Disclaimer:
These characters don't belong to me, but to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and all related entities with a rightful claim to them. Aurora is a character I have created myself, placed in their universe.
This short story is set right after "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb" and "The Gift." Kind of picks up on previous stories I'd done featuring Aurora, but again can stand alone.
The Aurora stories so far:
#1 - Protection
#2 - Destinies
#3 - The Abnormality of Free Will
#4 - Heartbeats
#5 - Coffee With The Grieving
Send feedback please to slayerbelle@go.com. Lurv the feedback.
"Coffee With The Grieving"
by Slayerbelle
The Hyperion Hotel.
It wasn't grandiose, and by no means was it bright and shiny in that Vegas kind of way. But it was home, in that you-can't-go-back-home-again-ever kind of way. At least to Aurora Halley.
She was in the area and was going to say hi.
She had tried to for several days, but the hotel was strangely empty. She was starting to worry, because the hotel was never empty. It was a base of operations for the evil-fighting, and that was a 24/7 kind of occupation. You don't close shop for an extended period of time.
But tonight, the very night she planned to hop back on a bus and make the dreaded trip back to Sunnydale, she drove past the Hyperion Hotel and saw that the lights were back on. Someone was home. She asked her companion to drop her off at the gate and kissed him goodbye.
The double doors were hanging open, and she cautiously stepped inside. "Hello?" she called, her voice tentative, perhaps a little cheery.
There was no reply, so she proceeded into the foyer.
The sound of her feet might as well have been gunshots in the night. She came upon the lobby, and they were there all right. She was smiling, but soon the smile faded because it was intrusive and oddly inappropriate.
Willow Rosenberg, who had probably never been in the Hyperion Hotel until this very moment, stood in the center of the room, paler than Aurora had remembered.
"Willow?" Aurora managed to say.
And after that it was like a spell had been broken. The people in the room stirred. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce coughed, and excused himself, retreated into his office, but not before nodding in acknowledgement at her arrival. Angel stepped forward and scooped Willow into his arms, an act she at first resisted, but moments later she let herself fall into it and dissolved in her tears. Charles Gunn took a girl Aurora didn't recognize by the arm and said he would lead her to her new bedroom. He apologized for the somber mood, and quickly introduced the two girls to each other.
"Aurora, this is Fred."
Still clueless as to the bad news, Aurora shook the girl's hand. "Hi, Fred."
Should she ask what was going on? She honestly had no idea. She didn't know how to word her question.
Cordelia Chase came up next to her. "Aurora. I have some clothes upstairs. Come with me while I change out of this stupid outfit."
She turned and saw Cordelia, who was wearing some kind of jeweled bikini ensemble. She felt like she had walked into a play. A tragedy.
Wordlessly, she allowed Cordelia to pull her by the arm up to one of the Hyperion's many rooms. Aurora recognized it, she had stayed in it before, worn Cordelia's clothes from the stash. Back in the day when she had to lie low to save her life. She popped the question as soon as Cordelia closed the door behind them, although they were full well out of earshot since they came up from the staircase.
"What's wrong?"
Cordelia tore the tiara from her hair and threw it on top of the unmade bed. "Buffy died." As soon as she said it, she shook her head as if to regain focus.
She couldn't possibly have heard that right. "Buffy what?"
"She died," Cordelia said. "Willow just said so. Like, a minute before you came in. Or she didn't actually say the words 'Buffy' and 'dead,' but--"
"But that's impossible."
"It's not impossible, Aurora, we all know it's happened before."
"No, I mean, it's impossible. She can't die. That's why I was sent there, with that whole vision thing. I'm not going to be sent there if she's just going to die."
"You weren't there when it happened?"
"No," Aurora admitted. "I was... damn it. I got a vision. About something else."
Cordelia started peeling off her strange outfit. "Something other than Buffy?"
Aurora felt anger slowly rise up in her like how pain radiated in her jaw after a punch. Exactly like that. And then, restraint, because she had no right to feel pain over the death of the Slayer. Willow, Angel, the two now holding one another soundlessly in the hotel lobby, they were the ones who were supposed to feel pain.
