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lyl_devilSorry this is late - I totally forgot to post this yesterday.
Title: In Another Life (15/22+Epilogue)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyl_devil
Rating: PG-15
Fandom: BtVS, Numb3rs
Pairing: Willow/Don
Beta:strangevisitor7 & kallie_kat
Words: ~38,500 (as of Jan 11, 2009)
Disclaimer: I don’t own either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes.
Summary: Every action has a consequence and every deal comes with a price. Willow’s life is wiped clean, so she makes a new one for herself in LA.
Master Post
Note: I don’t claim to know anything about magic, medicine or the FBI – what I didn’t pick up from tv and books, I made up.
~!~
Part 15
As he cleared away the last of the dinner dishes, Alan heard the front door open and breathed a sigh of relief. Don was here, which meant another day he didn’t have to worry about some criminal’s bullets or bomb finding his oldest son.
Alan saw a similar look of relief pass over Willow’s face as Don called out his greeting, and wondered if being involved with a law enforcement officer would break her or make her stronger. Somehow, Alan didn’t see Willow crumbling, but he was still glad to see that she understood the dangers inherent in Don’s job.
“Sorry I’m late,” Don apologized as he came around the corner.
“Don’t be,” chided Alan, holding back a smile when Don leaned down to kiss Willow hello. This affectionate side of his son was something he appreciated seeing while he could. “Charlie forgot where the house was, too.”
Don smiled ruefully back at him, silently apologizing.
“Yeah, it gave me and Alan some quality bonding time,” teased Willow.
It had taken Willow a while to be able to relax around him, which Alan found curious, but his efforts had paid off. Willow thought nothing of stopping by the house without Don in tow, which was what happened tonight. A last minute development in a case had left Willow to make her way here for dinner with Alan, and the absent Charlie.
“Should I be worried?” joked Don, and Alan could almost see the wheels spinning in his head as he tried to figure out whether this was good or bad.
“Only if you still talk to Marshall Burke,” answered Willow with a straight face. Alan found he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the look of surprised dismay on Don’s face. Payback was definitely sweet.
“Tell me you didn’t,” asked Don, looking from Willow’s smiling face to Alan’s, which hopefully displayed bland innocence.
“I really don’t know what you’re so upset about, Donny,” Alan said. “It happened over twenty years ago, and it was a Halloween prank.”
The look on Don’s face promised retribution for divulging such an embarrassing story, and Alan decided a strategic retreat to the kitchen was in order.
He gave them a few moments of privacy while he cleaned up the kitchen. It wasn’t that big of a mess, but he still took his time, wondering absently why both his sons were completely helpless in the kitchen. They both appreciated good food, but for the life of them, neither could make it – especially Don. Alan wondered if he should offer any help to Willow, remembering a few off-hand comments about food she’d made in the past. Cooking was a skill she sort-of had from before the amnesia, she’d told him, but found her skills ended at cookies and a few side dishes. Making anything for one person was never easy, or worth it, and Alan had a feeling that she only knew enough to get by.
Cooking lessons would be a good way to spend more time with her, because Alan got the feeling she would be the one to stick it out with Don. Or maybe that was just his wishful thinking.
Alan figured he’d given them enough alone time, and left the kitchen.
“—not a good neighbourhood,” he heard Don say, and wondered at the disgruntled look on Willow’s face.
“Those were the only ones I liked,” complained Willow, confusing Alan even more.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Don and Willow were sitting at the table going over some list between them, and while Don looked calm, Willow was starting to look upset.
“Willow’s looking at apartments,” explained Don, looking up.
“You’re moving?” asked Alan, surprised. He knew that she loved where she lived. He’d been there before, and had to admit that the large, open one bedroom suited Willow; he couldn’t see her moving unless she found some place better.
“Yes,” answered Don, alternating between concern and amusement, and Alan wondered what part of the conversation he was missing.
“Something wrong with your current place?” Alan dared to ask.
“Meth lab in the basement,” replied Willow, looking disgruntled.
“Oh my god – you’re not serious!”
“It was not a meth lab, Willow,” argued Don, rolling his eyes.
