There were times when Willow couldn't sleep. Call it insomnia, or stress, or just nightmares, but there were nights when the firestarter barely got a wink, and then went on with her day, dragging her feet to work and looking a tad bit like a zombie. Not the sanest of minds, for sure, Willow managed to scare not only her coworkers, but her boss as well. Having a secretary glare at anyone coming in (and secretly wishing she could set something on fire) made it even worse. The only people who actually understood her was, surprisingly, her boss, who himself looked like he was living off coffee and cigarettes.

Despite being, well, her superior, the man was surprisingly patient. She remembered the time when he had to explain to her how to use a computer. The woman had basically nodded and pretended to understand while secretly, her mind was asking stupid questions like how does this thingy glow? She had recently encountered similar technical difficulties with Wilson, and being Wilson, he launched into a whole lecture on how the machine worked, including it's inner components, a brief history (that he had read in a book) and a whole speech about how it was the "epitome of human innovation", whatever that meant.

She had used the same tactic with Wilson as she did with her boss. She smiled, nodded at the right moments, and was just glad her friend didn't smell like month old tobacco.

"Do you get it now?"

"Yep."

"You haven't listened to a word I said."

"Nope."

And that ended that conversation immediately.

Speaking of Wilson, he was the primary reason why Willow didn't sleep that night.

It was close to three in the morning when Willow heard the frantic knocking on her door. Being a light sleeper (you would have to be to survive so long in the wilderness), the girl was woken up in an instant from a dreamless sleep. Sighing, the woman tried to go back to sleep, imagining that the fist beating on her door was just her imagination. This was one of those good nights! The ones where she actually felt well rested after!

The knocking came again, this time louder. Groaning, Willow got up from her oh-so-comfy bed. Her bare feet touched the cold floor, and she shivered. Oh, this better be good.

Approaching the front door of her flat, Willow heard Wilson's voice on the other side. "Willow, I know you're in there! Open up, please!"

Rolling her eyes, the girl unlocked the door and turned the knob, ready to punch her annoying friend in the face for waking her up this early.

Wilson froze, his fist in the air as if ready to knock again, an open-mouthed, comical expression on his face. He was staring at her. "Wow, you look terr- uh, I mean good, you look good."

Willow rolled her eyes. "It's three AM. What do you want?"

Then she noticed the box he was carrying under his arm. "What's that?"

Wilson opened his mouth, ready to say something. Then he closed it abruptly, Shifted from one foot to the other, and looked down the corridor of the apartment complex, as if checking for witnesses. "Uh, can I come in?"

The firestarter sighed, up gestured at him so do so. Wilson stepped into the small flat, his arms wrapped awkwardly over the box. He stared at her.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just, your hair-"

"I'm pretty sure you should be that last person to comment on other people's hair."

The scientist's arm went up to his head self-consciously. "It's just, I never saw you with your hair down before."

"You barged in at three AM. Why?" the girl quickly changed the subject, ignoring the warmth on her cheeks.

He handed her the package. "Read it."

Willow stared at the note taped on top of it. Her breath hitched. Say Pal, long time no see.

Her hands shook. "Is that-?"

"I found it on my front porch tonight. Had to tell you." Wilson smiled. It was a very sarcastic smile.

Willow knew who this was from. This raised too many questions. "I''m surprised you didn't throw it away."

"Oh, I wanted to, trust me. But, well, I'd be a lot more satisfactory to see it burn." He gave her a pointed look, that sarcastic smirk still in place.

Willow glared at him. "So that's why you keep me around."

"What?" That smirk had slipped off, replased by honest confusion.

"And here I thought I was a valued friend. I should have known. First the house, now this," she pointed her finger at him in accusation, "You just want me to burn stuff for you!"

Wilson gave her a deadpan look. "Ha ha. Don't give yourself so much credit, I could have set that thing on fire myself."

"Oh please, without me you would've set it off with you still inside it, or it would have fallen on your head or something." Willow frowned. "Jeez, this is your house we're talking about." She stared at the box. "So I guess he made it out too then, huh? Maxwell I mean."

Wilson went along with the change of subject, the smirk back on, but now a lot less of a sarcastic one. "Unless he shipped it from the island. I doubt the postal service extends that far, though."

"Oh I hope not. That poor mailman." The two looked at each other for a long time before they both snorted it amusement. It was nice to have somebody to joke around with about that place. It made it seem a lot less terrifying and a lot more like an inside joke between the two of them.

She looked back at the box. "So, you wanna open it?"

Wilson shrugged. "I'm still kind of waiting for it to be a time bomb. Or perhaps a curse."

Willow rolled her eyes. "A packaged curse, that would be a new one. Wouldn't put it past that nasty old man, though."

She looked at the clock. Way too early to get up, but way to late to hope to get back to sleep. She turned to her uninvited guest. "Do you want coffee or something?"

