Title: My Sleeping Friend

Disclaimer: I only own the fic, Liam, Elisabeth, and the friendship thingy.

Pairings: BA,

Timeline: In S4, before Riley and Buffy get really serious.

Genre: Angst,

Summary: A small piece for mid-S4 on a day-to-day thing in the life of the slayer. Willow's POV on Buffy and her realizations that Buffy is not as happy as her mask makes the world think.

Notes/Changes: I am sure there will be something that will be off of the show, and things that will move to my own accord. Ignore it.

N/C: This is one of my LiamElisabeth fics. Yes, I know that I do that too much, but oh well.

N/C:

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I wrote this fic on my computer before, but the computer is really funky, so I never got to post it or any of the others on to any site. I had a bunch of others too…

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Willow's POV:

She's screaming for him again. I know she doesn't mean to, but it wakes me up. She does this a lot now, and I can't believe I never saw it before. I'm a bad, bad friend. She's screaming for him, after all this time, and it only gets worse.

It's kind of funny, I muse. I would never have known what she was feeling without waking up during her nightmares. She's a really good actress, another thing she never really told me. Buffy always talks like she doesn't have a future, which I refuse to believe. Sure, she's a slayer, and I guess they die young. But Buffy's different-she is! She'll make it to old age, and we'll sit in a house at 80 years old with too many cats and Xander talking of the old days and toasting to Giles with no hair, who has to remain in bed not in a grave.

I sit up slowly now. I know I won't be going back to sleep now that my mind is working, even though it isn't to my own accord. I try not to think too much now.

Now she's making this keening cry thing. It hurts me somehow. I never saw how lonely she was until I started spending time in our room more, and away from Oz. Riley who? Oz. I was so wrapped up in him that I never thought about Buffy's feelings, thinking she would come to me to help her and soothe her.

I should have known. Buffy was never one to come to me with her feelings like that. She always went to Angel, and he's not here anymore.

She's reaching out to him now. Her hands are out and her head is back and her eyes are squeezed shut. Any moment now she's gonna cry, I think. She's moaning as if she's in pain.

The clock flashes 2:34 AM and I sigh, knowing I can never go back to sleep. I look back at her whimpering, broken figure and I wonder how I missed all the signs. Xander and Giles haven't seen them either, and I know Mrs. Summers won't see them.

I finally got out of my ignorance bubble. Xander has always hated Angel, I guess he was jealous. I wonder if he's still in love with me. My crush on my oldest friend is finally dead and buried with the aching of seeing how with Cordelia of all people. Giles is in denial because of Miss Calendar.

I finally am able to regretfully admit to myself that I didn't really act the same towards their relationship, although I know I should have. I can finally say that I can differentiate between Angel and Angelus, something Buffy always did easily.

Buffy told me, a few weeks before graduation took place, that Cordelia wasn't actually that bad. She's a girl that hides behind her money and meanness with her beauty. I didn't really believe her until Cordelia left-without telling any of us.

She told Buffy though, and I was jealous that someone was using my best friend in a way that was suppost to be for just me. I think that was why Buffy never told me until I went looking for her and Xander two days after Angel left her. She knew I wouldn't see it the way she did.

I guess I'll just catch up on my work for next week.

My eye catches something under Buffy's bed, and her privacy aside, I touch it and peak. I pull out an old shoe box, decorated in pink and blue paper with little foam hearts and stars on it. I peak to Buffy, my consciousness getting the better of me. She's still whining, not that I really blame her now. I never realized how bad she was. And I think this is just the bare bones.

I take the lid off and find a stack of blank CDs and DVDs with two daggers that I bet Giles would goggle over. I wonder for a moment, how Buffy got them. Did she take them as a prize or trophy off of a kill?

I realize what I am doing and put the lid back on. Slowly sliding the shoe box back under the bed, I wonder off to look for some homework.

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Willow's POV:

I wake up to her whimpering cries. Again, I won't be going to sleep any time soon. The clock flashes 3:19 AM. It's mocking my awakeness.

This is surprising-the way she's reaching out to him now. I think she's having one of those really bad nightmares now. She says something that I hear a lot of in my sleep: "I'll never forget! I'll never forget! I'll never forget!" She gasps and keens into her pillow. She's not too loud really but the sadness in it rocks me to the bones.