“Don?” asked Alan, wondering at the difference in reactions.
“Some geniuses in the basement apartment decided to start dealing cocaine out of their place,” explained Don. “When the cops raided it last week, the idiot drug dealers nicked the gas line so the entire block had to be evacuated.”
“Not a meth lab,” Don said pointedly, looking at Willow.
Willow just humphed in annoyance and went back to looking over the list of what Alan assumed was potential apartments. Don just smiled brighter, and Alan felt his chest loosen at the sight of his oldest son so happy.
“I have a suggestion,” said Don, sending Alan a look he interpreted as ‘go hide in the kitchen, I want to be alone for a bit’. Alan just rolled his eyes at Don and went back into the kitchen, though he didn’t move far from the door.
Alan tilted his head towards the dining area in time to hear Don, “I talked to my landlord today, and he said there was a bigger two bedroom opening up next month.”
Alan raised his eyebrows in surprise, having an idea of where this conversation was going. He hadn’t thought Don was that serious, though the two of them had been friends for longer than they’d been together.
“I can’t afford a two bedroom,” said Willow, sounding confused.
“He said I can transfer my lease to the new apartment,” explained Don. Alan held his breath, wondering if this was a good idea or not.
“You want me to move in with you?” asked Willow, hesitantly. “Are you sure?”
“You spend most of your time over there anyway, and half your stuff is at my place,” argued Don. “We practically live together already.”
“But…it just seems like it’s too soon. We’ve only been doing this for a few months.”
“It’s been over six months, Willow. And in the last year, how many nights have we spent at each other’s places?” This part intrigued Alan, because neither Don nor Willow ever really mentioned that time between first meeting and becoming a couple. Alan knew Don had a few girlfriends during that time, and wondered at the role Willow had played in Don’s life. Alan knew Don kept secrets, but just how many secrets his son seemed to have always surprised him.
“Are you sure? Because I don’t want you to regret-”
“Willow,” interrupted Don. “I like having you there when I wake up in the mornings, and I like having a reason to finish work faster at the end of the day. I want you in my space.”
Alan held his breath through the silence that followed. Don was looking for something to hold on to outside of work, and Alan was glad.
“Ok.”
A smile spread across Alan’s face, and he dared to push the door open a crack to peer out.
The smile became soft and fond at the sight of the couple sharing a kiss.
~!~
Amita watched the door close behind the retreating Charlie, Don and various FBI agents Don had managed to talk into helping him move. She really shouldn’t be so surprised that a case had come up to interfere in Moving Day, but somehow she was.
She was also annoyed, but that may be because she wasn’t that comfortable around the other half of Don’s Moving Day.
Willow. Don’s girlfriend. Don’s live-in girlfriend, now.
She didn’t know what it was about the other woman, but Amita had never been completely comfortable in her presence. When Charlie, Don or Alan were there, she could handle herself, but one on one was another story.
And that’s what she’d been left with. Her buffer of Megan, Colby and David had left with Don and Charlie, and Alan and Larry were out returning the rental van they’d been using to move Willow’s things. So here she was, alone with the one person Amita had always been uncertain around.
It didn’t help that Willow and Don had been sniping at each other all day, though Amita was willing to put that down to stress rather than any real relationship trouble.
“Do you want some water? I think the glasses are in one of these boxes.” Amita twisted around at the voice, watching the flushed and sweaty redhead turn towards a stack of boxes in the kitchen, looking prepared to ransack them if given the go ahead.
“No, I’m good, thanks,” she said, turning back to the box of books she was unpacking. Don had said the goal was to empty the boxes they could, and that he and Willow would rearrange things later on.
“Oh, ok.” An uncomfortable silence followed after that, one which Amita didn’t know how to get around or make disappear.
They unpacked boxes quietly for the next while, and Amita did her best to try and ignore the stifling tension between them.
“Ok, look,” Willow said abruptly, breaking the silence and making Amita jump slightly. “I don’t know what I did to you, but could you please tell me so I know?”
“I—what?” Amita looked at Willow, genuinely confused.