"Uh, if you don't mind."

She disappeared into her closet of a kitchen. She was glad Wilson wanted to waste time as much as she did.

Willow came back with two steaming mugs of black coffee, and a kitchen knife. Wilson had made her bed, and was now sitting awkwardly on the edge of it, fidgeting. The package was flung into the far corner of the room, which just so happened to be the darkest one as well. Willow decided to ignore that thought.

The girl sat down next to her friend, handing him one of the mugs. "Thanks for making my bed."

"Huh? Oh, I, uh," Wilson suddenly looked flustered. "I assumed you wont be sleeping anymore, so. Ha, that's kind of my fault, isn't it? Sorry about that?"

"Relax. This isn't the most unpleasant way to be woken up in the middle of the goddamn night. I'm still waiting to hear those dogs barking."

Wilson clenched the mug, staring at the package across the room.

Willow sighed. The elephant in the room didn't like being ignored, did it? She put her mug down on the ground, grabbed the box and made her way back onto the bed. It wasn't heavy, she noted, but still had some decent weight in it. She took the knife and cut the tape around the edges, until the flaps were free. She looked at her friend. "On three?" she asked jokingly.

Wilson nodded, giving a smile. "Sure."

Willow grabbed the flaps dramatically. "One," she tensed for effect."Two..."

"Oh, just open it!"

"Three!" she wretched the box open, both of then staring at the contents inside. "Oh, a bunch on newspapers."

The scientist grabbed the paper on top and ripped it open, unwrapping whatever was in it.

The two stared at the cream colored envelope inside. The red seal in front had a cursive M on it, confirming who the note was from. "Well," Willow said after a while, "He couldn't be more posh can he? Though I'm surprised with the color. I would've expected him to get a black envelope or something, and maybe splatter some blood on it for effect."

Wilson snorted, despite how tense he seemed. "Or maybe he should've gotten a pink one, and put a bow on it. 'Dearest friends of mine, I'm so sorry I ruined your lives and tried to kill you'."

Willow grabbed the envelope and held it up in the air. "Wanna see would could make the best Maxwell impression?" Then she froze, dropping the paper, staring at what was underneath it. Her blood ran cold at the sight. "Oh my God."

She could sense Wilson's confusion, and then his realization at what he sent them. He grabbed it without a word, pulling it out of the box.

Willow didn't know what to say. A million unanswered questions ran through her mind. Why would he send it to them? How did he manage to keep it in the first place? Would it swallow them up the moment they opened it? She stared at the book, a large letter M written as stitched on the cover.

The two stared at it for a long time. It took a while for Willow to shed some of her shock and realize that Wilson's hands were shaking. She tried to put a hand on his shoulder only for Wilson to jump to his feet, book in hand, and turn his back on her. His whole body was shaking.

And then he burst out laughing.

Okay, that was not what she had expected, at all.

"Wilson, are you-?"

"Oh I'm perfect, trust me!" the man turned to face her, a maniacal grin on his face. Willow shuddered. "In fact!" he added, "This is the most hilarious joke that's been played on me since, I don't know, university!" He thrust the book at her face. "I mean, look at this! His little dark book full of secrets, and he sends it too us. What does he think well do? Put it in a glass case?!"

Willow decided not to mention the fact that it was sent to Wilson personally. "Maybe he didn't want it around, so he dumped it on us instead, knowing we wont use it?" She frowned. "Or maybe he just wanted to be a jerk, and rub it in our faces?" Come to think of it, the second option was a lot more likely.

The scientist took a few more deep breaths. "Yeah, you're right." the grin slipped of his face, and he let go of the tome, letting it fall with a deep thunk on the floor. "What should we do with it?"

Willow picked up the book. "You said you wanted to burn it."

"About half of that was a joke. Besides, we don't know if that will even work. What if it's fire-proof just like that machine?"

Willow took the lighter out of the pocket of her nightgown. She made sure to always have it on her, even when she slept. "No harm done in trying, right?"

Looking back on it now, Willow was sure that she'd jinxed it. Flicking the lighter on, she brought in toward the book, watching as the pages on the bottom corner started to darken and curl. At first, she didn't notice the blooming pain. Then it hit her with full force, making her scream and drop both of the items on the floor. She clutched her arm, tears blooming at the corners of her eyes. The agony was horrendous, it was like a thousand knives coated with salt had sliced through her arm. She never felt something quite like it, yet she knew what it was. The bleeding skin peeling away from her arm was an indication of that. She had seen the same thing happen before, with the monsters that got caught in the infernos she started. The girl collapsed on her knees, clutching her throbbing appendage. The pain wasn't really an issue here. She had felt worse after all. It was the shock of having something so familiar and so comforting turn on her.

