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Giles sent her away from the library around three, muttering "You need to enjoy your life and your youth while it lasts. Maybe you could go do something out in the fresh air, perhaps with one of your friends."
He ignored her protests that "here was just fine" and "No, I really don't have anything better to do right now."
Willow sighed, glancing at the sky. The 'fresh air' looked like it was considering rain. Jesse was dead. Xander wouldn't be at home at this hour... possibly skateboarding, at the video arcade, or with Cordelia. She didn't know where Buffy was. Oz was away with his Aunt Maureen this weekend. It was too early to visit Angel or Dru...
"I guess I could try going home," Willow sighed. Then again, if her mother was still in the same mood as last night, she could go hang out at the Espresso Pump for a few hours until closer to dark.
... and it suddenly occurred to her that she was enjoying time with a pair of vampires more than she was her parents, and sometimes more than her living friends. "Maybe I need more friends."
Willow trudged home, with each step wishing that she wouldn't have to face her mother again, that there would be something useful that she could do instead. Not a major villain or someone trying to end the world, but just... an obscure demon, or some prophecy to research. She'd even settle for helping someone with their homework.
The house was quiet when she arrived. Her mother's car was still in the driveway, but… There was no sound of the television, no classical string quartets as her mom worked on psychological articles or poured over studies and reports. While they weren't necessary at not quite four in the afternoon, none of the lights had been turned on. Overall, things just didn't quite seem right.
Willow was immediately on edge.
She slowly opened the front door, remembering the way that she'd fled through this same door last night. How she'd fled from her mother to the side of the vampire with wobbly sanity. The couch had been moved, bumping into the coffee table. Several of the portraits on the wall had fallen. Her first suspicion was that something very bad had happened. But vampires had to be invited in… Not that vampires were the only dangers. Hundreds of different types of demons. Human on human violence. The details felt very sharp as she walked around, uncertain what she'd see behind the couch.
The picture of her parents at their wedding had fallen to the floor, the glass barely remaining in the frame instead of spilling out. The first family portrait, with her mother smiling at her father, and herself as a tiny baby with scattered tufts of red hair had also fallen, with the frame popping open and the picture half out. Her kindergarten picture and her mother's college graduation pictures were at crazy angles. There was also a large dent in the wall. But no broken, stiffened body, no large bloodstains. No bloodstains at all.
The phone was against her ear and ringing before she realized that she had even moved. In moments, Willow found herself trying to talk to a very unsympathetic police officer. She explained that she'd come home and her mother was gone, car still in the driveway. That some things were disturbed… more like a fight than a robbery. No, Officer, there were no bodies, bloodstains, or bullet holes that she'd seen. It didn't look like anything was stolen. With only a token effort at courtesy and less at sympathy, she was informed that her mother had to be gone for over twenty-four hours before she could file a missing persons report. Even then, her mother could have simply left to attend to some sort of personal matter, so forty-eight hours with no contact would be better Had she tried calling her mother's cell phone?
Willow had no idea if she'd even said goodbye, or who had hung up first. She wasn't entirely sure if it mattered. Something bad had happened to her mother right here in the house.
Bad things weren't supposed to happen in your house.
Cemeteries were classic places of bad things. Dark alleys and abandoned factories were also high on the list of 'where bad things happen'. The school built on top of the Hellmouth was a promising choice for doom and dismemberment. Hospitals were the places where bad things finished, or sometimes you recovered, at least partially, from the bad things. Bad things happened on or beside the roads. But your house was supposed to be a safe place.
Not that it had felt very safe last night.
Willow picked up a jacket, and grabbed some spare money from the cookie jar. As she did, it occurred to her that nothing was out of place more than usual in the kitchen. A brief check revealed that all the electronics were still there. So was her mom's jewelry. What had happened wasn't a robbery.
Before she left for the Espresso Pump, Willow made certain that all of the doors were carefully locked. She didn't want to think about her mother or the house for a while. Instead, she wound up at the Espresso Pump, in a seat where she could watch out the window and just watch the people. Watch them go about their lives, oblivious to the monsters that lurked. Monsters with fangs and claws and justifications and anger management and ways of twisting things up so that their victims thought it was their own fault… You couldn't trust all the people. A lot of them were sheep, but some were monsters.
Willow didn't want to be an oblivious little lamb. But becoming a monster didn't appeal much either. There were always people willing to kill monsters, and sooner or later, someone generally succeeded.
For now, the safest thing to do would be to wait and see if her mother called or came back. While waiting, she would try to be on guard in case whatever bad thing that happened to her mom came back. She would need to improve her skills, to have a hope of being able to defend herself when she encountered the next bad thing – and there was always a 'next bad thing', especially in Sunnydale.
She figured that Dru would be willing to help her learn more and maybe practice with magic. Maybe Angel could help her learn a little about fighting… and why oh why hadn't Giles or Buffy thought to teach her even a little bit? Granted that it made sense why she wasn't being taught everything a Slayer would know, but maybe just a little, enough that she could actually be helpful on patrol instead of an endangered set of eyes?
Sipping a cup of coffee and debating if she really wanted to ask Dru for help with magic just yet, Willow came to a disturbing realization. At least part of her was considering her mother to have become a bad thing. Her mother that had yelled at her, insulting her studies, her reading, her friends… had slapped her. All what Sheila Rosenberg's own research and papers described as classic abusive behavior. Her mother had been a threat last night, and could easily do it again. She would have to be prepared to defend herself against her mother… It might be easier to fight and slay a vampire.
But Willow was never one to turn away from something just because it would be hard.
End Dark Coffee 10: Coffee and Dismay