Cordelia peeked at her after putting on a large shirt and some pants. "Aurora?"
"Yeah. I mean, yeah. I got a vision, came to LA because of it. They... they sent me away from Sunnydale. Just when Buffy... just when she... did Willow tell you how it happened?"
"Details still sketchy. But apparently some apocalyptic deal."
"Dawn."
"Her sister?"
"Glory. Dawn. I didn't get to help."
Cordelia sighed. "Who knows why we see what we see when we see them."
The girl formerly known as Queen C was rarely philosophical, but as a fellow seer Aurora heard her and felt the same disquiet. She hugged Cordelia tightly, and they were silent for a minute. She heard her friend sniffle a little. Aurora must have started crying as well after that, if it mattered.
Cordelia caught herself in the act of showing human emotion and laughed. "I hope they at least put good lipstick on her. She can't be wearing the same dull shade forever, you know."
"I don't think they notice that so much in the hereafter."
"I didn't see her die either." It was an admission by Cordelia, at the same time a revelation. "Damn it. I should have at least gotten a vision. Doyle got one about her before. It's not like she's immune."
"Yeah, well, all my visions are about her." She wanted to be angry -- hell, she *was* angry, but also she felt very betrayed.
"We're pawns," Aurora said softly.
"Pawns making coffee," Cordelia replied. "I think I'll whip up a batch for all the restless people here tonight. Care to join me?"
Their lives were crazy. Aurora felt like grasping what was real, what was normal. "It really is good to see you."
"Why did you swing by our neck of hell, anyway?"
"I had a really cute love story to tell you. Which I won't be telling you now."
"Well, I have a good one explaining the harem outfit too."
"Let me just talk to someone first."
====
Being in his arms, she felt safest of all. Although she did die in his arms, but it was like she could stand being held by him forever. A silly thought that didn't even occur to her until now, the first time she had been hugged by Wesley Wyndham-Pryce since they'd said goodbye many months before.
"How are you?" she said.
"It's difficult to digest it all," he said, emotional in his own restrained way. "I feel sorry for Rupert."
Oh God. Giles. "I should give him a call, if I..." She faltered, because she didn't know the protocol for asking the grieving how they were. Or maybe she should just stay away from Sunnydale altogether for a while. They would all be in pain there, and she didn't want to intrude. She was just in the periphery anyway, they wouldn't really need her sympathy or her condolences.
"I'd take a few days, try and figure out what to say."
"I should come up with an apology."
"Aurora, it's not your fault."
"Am I or am I not called a Protector of the Slayer?"
"You can put it that way, but you were sent away from there. On a vision. You couldn't have known."
It just begged to be repeated, to console everyone else left behind.
She felt him sigh, his chest rising up against her cheek, his breath teasing her hair.
"Had we known what Buffy was facing, we would have been there. Angel would have been there in a second," Wesley said. A fact that just had to be heard aloud, again. "But we... the arrangement of events just did not let it be."
"We can't do this. It's not... we can't agree that it's all over, that Fate fixed it so we all couldn't be there. That's stupid. That's not an explanation."
He tipped her head so she was looking him in the eye. "Aurora, I think you know better than that."
Of course. Aurora flinched a little at the memory. She survived her own death on the strangest of circumstances, none of which Wesley could adequately explain. She believed they were both just glad to move on and not have to think about it.
There was a knock on the door, and Gunn peeked inside Wesley's office. "If you guys want some coffee," he said.
"We'll be right there," Wesley replied. To Aurora, he added softly, "Willow's agreed to stay the rest of the night here. I suggest you do the same, it's been a very long day for a lot of us."
====
Aurora must have been crying in her sleep.
Her eyes felt sore, but she kept telling herself she shouldn't turn on the tears. It was useless, and in the face of the indescribable pain Angel and Willow must be feeling, it was almost disrespectful.
She dreamed of apologizing to Giles. She wanted to tell him that she didn't know, she would have been able to help had she known. She was thinking about the ways she could have been contacted, the spells she could have cast. He didn't have a reaction to her, though, whatever she said. He would just look at her, blankly.