“You don’t like me for some reason, so if you could at least tell me why so I’ll know for future reference…”
Wide eyed, Amita tried to look anywhere but at Willow. She’d thought she’d been better at controlling her feelings, but apparently not.
“I like you,” Amita tried to bluff, knowing it was doomed to failure. She had the worst poker face ever; the only way she ever won a hand against Charlie was when she distracted him.
“No, you don’t,” said Willow. “Please, just tell me why.”
“It’s not that I don’t like you, Willow,” Amita hesitated. “I just don’t now how to talk to you.”
“Huh?”
“Just—everyone at school is advanced math and stats, or computer engineering, and will talk your ear off about it, or let you talk their ear off about your stuff. Meanwhile, everyone at the FBI is all about catching the bad guys, and I can talk to them about what I know and how to use it to help them. And you’re not really in either group, so I don’t really know what to talk to you about.”
It was true, for the most part. Amita had tried at the beginning, hoping to find an ally against the Eppes’ men and their sometimes insanity, but it had quickly gone wrong. The only thing the two of them had in common, other than dating an Eppes, was computers. Willow couldn’t talk about most of what she was doing, and her knowledge was all over the map and spotty, but Amita also couldn’t talk about her own work, because for all Willow’s computer smarts, she knew very little of the mathematical models behind what Amita and Charlie were doing. Willow knew what she needed to for whatever she was working on, but nothing really past that. Advanced math was usually something picked up because you had to, or because you took courses in it at college.
Willow didn’t have a college background, didn’t have much of a background at all. And that was another thing Amita was having trouble with. How do you have a conversation with someone who only had the past few years worth of experiences to draw from? And any conversation you did have tended to veer toward weird topics as random pieces of information made themselves known at odd times, or Willow would ask for an explanation on a term or concept that anyone else would know without question.
The awkward silence returned as Amita let Willow mull that over, turning her attention to the nearest box. She’d been over-thinking it herself for the last few months, once she figured out what the problem was – when she finally understood why every time Willow discovered something new that was common knowledge to everyone else, Amita would get annoyed instead of amused, like everybody else.
That was part of the problem, at least.
Amita knew herself well enough to understand that a lot of her hostility came from jealousy. She’d watched Willow and Don over the months, and wished her relationship with Charlie would look that perfect. She was always making missteps, saying the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing at the wrong time, and she’d watched Charlie pull back from that. Not that it was the only reason Charlie was taking baby steps in their relationship, but it was still frustrating at times.
Times like this, when Amita saw another couple moving forward at a much faster pace than Charlie’s glacial one. Not that she minded. Much. But she wouldn’t mind more of a commitment from Charlie than the occasional night spent at the house. A weekend would be good.
But that wasn’t Willow’s problem, that was hers, and Amita needed to deal with it better.
It was time to change the topic. “So, where does this one go?” Amita asked, peering in on more than half a dozen scrapbooks and photo albums. Willow came over and looked in.
“In the office, next to the other ones,” she said, her voice stiff, yet relieved at the change of topic. They’d been moving and unpacking all day, and with all the extra help gone, it was looking to be an even longer night.
Amita picked up the heavier-than-it-looked box and trudged over to the second bedroom, wondering ‘what other ones’. She paused in the door, eyes wide, and found all she could say was “Wow.”
There were photo albums, scrapbooks and photo boxes piled high in one corner, next to a tall bookcase with deep shelves that was already bursting with more of the same.
“Is this – yours?” Amita asked over her shoulder, knowing that this was definitely not a Don project.
“Mm? Ye-ah,” admitted Willow from behind her. She sounded sheepish and slightly embarrassed, and Amita was confused.
Amita moved further into the room, placing her box next to the heaping tower of oversized albums, and asked “What is all this?”
“This is Early Amnesia Panic,” replied Willow. Amita looked at her, waiting for a better explanation, but Willow was focussed on the bookcase.