The sheets on the bed curl around her almost protectively as she kicks the empty air.

The hidden box under her bed is on my mind now, and I know I shouldn't go near it. I have to respect her privacy, and I know she has a reason for not telling me about it.

I sit on the floor between the beds, facing her's, and lift the jeans bed skirt. The box is still there. I reach it and grasp the cardboard. I slide it out and I think the carpet underneath it sounds almost like metal on a chalkboard. I know it's just my guilt that is ringing in my ears.

I peak in again; the CDs and DVDs have been moved around some. I notice that her loopy writing is on the labeled sides. There are dates on it. I don't find anything really special about them. They're just dates.

She's whimpering again. "Noooo…" she sounds almost like an eerie ghost and I pity her. I love Oz, I do. I wish he hadn't left-no! Wishes lead to bad things. Back to the other subject.

She's whimpering and I feel sorry for her, something I know she wouldn't like. I know that I could scream, and a herd of vampires could rush into the dorm room without and invite kill me slowly and horrifyingly loudly and she wouldn't wake up.

I pick out one at the end of the filed CDs and DVDs and I walk over to the television, placing the box on the computer desk. I know there will be some kind of secret on it, although I don't know why or what it could be. I'm not sure I want to.

That's when it hits me-the dates. They're from her time when she ran away. Although I don't know what the symbol on the sides mean. There are many of the discs that have the same date, but a different symbol.

I slip the DVD in, turning the television and DVD player on. I don't mute it, but I turn it down so I can just hear whatever is said…

A black girl is on the TV. She's placing the video camera and looking into it as if she wouldn't be there later. Her hair is braded really long. It gives credit to the thought that she has never before cut her hair, a lie.

She nods when she is satisfied and smiles.

"Hi! Testing, testing, 1 2 3. Okay, this is the last one before we wave our Buffy back to hell."

The camera turns to focus on Buffy. It strikes Willow unconsciously that the Buffy on the camera looks no younger or older then the one whimpering on the bed. The Buffy on the DVD smiles and the pain in her eyes is evident to those who know her. Willow notices this now, wondering how she missed it before.

The door that is not evident on camera is heard opened and a head pokes in. The camera shows Buffy's happy smile. Willow believes she has never seen it before. She can tell it is genuine. Two children, a boy and a girl about six years old walk on the camera. Both motion with their hands up that they want Buffy to hold them. They're adoringly cute and Buffy picks them up, professionally, one child on both sides. They face the camera.

(End of Willow's POV.)

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Willow freezes, and manages to capture her wits and pauses the DVD. The children, with Buffy's blonde hair, look just like Buffy. The red headed witch-in-training wonders why she knows that. She cares, but it is as if the picture looks right and she doesn't throw the tantrum that she would if she suddenly found out Xander or Giles had two children that he never told anyone about.

She was gaining a little weight during Valentines Day but I knew she wasn't eating all that much. 'Why didn't I think about it or wonder back then?' she wonders.

Willow sits on her bed for a full five minutes with the DVD paused, just thinking about the facts she has gathered. She takes the DVD out. Willow Roseburg knows that this will remain on her mind. But she is afraid that, if she learns anything more, that she will get caught up in secrets that would only cause harm.

She quickly puts the stuff away, noticing her friend is finally quiet on her bed, head tucked to the pillow with hard force. She knows that if she were to look at Buffy's face right now, there would be red tear tracks. She ignores the tear that leaks its way out of her own eye.

She puts everything back and makes her way to bed, facing the dark ceiling. She hurts over Oz, but knows the pain will fade. And she wonders silently to herself if the pain of Angel leaving will ever fade from Buffy. She doubts it, but hopes Buffy will be able to survive. She questions herself. Will Buffy tell any of the scoobies about her kids-the ones with green eyes with dark brown specks that are both an equal mix between mother and father? The question of how a vampire was able to conceive floats through her mind, but she is already too far into the oblivion of sleep to contemplate such a thing.

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When she wakes up in the morning, she is back to looking at the struggling figure of her sleeping best friend. She finally stops, and then the alarm clock rings. Buffy starts to wake, and for a moment, Willow is able to glimpse the horrible pain and empty look coming out of her best friend's eyes, but Buffy is a good actress.