She felt a tap on her shoulder.
Aurora turned and saw Buffy behind her.
"It's not over," Buffy said.
The Slayer looked angelic. She leaned closer to Aurora and whispered something in her ear, something she needed to remember. Aurora believed her, and listened.
"I can't do this," she said. "I can't, I'm not powerful enough."
The corners of Buffy's mouth pulled into a smile. "You don't have to."
"This is it then?"
"You know what you should do after."
"I know. I saw."
"Then that's all you need."
====
She didn't know which room was Willow's.
Generally Angel kept most of the rooms on the second floor fairly habitable. Always ready in case the next helpless soul they came across needed a place to stay. The beds were made, the bathrooms' plumbing checked. Willow could be in any one of them, but she didn't think the girl would be sleeping at all.
OK, so she and Willow didn't know each other much and didn't have the best history, but messages of the divine nature shouldn't really be delayed because of a lack of rapport.
She thought she heard a scurrying, movement from inside one of the rooms. The door was ajar.
"Willow?" she whispered tentatively.
A soft sound, a little whimper, scurrying again. It wasn't Willow's room, although there was indeed someone in it.
"Oh, hi, Fred," Aurora said. "I'm sorry, I didn't know, I thought--"
Fred was sitting on top of the bed, knees drawn to her chin, sheets and pillows almost undisturbed. Had she stayed in this position all night? Well, she would have been there barely five hours, but still Aurora had to wonder.
"Aurora, right?" There was a soft Southern twang. In the confusion Aurora had forgotten a lot of the details about Fred's arrival.
"Yes, you're right," Aurora nodded apologetically, and started to back away. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were staying in this room. I'll get out of your way."
"Wait!" The word came out several notches too loud, screechy. Fred shut her mouth immediately, as if to hold the escaping sound. She cleared her throat, and tried again. "What are you?"
"What?"
"Well, I'm assuming you have to be something other than human because that seems to be how it is around here. Vampire with soul, Californian woman with visions, British man with affiliations to secret society of supernatural voyeurs, rugged streetwise demon hunter man, there's always something, always a classification, apparently there's a woman called a Slayer who kills things and just died... so what are you?"
It took Aurora a second to process. Fred didn't seem to be afraid, though. It was like she was processing it all too, only aloud.
"I'm a witch," she told Fred.
Fred let out a small, surprised cough. "A witch."
"Well, I cast spells. But I'm a seer too, like Cordelia."
"A witch with the visions. Of course. You have to be something around here. There's always something, always a classification."
There was an erratic method to her speech, like it was streaming from her consciousness right then and there. Aurora had to wonder what her deal was. She had forgotten, or maybe Wes hadn't brought it up yet.
"It's usually not this intense here," Aurora started to say. "It's just that someone died and..."
But what was she saying? It was always going to be hard. Choosing to stay here meant sacrificing any chance at a normal life, at happiness, at creature comforts the privileged don't even notice. There was always going to be pain, and death, and suffering, because that's how it is, and it's never going to be easier. Should she sugarcoat it for the new girl?
"No, it's always intense here. But you won't regret staying, I tell you. It's just that things are hard right now--"
"Loss is always hard."
"You're right."
"And she's on the third door to the right."
"What?"
"Willow. Redhaired girl. From Sunnydale, California. She's in the room, third door to the right. This floor. But I heard it open twelve minutes ago, she might be downstairs now. I smelled coffee, she might be having coffee."
"Thanks, Fred."
====
It was easier when she didn't know them all.
Aurora had, in the course of performing her duty as Protector, stayed in Sunnydale to watch over Angel. And then eventually Buffy. It was a job that required her to stay hidden, to do her work without making herself known. She saw the kind of pain these people went through, and her heart always went out to them. Sometimes she wanted to comfort them and offer her sympathies, and wondered if it would help if she would be able to do so.
Now she could, and it seemed harder. She had no idea what to say. Except there was something that she *had* to say, and she was worried about intruding. Even if she was already in their lives, she worried about intruding.