“When I lost my memories, no one could really tell me how it happened, why it happened, or if it would happen again. I had nothing but a name that didn’t feel like mine, a past I couldn’t remember, friends and family that were nowhere to be found and a lot of ‘I don’t know’s from every person I talked to.” As Willow talked, Amita felt some of her unease leave her. For the first time, Amita was seeing Willow as ‘Willow’, and not as part of ‘Don and Willow’. “When Milo took me home, I started to write everything down in a journal. I was determined that if this happened again, I wouldn’t wake up with nothing.”
Willow walked to the bookcase and trailed a finger down the spine of the nearest album. “Milo had an old camera, and I started taking pictures of everything, too. Then I put them together in these books as a sort of chronicle of my life. Proof that I actually did exist, that I really had a life.”
“It got a little out of hand those first few years,” Willow admitted, turning to give Amita a sheepish smile.
“What does Don think of this whole thing?” The words popped out before Amita could stop them, and she wondered if she’d broken the spell that was surrounding them.
“He refuses to look at anything that has to do with him, but he’s been through most of them,” Willow said. Then her face scrunched up, “Well, not the journals. Just the scrapbooks and pictures. He says he’d rather I keep my diaries to myself.”
Amita had to laugh at that, and Willow seemed to relax at the sound and smiled.
“You feel like ordering some pizza? We’re going to be here for awhile,” Amita offered, hoping Willow would take it as the peace offering it was. The two of them were going to be spending more time together in the future, and it only seemed fair that they should be able to gang up on Don and Charlie a time or two.
“Great. I’m starving. And I think I know where the plates are.”
Amita smiled, and hoped this was the start to a good friendship.
Because really, the Eppes family needed some female voices every now and then.
End Part 15
Part 16
Title: In Another Life (15/22+Epilogue)
Author:
lyl_devilRating: PG-15
Fandom: BtVS, Numb3rs
Pairing: Willow/Don
Beta:
strangevisitor7 & kallie_katWords: ~38,500 (as of Jan 11, 2009)
Disclaimer: I don’t own either show. I just like to play in their sandboxes.
Summary: Every action has a consequence and every deal comes with a price. Willow’s life is wiped clean, so she makes a new one for herself in LA.
Master Post
Note: I don’t claim to know anything about magic, medicine or the FBI – what I didn’t pick up from tv and books, I made up.
~!~
Part 15
As he cleared away the last of the dinner dishes, Alan heard the front door open and breathed a sigh of relief. Don was here, which meant another day he didn’t have to worry about some criminal’s bullets or bomb finding his oldest son.
Alan saw a similar look of relief pass over Willow’s face as Don called out his greeting, and wondered if being involved with a law enforcement officer would break her or make her stronger. Somehow, Alan didn’t see Willow crumbling, but he was still glad to see that she understood the dangers inherent in Don’s job.
“Sorry I’m late,” Don apologized as he came around the corner.
“Don’t be,” chided Alan, holding back a smile when Don leaned down to kiss Willow hello. This affectionate side of his son was something he appreciated seeing while he could. “Charlie forgot where the house was, too.”
Don smiled ruefully back at him, silently apologizing.
“Yeah, it gave me and Alan some quality bonding time,” teased Willow.
It had taken Willow a while to be able to relax around him, which Alan found curious, but his efforts had paid off. Willow thought nothing of stopping by the house without Don in tow, which was what happened tonight. A last minute development in a case had left Willow to make her way here for dinner with Alan, and the absent Charlie.
“Should I be worried?” joked Don, and Alan could almost see the wheels spinning in his head as he tried to figure out whether this was good or bad.
“Only if you still talk to Marshall Burke,” answered Willow with a straight face. Alan found he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the look of surprised dismay on Don’s face. Payback was definitely sweet.
“Tell me you didn’t,” asked Don, looking from Willow’s smiling face to Alan’s, which hopefully displayed bland innocence.
“I really don’t know what you’re so upset about, Donny,” Alan said. “It happened over twenty years ago, and it was a Halloween prank.”
The look on Don’s face promised retribution for divulging such an embarrassing story, and Alan decided a strategic retreat to the kitchen was in order.
