to fool the pretty ones, Doyle?” She grabbed the severed arm and held it to the stump, growling as it reattached itself. “Did you get to taste her? Did you get your fill of the little witch?” A bolt of electricity seemed to course through the air, hitting Doyle solidly in the chest. He fell back, struggling to hold on to both swords as he stumbled to his feet. “How does her power feel?”

“She’s not dead.”

“She is, Doyle. I killed her. And I made sure she knew that you were the one to blame.” Meredith’s face fell away from the demon’s gray skin and Doyle sighed in relief. It would be easier to kill something he’d never woken up to. “And I want you to know that she’ll be the one to kill you all.” The demon turned and shot another bolt of energy past Doyle, sending it spiraling toward Cordelia who was running quickly up the path.

Just before it hit her, Angel’s body impacted with hers and they both went tumbling to the ground. Doyle heaved a sigh of relief. “You’re just a two-bit demon, just as Meredith was a two-bit witch. No wonder you need Willow.”

“I have Willow.”

Doyle shook his head, looking past the demon into the empty night. “Doesn’t look like it to me.”

The demon turned as Doyle swung the sword, severing its head and sending it flying toward his co-workers. With the shorter sword, he pierced the creature’s heart as Angel and Cordelia hurried to anoint the pulpy remains.

Leaving them to it, Doyle hurried around the remaining statues, searching for what his senses assured him was there. The moon shone down on the flat stone table where Willow lay, tied down with makeshift ropes. Moving to her side, he smiled down at her. “The lengths you’ll go to just to get out of dancin’ with Cordelia.”

Her eyes shone with tears and relief. “I knew you’d come.”

“Well, of course. You and I have a date.”

“We do?”

“Well, you and Cordelia have a date, but I thought, given the new circumstances, you might let her have fun with a few of the guys at the club.”

“If she’s having fun with a few of the guys what am I supposed to do?” She watched him as he unfastened the ropes with trembling hands then helped her sit up. Her wrists and ankles had red marks on them from where she’d struggled against her bonds but other than that she looked fine.

“I was thinkin’ you might be willing to spend your time with just one man.”

“I’m sorry. Angel belongs to Buffy. Nothing is going to change my mind on that one.” She grinned up at him, her green eyes dancing in the soft glow of the moon.

“Then I guess it’s just you and me.”

“Does that mean I’m going to get my kiss?"

“If you’re lucky.” He helped her down and wrapped his arm around her, guiding her back to the car. “And if you’re good.”

“If good requires not laughing at you while you dance…”

He kissed the top of her head as they walked, holding her even tighter. “Red?”

Willow stopped and looked up at him. “Yes, Francis?”

He shook his head, lowering it until his lips brushed across hers. Willow wrapped her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. Breaking apart a few breathless moments later, he touched her lower lip and smiled. “Would it be forward of me to say that I think I’m fallin’ in love with ya?”

“Would it make a difference if it was?”

“I’ve been pretty forward this entire trip.”

She grinned back at him, standing on tiptoe to give him another soft kiss. “Then why stop now?”