Willow was alone in the kitchen. Someone had made coffee again, and had apparently put a cup in front of her, but she was not touching it. She looked up when Aurora entered the space.
"I had to tell them," she said, almost blankly. Aurora imagined she was tired enough from the apocalyptic battle to deal with the grief. But she had to anyway. "It would be wrong to do it over the phone."
"Was it Glory?"
Willow shook her head. "Glory's gone. But the gate had opened, and Buffy closed it herself."
"Dawn is... is she OK?"
"Well, she's alive. Not sure if she's OK."
It was unclear to Aurora how the act could have killed a Slayer, but she thought Willow did not really want to recount the event. She didn't need to. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."
"Did you... did you know her well?"
"No, I... she didn't really like me in the end."
"That's not true."
"Thank you. But we were never really friends. I tried... I always tried to protect her..." But Willow didn't know why Aurora was there in Sunnydale at all, so no point in explaining what she had gloriously failed in.
A flicker of pain from Willow's face. "I keep thinking I could do something. I can't... how she died was... it was wrong. It shouldn't have happened."
They had never gotten along. She had a feeling Willow was suspicious of her closeness to Giles, because he'd trust her with magic and shield Willow from it. Not now.
She took the seat across from Willow. "I have to tell you something. There's something you *can* do."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just trust me. You'll have to prepare for this, and you have to do it at the right time. I'll tell you how to get started."
Willow frowned. "What... what is this? What do you mean--?"
"It's a spell."
"A spell? Aurora, I haven't tried..." It was dawning on her now, and color was coming back to her face. "It's not the kind of magic I can... do."
"You don't know that. I know it's hard, but Willow, believe me... you have to do this. I can't but I can help you."
"I can't think about this now, Aurora."
Of course. Aurora was afraid what she implied was disrespectful, but she had to put it out there. Willow had to do it. She was going to let the girl think about it, but she knew Willow was going to do it.
Foretold and all.
Willow sipped her coffee. "So you were in LA all this time?"
Aurora nodded. "Yes, I had things to do. I'm going back to Sunnydale soon, pay my respects."
"You'll have to pass by Giles first. He's... trying to figure out how to handle this. What to tell the Council. Guardianship of Dawn. Real-world stuff. He... he asked that we not tell anyone else about this. Until he figures everything out."
"Of course. And Willow, don't tell him about the spell we... talked about."
"He's not going to condone it anyway."
"It doesn't matter."
She looked back with big eyes and shook her head. "Aurora, I can't think about this now."
But Aurora knew she already was.
====
She couldn't leave without seeing him first.
They said he was in his room, which was always dark anyway but now the darkness was genuinely chilling. The door was open, and she walked in. He was sitting on his chair, a mass of paper strewn all over the floor. She thought he had been drawing Buffy's likeness again, as he often did when he had obsessive thoughts in his head.
Or grief.
But the pieces of paper were blank.
It was a while before he was able to find her in the dark, but she knew he knew she was there. She stood in front of him for a while.
"I don't want you to think you caused it," he said quietly.
"I don't want you to think that for me." Because he was, she knew it. "I'm going back there now."
"I can't."
She hadn't seen him again since that last day at the hospital. She didn't try to contact him again, and upon Cordelia's advice stayed away even as he was tormented over Darla. It was always hard to see him in pain. Sometimes she thought she actually felt his sadness, like it was a hum in the background of her own. That she was so saturated in it that it was probably the reason why she never felt happy.
That's what she was feeling now, again, a current of grief and pain and helplessness that wasn't healthy and she couldn't bear anymore. Angel could, he always could. His self-destruction was always a threat but it was slow and had time to fester. Aurora didn't think she could be strong enough for that.
It was hard for her to be there, and see him. He made pain alive in her.
She had things to do. Perhaps it would lighten his burden if only for a moment.
"Please try to keep in touch with me," she whispered, kissing him on the forehead. It wasn't her job anymore, but she never wanted Angel to die on her.
Not surprisingly, he was silent. She shut the door behind her and thought she might cry. He had that effect on her.
But never mind that. She had things to do. He would find out soon enough.