He gave them a few moments of privacy while he cleaned up the kitchen. It wasn’t that big of a mess, but he still took his time, wondering absently why both his sons were completely helpless in the kitchen. They both appreciated good food, but for the life of them, neither could make it – especially Don. Alan wondered if he should offer any help to Willow, remembering a few off-hand comments about food she’d made in the past. Cooking was a skill she sort-of had from before the amnesia, she’d told him, but found her skills ended at cookies and a few side dishes. Making anything for one person was never easy, or worth it, and Alan had a feeling that she only knew enough to get by.
Cooking lessons would be a good way to spend more time with her, because Alan got the feeling she would be the one to stick it out with Don. Or maybe that was just his wishful thinking.
Alan figured he’d given them enough alone time, and left the kitchen.
“—not a good neighbourhood,” he heard Don say, and wondered at the disgruntled look on Willow’s face.
“Those were the only ones I liked,” complained Willow, confusing Alan even more.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Don and Willow were sitting at the table going over some list between them, and while Don looked calm, Willow was starting to look upset.
“Willow’s looking at apartments,” explained Don, looking up.
“You’re moving?” asked Alan, surprised. He knew that she loved where she lived. He’d been there before, and had to admit that the large, open one bedroom suited Willow; he couldn’t see her moving unless she found some place better.
“Yes,” answered Don, alternating between concern and amusement, and Alan wondered what part of the conversation he was missing.
“Something wrong with your current place?” Alan dared to ask.
“Meth lab in the basement,” replied Willow, looking disgruntled.
“Oh my god – you’re not serious!”
“It was not a meth lab, Willow,” argued Don, rolling his eyes.
“Don?” asked Alan, wondering at the difference in reactions.
“Some geniuses in the basement apartment decided to start dealing cocaine out of their place,” explained Don. “When the cops raided it last week, the idiot drug dealers nicked the gas line so the entire block had to be evacuated.”
“Not a meth lab,” Don said pointedly, looking at Willow.
Willow just humphed in annoyance and went back to looking over the list of what Alan assumed was potential apartments. Don just smiled brighter, and Alan felt his chest loosen at the sight of his oldest son so happy.
“I have a suggestion,” said Don, sending Alan a look he interpreted as ‘go hide in the kitchen, I want to be alone for a bit’. Alan just rolled his eyes at Don and went back into the kitchen, though he didn’t move far from the door.
Alan tilted his head towards the dining area in time to hear Don, “I talked to my landlord today, and he said there was a bigger two bedroom opening up next month.”
Alan raised his eyebrows in surprise, having an idea of where this conversation was going. He hadn’t thought Don was that serious, though the two of them had been friends for longer than they’d been together.
“I can’t afford a two bedroom,” said Willow, sounding confused.
“He said I can transfer my lease to the new apartment,” explained Don. Alan held his breath, wondering if this was a good idea or not.
“You want me to move in with you?” asked Willow, hesitantly. “Are you sure?”
“You spend most of your time over there anyway, and half your stuff is at my place,” argued Don. “We practically live together already.”
“But…it just seems like it’s too soon. We’ve only been doing this for a few months.”
“It’s been over six months, Willow. And in the last year, how many nights have we spent at each other’s places?” This part intrigued Alan, because neither Don nor Willow ever really mentioned that time between first meeting and becoming a couple. Alan knew Don had a few girlfriends during that time, and wondered at the role Willow had played in Don’s life. Alan knew Don kept secrets, but just how many secrets his son seemed to have always surprised him.
“Are you sure? Because I don’t want you to regret-”
“Willow,” interrupted Don. “I like having you there when I wake up in the mornings, and I like having a reason to finish work faster at the end of the day. I want you in my space.”
Alan held his breath through the silence that followed. Don was looking for something to hold on to outside of work, and Alan was glad.
“Ok.”
A smile spread across Alan’s face, and he dared to push the door open a crack to peer out.
The smile became soft and fond at the sight of the couple sharing a kiss.
~!~
Amita watched the door close behind the retreating Charlie, Don and various FBI agents Don had managed to talk into helping him move. She really shouldn’t be so surprised that a case had come up to interfere in Moving Day, but somehow she was.
She was also annoyed, but that may be because she wasn’t that comfortable around the other half of Don’s Moving Day.