"Willow!" Wilson knelt down before her. "Are you alright?" Well, for someone who claimed to be a genius, that was a very stupid question.

"It's- it's fine."

The two looked over to the book lying next to them, the lighter not so far from it. The corners of the pages were now blackened from the heat, but otherwise, it seemed to be intact.

Wilson made a whiny noise in the back of his throat and kicked the book to the other side of the corridor. It would have been comical in any other situation, but the last thing Willow wanted to do right now is laugh. "It's cursed!" he squeaked out weakly. "I knew it! Of course it is, Maxwell sent it!" he seemed to be torn between ripping it to shreds and throwing it out the window, far away from them as possible.

Willow grunted. The pain had subdued from an unbearable agony to a heavy throb that wouldn't go away. She looked at what was left of her hand. And stared.

Her hand had a giant, bright red welt. She had seen such an injury before on other people, and often she was the unwilling cause of it. However, seeing it on her own skin...it looked wrong, completely out of place. Willow's breathing quickened. "It-it's a burn."

Wilson looked pretty shocked as well, being familiar with her resistance to fire. Yet he somehow managed to hide it, the only give away of his nervousness being his shaking, cold hands. "Yes, it is."

"B-but I don't burn. I can't burn it's not..it's not possible-"

"Willow, you need to calm down."

The girl's rasps grew louder. "I-I don't."

"Willow, please. It's alright." Wilson took both of her hands, trying to stop her panic attack. "We'll figure it out, it's going to be fine-"

"No it's not!" Willow's chest felt like it was going to burst at any moment. It was like a huge, cold claw was squeezing her abdomen, and she knew exactly who it belonged to. "I don't burn. Fire is the only thing that I could t-trust and now..." she was sobbing, she noticed.

"The only thing you could trust, huh?" Wilson was strangely quiet, but his voice carried an edge of sadness to it. Willow couldn't really think of why.

Suddenly he stood up, a determined look on his face, as if he was figuring out one of his gadgets. "I doubt you have a reason to stop trusting it now then."

She blinked at him.

"I mean," he fidgeted some more, the look of confidence now shattered. "I doubt you power is gone. It's just that book's doing, is all. Anything from Maxwell is sure to only bring misery."

All signs of crying were gone now. "That's a bit melodramatic."

Wilson made a dismissive noise, went over to pick up the book he had kicked. He stood looking at the charred corner, fingering is lightly. Willow watched with detached interest, wiping away a few stray tears. Now that was silly of her. She wasn't one to cry easily. She should have thought about it before making any conclusions. So her immunity to fire didn't stretch to cursed objects. Maybe that was the book's way of biting back? If she were a book, she wouldn't like to be burnt to a crisp...

"I wonder.." Wilson was still examining the book, carefully turning it over as if it were a poisonous snake, and making humming noises under his breath. Willow remembered them being equally endearing and annoying back on the island. He took the knife they used to cut the package open, and stabbed the from cover with it. It made a small dent. "Ow." He stared at his own hand, then showed his palm to her. It had a small cut in it, as if someone had poked him is a needle. "Well, that explains it." He stated.

"What is it, some sort of voodoo magic?" Willow joked. Or half-joked. The other half was actually entertaining that possibility, considering what sorts of weird things she had grown used to.

"I don't know, but I don't think there's a way to get rid of this thing without killing ourselves in the process, so I not that tempted to try." Wilson put the book down on the ground carefully. "Though I do wonder how it will react under certain situations. It already proved to overpower your immunity, but does it harm someone if they drop it? Or is it just with the implication of harming the book itself? If I were to drop it in water, would I drown? Or just get really wet? Or-"

"Don't try it, you idiot."

"I wasn't going to! I'm just thinking that theoretically-"

"Well, I think this is enough excitement for me for one day." Willow cut him off, standing up and smoothing down her nightgown. "I vote we put that thing as far away from us as possible, and ignore it for the time being."

Wilson looked back at the book lying innocently on the floor. Well, lying as innocently as a thick volume with a pitch black cover and a blood red M can lie. Then his eyes focused on the box they left cut open. "Hey, what's that?"

Willow glanced inside the box. There was a single sheet of paper spread out on the bottom of the cardboard. The girl plucked it out and turned it over. Wilson leaned over her shoulder to read what it said.

1666 Noir Lane, San Francisco, CA.

If you want to know the truth.


And end scene!

"'I'll update every month', she said. 'I'll be punctual', she said..."

You know what, shut it conscience, I didn't ask for your opinion. Anyway, good news is, I already started working on the next chapter. Bad news is, I can't promise anything, since my promises concerning this aren't worth Beefalo poop. At least you can use that for fertilizer.

I really need to get both of these POVs to reflect both characters. Like I said before, I would love to have a beta reader, guys.

Quick question: Should I post this on AO3, or just keep it here?

Anyway, buy gold bye!