THE END.
These characters don't belong to me, but to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and all related entities with a rightful claim to them. Aurora is a character I have created myself, placed in their universe.
This short story is set right after "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb" and "The Gift." Kind of picks up on previous stories I'd done featuring Aurora, but again can stand alone.
The Aurora stories so far:
#1 - Protection
#2 - Destinies
#3 - The Abnormality of Free Will
#4 - Heartbeats
#5 - Coffee With The Grieving
Send feedback please to slayerbelle@go.com. Lurv the feedback.
"Coffee With The Grieving"
by Slayerbelle
The Hyperion Hotel.
It wasn't grandiose, and by no means was it bright and shiny in that Vegas kind of way. But it was home, in that you-can't-go-back-home-again-ever kind of way. At least to Aurora Halley.
She was in the area and was going to say hi.
She had tried to for several days, but the hotel was strangely empty. She was starting to worry, because the hotel was never empty. It was a base of operations for the evil-fighting, and that was a 24/7 kind of occupation. You don't close shop for an extended period of time.
But tonight, the very night she planned to hop back on a bus and make the dreaded trip back to Sunnydale, she drove past the Hyperion Hotel and saw that the lights were back on. Someone was home. She asked her companion to drop her off at the gate and kissed him goodbye.
The double doors were hanging open, and she cautiously stepped inside. "Hello?" she called, her voice tentative, perhaps a little cheery.
There was no reply, so she proceeded into the foyer.
The sound of her feet might as well have been gunshots in the night. She came upon the lobby, and they were there all right. She was smiling, but soon the smile faded because it was intrusive and oddly inappropriate.
Willow Rosenberg, who had probably never been in the Hyperion Hotel until this very moment, stood in the center of the room, paler than Aurora had remembered.
"Willow?" Aurora managed to say.
And after that it was like a spell had been broken. The people in the room stirred. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce coughed, and excused himself, retreated into his office, but not before nodding in acknowledgement at her arrival. Angel stepped forward and scooped Willow into his arms, an act she at first resisted, but moments later she let herself fall into it and dissolved in her tears. Charles Gunn took a girl Aurora didn't recognize by the arm and said he would lead her to her new bedroom. He apologized for the somber mood, and quickly introduced the two girls to each other.
"Aurora, this is Fred."
Still clueless as to the bad news, Aurora shook the girl's hand. "Hi, Fred."
Should she ask what was going on? She honestly had no idea. She didn't know how to word her question.
Cordelia Chase came up next to her. "Aurora. I have some clothes upstairs. Come with me while I change out of this stupid outfit."
She turned and saw Cordelia, who was wearing some kind of jeweled bikini ensemble. She felt like she had walked into a play. A tragedy.
Wordlessly, she allowed Cordelia to pull her by the arm up to one of the Hyperion's many rooms. Aurora recognized it, she had stayed in it before, worn Cordelia's clothes from the stash. Back in the day when she had to lie low to save her life. She popped the question as soon as Cordelia closed the door behind them, although they were full well out of earshot since they came up from the staircase.
"What's wrong?"
Cordelia tore the tiara from her hair and threw it on top of the unmade bed. "Buffy died." As soon as she said it, she shook her head as if to regain focus.
She couldn't possibly have heard that right. "Buffy what?"
"She died," Cordelia said. "Willow just said so. Like, a minute before you came in. Or she didn't actually say the words 'Buffy' and 'dead,' but--"
"But that's impossible."
"It's not impossible, Aurora, we all know it's happened before."
"No, I mean, it's impossible. She can't die. That's why I was sent there, with that whole vision thing. I'm not going to be sent there if she's just going to die."
"You weren't there when it happened?"
"No," Aurora admitted. "I was... damn it. I got a vision. About something else."
Cordelia started peeling off her strange outfit. "Something other than Buffy?"
Aurora felt anger slowly rise up in her like how pain radiated in her jaw after a punch. Exactly like that. And then, restraint, because she had no right to feel pain over the death of the Slayer. Willow, Angel, the two now holding one another soundlessly in the hotel lobby, they were the ones who were supposed to feel pain.