Willow. Don’s girlfriend. Don’s live-in girlfriend, now.
She didn’t know what it was about the other woman, but Amita had never been completely comfortable in her presence. When Charlie, Don or Alan were there, she could handle herself, but one on one was another story.
And that’s what she’d been left with. Her buffer of Megan, Colby and David had left with Don and Charlie, and Alan and Larry were out returning the rental van they’d been using to move Willow’s things. So here she was, alone with the one person Amita had always been uncertain around.
It didn’t help that Willow and Don had been sniping at each other all day, though Amita was willing to put that down to stress rather than any real relationship trouble.
“Do you want some water? I think the glasses are in one of these boxes.” Amita twisted around at the voice, watching the flushed and sweaty redhead turn towards a stack of boxes in the kitchen, looking prepared to ransack them if given the go ahead.
“No, I’m good, thanks,” she said, turning back to the box of books she was unpacking. Don had said the goal was to empty the boxes they could, and that he and Willow would rearrange things later on.
“Oh, ok.” An uncomfortable silence followed after that, one which Amita didn’t know how to get around or make disappear.
They unpacked boxes quietly for the next while, and Amita did her best to try and ignore the stifling tension between them.
“Ok, look,” Willow said abruptly, breaking the silence and making Amita jump slightly. “I don’t know what I did to you, but could you please tell me so I know?”
“I—what?” Amita looked at Willow, genuinely confused.
“You don’t like me for some reason, so if you could at least tell me why so I’ll know for future reference…”
Wide eyed, Amita tried to look anywhere but at Willow. She’d thought she’d been better at controlling her feelings, but apparently not.
“I like you,” Amita tried to bluff, knowing it was doomed to failure. She had the worst poker face ever; the only way she ever won a hand against Charlie was when she distracted him.
“No, you don’t,” said Willow. “Please, just tell me why.”
“It’s not that I don’t like you, Willow,” Amita hesitated. “I just don’t now how to talk to you.”
“Huh?”
“Just—everyone at school is advanced math and stats, or computer engineering, and will talk your ear off about it, or let you talk their ear off about your stuff. Meanwhile, everyone at the FBI is all about catching the bad guys, and I can talk to them about what I know and how to use it to help them. And you’re not really in either group, so I don’t really know what to talk to you about.”
It was true, for the most part. Amita had tried at the beginning, hoping to find an ally against the Eppes’ men and their sometimes insanity, but it had quickly gone wrong. The only thing the two of them had in common, other than dating an Eppes, was computers. Willow couldn’t talk about most of what she was doing, and her knowledge was all over the map and spotty, but Amita also couldn’t talk about her own work, because for all Willow’s computer smarts, she knew very little of the mathematical models behind what Amita and Charlie were doing. Willow knew what she needed to for whatever she was working on, but nothing really past that. Advanced math was usually something picked up because you had to, or because you took courses in it at college.
Willow didn’t have a college background, didn’t have much of a background at all. And that was another thing Amita was having trouble with. How do you have a conversation with someone who only had the past few years worth of experiences to draw from? And any conversation you did have tended to veer toward weird topics as random pieces of information made themselves known at odd times, or Willow would ask for an explanation on a term or concept that anyone else would know without question.
The awkward silence returned as Amita let Willow mull that over, turning her attention to the nearest box. She’d been over-thinking it herself for the last few months, once she figured out what the problem was – when she finally understood why every time Willow discovered something new that was common knowledge to everyone else, Amita would get annoyed instead of amused, like everybody else.
That was part of the problem, at least.
Amita knew herself well enough to understand that a lot of her hostility came from jealousy. She’d watched Willow and Don over the months, and wished her relationship with Charlie would look that perfect. She was always making missteps, saying the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing at the wrong time, and she’d watched Charlie pull back from that. Not that it was the only reason Charlie was taking baby steps in their relationship, but it was still frustrating at times.
Times like this, when Amita saw another couple moving forward at a much faster pace than Charlie’s glacial one. Not that she minded. Much. But she wouldn’t mind more of a commitment from Charlie than the occasional night spent at the house. A weekend would be good.
