Standard disclaimer: Alas, I do not own any of the characters, locations, wonderful powers etc. etc. etc. That's why we call it fan-fic. They belong to Mutant Enemy type people the likes of Joss Whedon. I hope they're making the most of it!

Feedback: Oh yes please. I would love to hear back about it. I haven't written owt but essays in about 5 years so forgive me if it isn't up to scratch.

Sphere of Influence

Chapter one

Willow raised a dirt-encrusted hand to her face and brushed away the strand of fiery hair that had been cast into her eyes. She sighed as she looked at the devastation that surrounded her. In the bottom of the gaping maw that was once Sunnydale, amongst piles of dirt and detritus, she and Xander had been searching for days. She was beginning to think that the idea had been stupid to begin with, never truly plausible. But once Willow had an idea in her rapidly buzzing little brain it could be a trifle hard to shift. So now here they were; dirty, sweating and more than a little bit depressed, all because she just couldn't let sleeping dogs die. She frowned at that thought. Most definitely not the most tactful, or for that matter accurate, of phrases. Grabbing her shovel from the pile of rubble it was leaning on, she turned her back on what she though may once have been a chapel and again started digging. When her blade clanged off something stone a few moments later she assumed it was yet another piece of church masonry, and cursed her bad luck. Sighing, the witch bent down to shift the chunk of rock. As her hands touched upon it it a frown formed between her eyebrows. This was not just a piece of rubble, it was another gravestone. Super. The last thing she needed right now was more disappointment.

"Hey. Whatcha got there?" She jumped at the sudden sound, scraping her hand on the stone as she span round. Xander stood over her shoulder, a wide grin on his face. Apparently not even the eternal torture of digging through the wreckage of what was once their home could keep his natural enthusiasm at bay. His eye patch was folded back onto his head, revealing the empty socket and white scar tissue that he usually kept so carefully covered. Seeing the changes to the visage of her best friend still made Willow shudder inside, although she was getting so much better at hiding that fact.

"Don't do that! How many times? Do you WANT to be a frog?" She swiped at his legs, pouting up at him as he hopped backwards to avoid her.

"Woah! I'm just getting my stealth on." His grin got a little wider. "Gotta be on top of my game seeing as all these little girly-girls keep whooping my ass."

She smiled at that, turning back to the headstone. Since the potentials had started popping up out of every corner of the woodwork the pseudo-Watcher had had his work cut out for him. He probably found Sunnydale clean-up genuinely less stressful than life in bonnie Scotland right now. Willow turned her attention back to the block of granite half-buried in the rubbish before of her. She was beginning to uncover the lettering under the grime and, as her eyes fell upon the text, she found her heart skip a beat.

"Xander. I think it's..." Her voice trailed off as the tears began to prick her eyes. She barely noticed, turning to her oldest friend as he placed a hand on her shoulder. Sweat dripped down Xanders concerned face, pooling around the collar of his shirt. Later she'd be surprised that she had picked up on such a banal detail. It felt like the world had stopped spinning as he lent over her to brush the last of the muck away, revealing what she had both hoped for and feared. The stone bore an engraving, elegant in its simplicity, brutal in it's reality; 'Tara MacLay. Oct. 16 1980 – May 7, 2002'.

"Will? You okay?" Xander reached out to the young girl and pulled her closer, enveloping her petite shoulders with an arm. He hated to see her like this; it was slightly like watching a kicked puppy being poked with a stick, and it hurt his heart. It had been hard enough when they had uncovered Joyce's headstone a few days ago. They had both held it together but he'd heard her crying in the night; great gulping tears as if the world was about to end. Death just brought back too many memories these days. And none of them were good.

"Yeah." She nodded gently, extracting herself from Xanders' encompassing arm. She was crying now, the tears dribbling out, tracing tracks through the dirt on her face.

"I'm fine. It's just...weird. You know? Sort of... just... weird. Should it be weird?"

"Considering the circumstances…. yeah. It should be weird. You're permitted a minor wiggins here."

She looked up at him, wiping a hand across her eyes to stem the tears she had just realised where there. A small smile crept across her face.

"Just a minor one?"

"Well major ones tend to end in dark roots, veins and generalized badness these days so...yep. Minor. Please?" He asked. The witch rolled her eyes at that. It would appear that her days as evil Willow were now long enough ago that people were prepared to give her a good ribbing for them. She ran over that thought again. Wow. She had clearly been spending too much time with Giles; Britishisms were even popping up in her thoughts.

"O.K we have a deal. Minor wiggins only."

"Great. Well I guess I better get on with the manly, manly lifting."

Xander grinned at her again, flipped his eye patch down and proceeded to extricate the tombstone from it's resting place. As he hefted it back towards the large black van they were using as a portable base of operations-cum-home, Willow steeled herself for what was to come. She was going to have to perform some major mystical mojo, and magic was still a major event for her. Sometimes it made her feel as if she was balancing on the head of a pin and she was never sure when she would lose herself to topple into the darkness all around. Kennedy helped out, sure, and the young slayer was getting surprisingly good at predicting when Willow was in over her head, but everything had been so much easier when she'd had Tara to keep her centered. Finding the stone had brought it back to her, had caused the hole inside to re-open. It ached. What hurt all the more was that all she could do now was make sure that the woman she had loved got a decent burial. Again. This time she would make sure that she was there to say goodbye.

To be continued...

(Well asuming you like it that is. )