Cordelia peeked at her after putting on a large shirt and some pants. "Aurora?"
"Yeah. I mean, yeah. I got a vision, came to LA because of it. They... they sent me away from Sunnydale. Just when Buffy... just when she... did Willow tell you how it happened?"
"Details still sketchy. But apparently some apocalyptic deal."
"Dawn."
"Her sister?"
"Glory. Dawn. I didn't get to help."
Cordelia sighed. "Who knows why we see what we see when we see them."
The girl formerly known as Queen C was rarely philosophical, but as a fellow seer Aurora heard her and felt the same disquiet. She hugged Cordelia tightly, and they were silent for a minute. She heard her friend sniffle a little. Aurora must have started crying as well after that, if it mattered.
Cordelia caught herself in the act of showing human emotion and laughed. "I hope they at least put good lipstick on her. She can't be wearing the same dull shade forever, you know."
"I don't think they notice that so much in the hereafter."
"I didn't see her die either." It was an admission by Cordelia, at the same time a revelation. "Damn it. I should have at least gotten a vision. Doyle got one about her before. It's not like she's immune."
"Yeah, well, all my visions are about her." She wanted to be angry -- hell, she *was* angry, but also she felt very betrayed.
"We're pawns," Aurora said softly.
"Pawns making coffee," Cordelia replied. "I think I'll whip up a batch for all the restless people here tonight. Care to join me?"
Their lives were crazy. Aurora felt like grasping what was real, what was normal. "It really is good to see you."
"Why did you swing by our neck of hell, anyway?"
"I had a really cute love story to tell you. Which I won't be telling you now."
"Well, I have a good one explaining the harem outfit too."
"Let me just talk to someone first."
====
Being in his arms, she felt safest of all. Although she did die in his arms, but it was like she could stand being held by him forever. A silly thought that didn't even occur to her until now, the first time she had been hugged by Wesley Wyndham-Pryce since they'd said goodbye many months before.
"How are you?" she said.
"It's difficult to digest it all," he said, emotional in his own restrained way. "I feel sorry for Rupert."
Oh God. Giles. "I should give him a call, if I..." She faltered, because she didn't know the protocol for asking the grieving how they were. Or maybe she should just stay away from Sunnydale altogether for a while. They would all be in pain there, and she didn't want to intrude. She was just in the periphery anyway, they wouldn't really need her sympathy or her condolences.
"I'd take a few days, try and figure out what to say."
"I should come up with an apology."
"Aurora, it's not your fault."
"Am I or am I not called a Protector of the Slayer?"
"You can put it that way, but you were sent away from there. On a vision. You couldn't have known."
It just begged to be repeated, to console everyone else left behind.
She felt him sigh, his chest rising up against her cheek, his breath teasing her hair.
"Had we known what Buffy was facing, we would have been there. Angel would have been there in a second," Wesley said. A fact that just had to be heard aloud, again. "But we... the arrangement of events just did not let it be."
"We can't do this. It's not... we can't agree that it's all over, that Fate fixed it so we all couldn't be there. That's stupid. That's not an explanation."
He tipped her head so she was looking him in the eye. "Aurora, I think you know better than that."
Of course. Aurora flinched a little at the memory. She survived her own death on the strangest of circumstances, none of which Wesley could adequately explain. She believed they were both just glad to move on and not have to think about it.
There was a knock on the door, and Gunn peeked inside Wesley's office. "If you guys want some coffee," he said.
"We'll be right there," Wesley replied. To Aurora, he added softly, "Willow's agreed to stay the rest of the night here. I suggest you do the same, it's been a very long day for a lot of us."
====
Aurora must have been crying in her sleep.
Her eyes felt sore, but she kept telling herself she shouldn't turn on the tears. It was useless, and in the face of the indescribable pain Angel and Willow must be feeling, it was almost disrespectful.
She dreamed of apologizing to Giles. She wanted to tell him that she didn't know, she would have been able to help had she known. She was thinking about the ways she could have been contacted, the spells she could have cast. He didn't have a reaction to her, though, whatever she said. He would just look at her, blankly.