But that wasn’t Willow’s problem, that was hers, and Amita needed to deal with it better.
It was time to change the topic. “So, where does this one go?” Amita asked, peering in on more than half a dozen scrapbooks and photo albums. Willow came over and looked in.
“In the office, next to the other ones,” she said, her voice stiff, yet relieved at the change of topic. They’d been moving and unpacking all day, and with all the extra help gone, it was looking to be an even longer night.
Amita picked up the heavier-than-it-looked box and trudged over to the second bedroom, wondering ‘what other ones’. She paused in the door, eyes wide, and found all she could say was “Wow.”
There were photo albums, scrapbooks and photo boxes piled high in one corner, next to a tall bookcase with deep shelves that was already bursting with more of the same.
“Is this – yours?” Amita asked over her shoulder, knowing that this was definitely not a Don project.
“Mm? Ye-ah,” admitted Willow from behind her. She sounded sheepish and slightly embarrassed, and Amita was confused.
Amita moved further into the room, placing her box next to the heaping tower of oversized albums, and asked “What is all this?”
“This is Early Amnesia Panic,” replied Willow. Amita looked at her, waiting for a better explanation, but Willow was focussed on the bookcase.
“When I lost my memories, no one could really tell me how it happened, why it happened, or if it would happen again. I had nothing but a name that didn’t feel like mine, a past I couldn’t remember, friends and family that were nowhere to be found and a lot of ‘I don’t know’s from every person I talked to.” As Willow talked, Amita felt some of her unease leave her. For the first time, Amita was seeing Willow as ‘Willow’, and not as part of ‘Don and Willow’. “When Milo took me home, I started to write everything down in a journal. I was determined that if this happened again, I wouldn’t wake up with nothing.”
Willow walked to the bookcase and trailed a finger down the spine of the nearest album. “Milo had an old camera, and I started taking pictures of everything, too. Then I put them together in these books as a sort of chronicle of my life. Proof that I actually did exist, that I really had a life.”
“It got a little out of hand those first few years,” Willow admitted, turning to give Amita a sheepish smile.
“What does Don think of this whole thing?” The words popped out before Amita could stop them, and she wondered if she’d broken the spell that was surrounding them.
“He refuses to look at anything that has to do with him, but he’s been through most of them,” Willow said. Then her face scrunched up, “Well, not the journals. Just the scrapbooks and pictures. He says he’d rather I keep my diaries to myself.”
Amita had to laugh at that, and Willow seemed to relax at the sound and smiled.
“You feel like ordering some pizza? We’re going to be here for awhile,” Amita offered, hoping Willow would take it as the peace offering it was. The two of them were going to be spending more time together in the future, and it only seemed fair that they should be able to gang up on Don and Charlie a time or two.
“Great. I’m starving. And I think I know where the plates are.”
Amita smiled, and hoped this was the start to a good friendship.
Because really, the Eppes family needed some female voices every now and then.
End Part 15
Part 16
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-17 04:45 am (UTC)(^_^)/
BEM
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Date: 2009-01-17 06:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-17 05:23 am (UTC)If it's not going to give away things you don't want to answer: are you intending for Willow ever to find out her real background, or is this going to remain set only within the Numbers universe?
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Date: 2009-01-17 06:18 am (UTC)I won't say much, but I can tell you the Scoobies are set to make an appearance (sort of). Finally. It only took me 15 chapters. :D
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Date: 2009-01-17 07:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-20 03:36 am (UTC)Thanks. :)
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Date: 2009-01-17 08:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-20 03:38 am (UTC)Thanks. :)
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Date: 2009-01-21 04:43 am (UTC)It was also interesting that someone - Amita - wasn't totally comfortable around Willow. At first I wasn't sure if you were going to pull in the fact that Navi played Dana on Angel, or not. Kinda glad you didn't. (Which would be another way to cross these two shows.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-24 04:52 am (UTC)And I'm completely ignoring the fact that Navi was on Angel. I had someone early on asking if I was going to address that at all, and I remain by my 'no'.