When the slayer realizes that she has just woken up and everything she dreamt really happened, she puts the mask of a happy yet concerned best friend back on. She sees the red head looking at her. "Hey Wills. You okay? You look a little sad. Should we have a girl's night?" she asks as if it is the only thing in the world to be concerned about.

Willow just tries to give her a smile, failing, and shakes her head. "That's okay, I'm sure I'll be fine once I get to class. You know how I am with knowledge."

Buffy nods and gets to work of constructing her daily façade, something that Willow is just now beginning to see cracks through, to which she knows Buffy won't heal from any time soon. Buffy leaves shortly before Willow, and the redhead stares at the last place she saw Buffy.

Why bother her best friend about something that she knows the slayer is having the same problem with? She isn't going to pretend that Buffy is perfectly okay anymore; that the smiles and brightness of the slayer is just that of a good makeup job.

She can see that the girl is slowly fading away into nothingness without her Angel by her, the one that Willow had heard from her friend while asleep that she had claimed him as surely as he had claimed her. She learns a lot from the sleeping slayer, and wonders how she has not already broken.

She curses the vampire Darla, and then the gypsies. Who would put such a stupid clause in a curse! She knows that without Darla there to sire Liam, Angel would have never come around. But then wouldn't Angel have ended up there anyways? Or maybe Buffy would have ended up in Ireland with Liam. They're soul mates; even Willow couldn't pretend differently anymore.

She finishes getting ready and contemplates the feelings she is having for her werewolf and the only real witch in her Wicca group. She can't help but compare her pain to Buffy's and is deeply out classed. She doesn't mean to, but she doesn't care. In a way, she's glad.

Willow is on her way to the oasis of learning, trying to get her mind off of her problems.

She sees someone off to the side of her vision half way to her class and wonders how she could have ever gotten Buffy to think of Riley. The look in the blonde girl's eyes looked happy, with bright shining like. But Willow now saw it was an anger saying "You're not my mate-never was, never will be. I'm just doing this to please everyone else as I use you like you'll use me."

Of course, the light brown haired boy, secretly working for the Initiative, had no idea. Corn boy had no idea what was coming to him.

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At night when she patrols, Buffy goes to a nearby crypt and takes her leather bag out of an empty box. She takes out the jacket and the ring as she places it on herself, letting herself out only when she could hunt, when she was alone. She was valiantly not around any of the soldiers as she let herself feel Him and her two little children who were with Auntie Anne and the ghost of Auntie 'Lonna.

She cries when she spreads her senses, hoping to find him nearby. But she knows he is hundreds of miles away in the same town as their twins that he has no idea exist.

Her daughter has the cross necklace and she wonders for a moment about what they are doing. She promises herself that she will call them next time she has a chance, not that she doesn't do that anyways.

When she feels the sun a few hours away, she puts the things back carefully and heads to the dorm she shares with her red headed best friend, silently thinking of the 'what ifs' to telling the girl about Liam and Elisabeth. But she thinks the witch will freak and rant so she doesn't dare or think about telling too much.

The slayer doesn't know that she still has nightmares where she talks and screams and cries and rants and shares the darker feelings in her sleep. The blonde think she quit having those a few years ago when all that was left of Him were the memories and she spent her days in another dimension with a large house, two girlfriends to help her, and her two children-her two little Angels and all that she had left of Him after sending him to hell. The dreams got quiet enough not to wake the others.

She can't feel Him there as her arms reach for her lover/husband/spouse that is no longer occupying the space physically that she can still feel in her heart. She wonders to herself and the Powers of when he will come home so she can tell Him about Them. She ignores the slight feeling of saying that He never will. She knows He will-He promised her that. He has to return or she feels that she will leave this earth and her children without truly knowing the father that she tells them about in stories.

Before she reaches the dorm, she allows herself one sweet moment of felling his soul. She is too busy to notice the being in the shadows, watching her with troubled eyes.

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Willow's POV:

I followed her on patrol, cloaking my aura so she wouldn't find me. I watched as she mourned her mate's missing presence. I watched on as she let herself feel the pain and love before shutting it down and returning herself to the barbie doll she uses as a façade that I am just recently beginning to see through.

How was I to notice another watching her as well?...

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End.

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This was just a one-shot piece. I had it written on my other computer, but it isn't working now so I had to re-write it along with a bunch of my other fics. I am basically having technical difficulties. -sigh- Later.