She felt a tap on her shoulder.
Aurora turned and saw Buffy behind her.
"It's not over," Buffy said.
The Slayer looked angelic. She leaned closer to Aurora and whispered something in her ear, something she needed to remember. Aurora believed her, and listened.
"I can't do this," she said. "I can't, I'm not powerful enough."
The corners of Buffy's mouth pulled into a smile. "You don't have to."
"This is it then?"
"You know what you should do after."
"I know. I saw."
"Then that's all you need."
====
She didn't know which room was Willow's.
Generally Angel kept most of the rooms on the second floor fairly habitable. Always ready in case the next helpless soul they came across needed a place to stay. The beds were made, the bathrooms' plumbing checked. Willow could be in any one of them, but she didn't think the girl would be sleeping at all.
OK, so she and Willow didn't know each other much and didn't have the best history, but messages of the divine nature shouldn't really be delayed because of a lack of rapport.
She thought she heard a scurrying, movement from inside one of the rooms. The door was ajar.
"Willow?" she whispered tentatively.
A soft sound, a little whimper, scurrying again. It wasn't Willow's room, although there was indeed someone in it.
"Oh, hi, Fred," Aurora said. "I'm sorry, I didn't know, I thought--"
Fred was sitting on top of the bed, knees drawn to her chin, sheets and pillows almost undisturbed. Had she stayed in this position all night? Well, she would have been there barely five hours, but still Aurora had to wonder.
"Aurora, right?" There was a soft Southern twang. In the confusion Aurora had forgotten a lot of the details about Fred's arrival.
"Yes, you're right," Aurora nodded apologetically, and started to back away. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were staying in this room. I'll get out of your way."
"Wait!" The word came out several notches too loud, screechy. Fred shut her mouth immediately, as if to hold the escaping sound. She cleared her throat, and tried again. "What are you?"
"What?"
"Well, I'm assuming you have to be something other than human because that seems to be how it is around here. Vampire with soul, Californian woman with visions, British man with affiliations to secret society of supernatural voyeurs, rugged streetwise demon hunter man, there's always something, always a classification, apparently there's a woman called a Slayer who kills things and just died... so what are you?"
It took Aurora a second to process. Fred didn't seem to be afraid, though. It was like she was processing it all too, only aloud.
"I'm a witch," she told Fred.
Fred let out a small, surprised cough. "A witch."
"Well, I cast spells. But I'm a seer too, like Cordelia."
"A witch with the visions. Of course. You have to be something around here. There's always something, always a classification."
There was an erratic method to her speech, like it was streaming from her consciousness right then and there. Aurora had to wonder what her deal was. She had forgotten, or maybe Wes hadn't brought it up yet.
"It's usually not this intense here," Aurora started to say. "It's just that someone died and..."
But what was she saying? It was always going to be hard. Choosing to stay here meant sacrificing any chance at a normal life, at happiness, at creature comforts the privileged don't even notice. There was always going to be pain, and death, and suffering, because that's how it is, and it's never going to be easier. Should she sugarcoat it for the new girl?
"No, it's always intense here. But you won't regret staying, I tell you. It's just that things are hard right now--"
"Loss is always hard."
"You're right."
"And she's on the third door to the right."
"What?"
"Willow. Redhaired girl. From Sunnydale, California. She's in the room, third door to the right. This floor. But I heard it open twelve minutes ago, she might be downstairs now. I smelled coffee, she might be having coffee."
"Thanks, Fred."
====
It was easier when she didn't know them all.
Aurora had, in the course of performing her duty as Protector, stayed in Sunnydale to watch over Angel. And then eventually Buffy. It was a job that required her to stay hidden, to do her work without making herself known. She saw the kind of pain these people went through, and her heart always went out to them. Sometimes she wanted to comfort them and offer her sympathies, and wondered if it would help if she would be able to do so.
Now she could, and it seemed harder. She had no idea what to say. Except there was something that she *had* to say, and she was worried about intruding. Even if she was already in their lives, she worried about intruding.
