in which everyone is going through a change and willow struggles to adapt.

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Willow lurched into a sitting position, coughing and heaving for breath. there was an itch in her chest, rough and stinging with every movement. She tore at her chest, clawing at the furious sensation.

A pair of hands gripped her wrists, holding them fast. Willow panicked, and looked for her captor only to meet a pair of teary ocean blue eyes.

"You're alive! oh Stars you're awake and your alive!!"

Lapis released her grip on her best friends wrists to give her a firm slap at the back of her head.

"OW! The fuck lapis!?"

"Don't do that again!"

Willow pushed back the covers of her bed and attempted to stand only for her legs to gail her. Just as she was about to hit the ground a steady hand grabbed her by the forearm and pulled her up.

"Careful, you've been out of it for over a month now. Your muscles will need some time to recover along with the rest of yourself."

Willow looked up to meet a familiar pale, aristocratic face.

"Draco?"

Her godbrother smiled thinly. "welcome back little sister."

Not everyone is gone. A little voice whispered to her. She still had her godfamily, and her cousins and Dott and Lapis...

The rough pins and needles in her chest spiked and Willow gasped at the sensation.

Draco winced. "Yeah that's gonna smart for a little while. You're fraying 'Low."

"Fray..." A weak flutter of panic fluttered momentarily in her chest before disipitating. The thought of losing this last connection to her darling Jackson saddened her, but no longer sent her spiraling as it might have several months ago.

Willow took a deep breath. "I'm going to be fine."

For the first time in a long time she believed it.

sssssssssssssssssssss

Steven pressed his face up against the glass excitedly. Word of Willow's Awakening had reached the Crystal Gems ears Via a phonecall from Lapis to Steven.

Updates had been passed back anf forth for a week or so before the ocean gem joyfully informed them that Willow was strong enough now to leave the flat and Steven being Steven, he had invited the pair to come and visit the temple. Lapis had, of course, accepted.

The gems, Pearl specifically had been nervous to face another encounter with the death mage but had been reassured that their quarrel was all water under the bridge by Willow via another phonecall. She had sounded rather exhausted and part of the lithe gem wondered if Willow was even strong enough to stand yet.

A familiar silver truck came trundling around the cliff thaf the temple was engraved in and parked next to the steps.

First came Lapis, who hopped out of the driver's seat in a pair of grey shorts and a blue and white baseball tee. Her hair was pulled out of her face in a tiny little puffball of a ponytail.

Lapis circled around the front of the truck and opened the passenger side door. With a patient smile the unusually calm gem held out her arm for a rather tired and weak looking human. Her eyes darkened with shadows and weariness in her step.

Steven's brow furrowed. "Is that...Willow?"

Lapis guided her companion up the steps and as they got closer, steven could see glowing web of... something spread across the humans chest, starting at the place above her heart and spreading like veins. Little sparks shot from a few of the ends, like a cut wire, and in others, the warm red glow flickered like a dying light. Lapis, steven noticed, was carefull not to touch them.

the pair went up the stairs. There was a pause where Willow stumbled and jerked stubbornlyaway when Lapis tried to help her back up.

when they finally made it indoors the silence was awkward. Terse words and clipped sentences. Surprisingly, these only came Lapis. Willow, who would usually be tearing away savagely at the silence with her morbid humor and sarcasm could barely seem to speak. When she did her words were quiet and breathless.

This meant it was up to Lapis to explain everything that had happened in the last month or so.

That also meant explaining for the first time in comprehensible detail what exactly Willow was, what her people and their society was like, and, just to get it out of the way, what Willow's position in this society was.

In the end, only three things were surprising to the gems: that Willow, with her sailor's mouth and dirt stained jeans was a highstanding member of nobility, The fact that these people had a freaking soulmate system!

And, cruel though it was, the most shocking thing of all had to be that Willow, cold, hard, rude, snappish Willow with her cloke of death and jagged scars, was capable of loving something that wasn't one of the animals that followed her like a shadow, with such an intensity that it had actually almost killed her!

It wasn't a nice thought, but the elder gems had been thinking it nonetheless, how could they think anything else, when Willow only ever lied and yelled, and melted just a little only to freeze back in place at the change of a dime.

But here they were, proven wrong by the flickering, wavering evidence before them.

Garnet wasn't nearly as sure what to think of this new glimpse into the young womans as one would have thought.

Being a manifestation of love should have meant she was overjoyed at this revelation, instead it just concerned her, mostly because of the fact that Willow's wellbeing rested on her ability to cope with the loss of her love.

As strenuous as this odd truce the Crystal Gems had with the mage was, none of them wished for Willow's death.

On a more interesting note, Willow was no longer comepleted hidden from Garnet's future vision. She was by no means clear, visions involving her were blurred and flickering, changing on the dime and melting into one another, but it was far more than what Garnet had before.

It meant they were making progress.

That in itself spoke volumes.

For now, Willow sat curled up, weak from her internal fight, Lapis stood weary from waiting, in more ways than one, and the Crystal Gems watched with baited breath at the story, and the war, unfolding before them.

Yesterday was hard, Today was long, but tomorrow?

Everything was going to be fine.

sssssssssssssssssssss

"Sir, you need to look at these readings."

"Do you think it's her?"

"Affirmative, sir."

"Well then, we better roll out the welcome wagon."

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DUN DUN DUUUN!!

well guys, what do you think? I know it was kinda short, but school has been kinda rough and I'm doing what i can, when i can.

please review

-Blue