Willow was alone in the kitchen. Someone had made coffee again, and had apparently put a cup in front of her, but she was not touching it. She looked up when Aurora entered the space.
"I had to tell them," she said, almost blankly. Aurora imagined she was tired enough from the apocalyptic battle to deal with the grief. But she had to anyway. "It would be wrong to do it over the phone."
"Was it Glory?"
Willow shook her head. "Glory's gone. But the gate had opened, and Buffy closed it herself."
"Dawn is... is she OK?"
"Well, she's alive. Not sure if she's OK."
It was unclear to Aurora how the act could have killed a Slayer, but she thought Willow did not really want to recount the event. She didn't need to. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."
"Did you... did you know her well?"
"No, I... she didn't really like me in the end."
"That's not true."
"Thank you. But we were never really friends. I tried... I always tried to protect her..." But Willow didn't know why Aurora was there in Sunnydale at all, so no point in explaining what she had gloriously failed in.
A flicker of pain from Willow's face. "I keep thinking I could do something. I can't... how she died was... it was wrong. It shouldn't have happened."
They had never gotten along. She had a feeling Willow was suspicious of her closeness to Giles, because he'd trust her with magic and shield Willow from it. Not now.
She took the seat across from Willow. "I have to tell you something. There's something you *can* do."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just trust me. You'll have to prepare for this, and you have to do it at the right time. I'll tell you how to get started."
Willow frowned. "What... what is this? What do you mean--?"
"It's a spell."
"A spell? Aurora, I haven't tried..." It was dawning on her now, and color was coming back to her face. "It's not the kind of magic I can... do."
"You don't know that. I know it's hard, but Willow, believe me... you have to do this. I can't but I can help you."
"I can't think about this now, Aurora."
Of course. Aurora was afraid what she implied was disrespectful, but she had to put it out there. Willow had to do it. She was going to let the girl think about it, but she knew Willow was going to do it.
Foretold and all.
Willow sipped her coffee. "So you were in LA all this time?"
Aurora nodded. "Yes, I had things to do. I'm going back to Sunnydale soon, pay my respects."
"You'll have to pass by Giles first. He's... trying to figure out how to handle this. What to tell the Council. Guardianship of Dawn. Real-world stuff. He... he asked that we not tell anyone else about this. Until he figures everything out."
"Of course. And Willow, don't tell him about the spell we... talked about."
"He's not going to condone it anyway."
"It doesn't matter."
She looked back with big eyes and shook her head. "Aurora, I can't think about this now."
But Aurora knew she already was.
====
She couldn't leave without seeing him first.
They said he was in his room, which was always dark anyway but now the darkness was genuinely chilling. The door was open, and she walked in. He was sitting on his chair, a mass of paper strewn all over the floor. She thought he had been drawing Buffy's likeness again, as he often did when he had obsessive thoughts in his head.
Or grief.
But the pieces of paper were blank.
It was a while before he was able to find her in the dark, but she knew he knew she was there. She stood in front of him for a while.
"I don't want you to think you caused it," he said quietly.
"I don't want you to think that for me." Because he was, she knew it. "I'm going back there now."
"I can't."
She hadn't seen him again since that last day at the hospital. She didn't try to contact him again, and upon Cordelia's advice stayed away even as he was tormented over Darla. It was always hard to see him in pain. Sometimes she thought she actually felt his sadness, like it was a hum in the background of her own. That she was so saturated in it that it was probably the reason why she never felt happy.
That's what she was feeling now, again, a current of grief and pain and helplessness that wasn't healthy and she couldn't bear anymore. Angel could, he always could. His self-destruction was always a threat but it was slow and had time to fester. Aurora didn't think she could be strong enough for that.
It was hard for her to be there, and see him. He made pain alive in her.
She had things to do. Perhaps it would lighten his burden if only for a moment.
"Please try to keep in touch with me," she whispered, kissing him on the forehead. It wasn't her job anymore, but she never wanted Angel to die on her.
Not surprisingly, he was silent. She shut the door behind her and thought she might cry. He had that effect on her.
But never mind that. She had things to do. He would find out soon enough.
THE END.