And for those of you playing at home, kids, that final score would be Stalagtite: five and Xander Harris' fist: zero!
Xander sunk down against the stone wall, cradling his bloodied knuckles in his lap, frantically trying to make his thoughts assemble themselves in logical order.
Anya Willow baby going to be a father going to be a father Anya holy crap Willow Anya Anya baby my baby my baby with Willow going to be a father going to be a father going to be a sack of shit just like my dad oh God Anya...
Coherence didn't seem to be arriving any time soon.
Xander reached for his neck with his good hand, scrabbling for the chain that disappeared under his shirt, yanking it over his head, staring at the jewelry he held in his hand.
It was a ring.
An engagement ring.
Quite a bit bigger than the first one he'd bought her; he'd thought she would like that.
He'd known better than to propose right before yet another apocalypse; that was the sort of thing that got your nose broken by by dainty little ex-vengeance-demon fists.
He'd thought he'd propose to her after.
Of course... there hadn't been an after.
There were many curse words Ripper knew that Giles did not normally use.
At the moment, he was utilizing all of them.
Pacing back and forth, the unrolled scroll of the Shanshu Cycle lying across his bed, seeming to stare at him balefully.
It wasn't the only one.
In his mind's eye, he could see them. Buffy, still brunette, sixteen and wide-eyed and plump-cheeked in those ridiculously short dresses, before the burdens of the Slayer had chiseled away all her innocence, whittled her body down to a gaunt, wiry fighting machine, with green eyes that glittered in anger and confusion and loss.
Willow, pale and eager, shy and small, framed in red, so easily overcome with joy, so quick to cry, emotions flitting naked over the ready canvas of her face, eyes full of curiousity, a hunger for knowledge... a hunger that would make her an addict, a murderer, would use her up and twist her from the inside, hollowing her out to fill her with darkness.
Xander, ungainly and awkward and bumbling and utterly brave, unaware of the power he held within, certain in his own inferiority and rushing into the breach regardless, embracing doom again and again from sheer dumb loyalty, pure unadulterated heart... sins of omission, sins of good intent, piling up around him until the blood on his hands ran as thickly as the others.
Every one of them manipulated, used, childhoods stolen, forged into weapons. They worried about apocalypses when they should have worried about prom dates, attended funerals instead of pep rallies, and now they were, almost certainly, going to die fighting this battle... but not before they were once again twisted to suit the purposes of the nameless, faceless puppetmasters on whose strings they dangled.
And there was not one damned thing he could do to protect them.
There never had been.
All he could do was... Watch.
Buffy turned the Polaroid over and over in her fingers.
He'd won his soul for her. Lost it for her.
So once again... Spike was an evil, soulless thing.
Who had gotten crucified to rescue Angel's son.
Who had apparently spent months in L.A. saving innocent people.
Who'd saved Angel's life, repeatedly.
No chip. No soul. No hope that she'd ever love him or ever find out what he was doing.
Gunn?
Hey, Buffy. Meeting got kinda heavy, huh? Cordy's somethin' else.
Tell me about him? Please?
Gunn's words had triggered Spike's own memories in Buffy's mind, the few of them from that time that Willow had passed on; Buffy had felt his impotent rage, wandering the halls where the demon that had tortured and broken him was worshipped as a savior and rewarded... once again reduced, so much worse than the chip, not only unable to hurt, unable to do anything...
Had delighted with him at needling Angel, flirting with Fred, cracking up Lorne, anything to provoke a reaction, anything to be able to have an effect, anything to prove he still existed in the world.
Had stared at the phone with him, thinking of calling Rome, thinking of how pathetic that would be, with Fred holding the receiver up to his ghostly ear and her sweet little face overcome with pity.
Had shagged Harmony on a desk with him, his eyes screwed closed, begging Harmony not to talk, not to ruin the illusion, the only part of her he would look at her long blonde hair.
Had walked to the docks and almost gotten on a boat. Had stared into the night, the water, remembering, imagining. And had turned around and left.
Had mourned Fred, trying desperately to get drunk on tiny airplane bottles, memories mixing in Spike's mind... Fred and Dawn and Buffy herself, her broken body lying at the foot of the tower, the side of the bathtub.
Remembering his guilt. His remorse. His agony. His hope, his despair, his love. God, no wonder he could make her feel, he had enough feelings for ten people, churning through him constantly, a never-ending onslaught of emotion.
Her evil, soulless thing, who couldn't feel anything real.
If that's what he's like without a soul at all... what the hell is wrong with me?
There was a little black spot on the wall, and it had Willow's full attention.
Kennedy was yelling. Kennedy had been yelling for a long time. It was loud. It hurt her ears. And the fact that Willow hadn't said one word since Kennedy had started yelling seemed to be making Kennedy yell louder.
Willow was thinking about many things. Yellow crayons and a time she'd gotten ice cream on her nose. Hippo dignity and little Pez witches. Extra-flamey candles and Miss Kitty Fantastico. The way Warren Mears' flayed flesh had sparkled purple and red in the moonlight. How she used to babysit and the babies wouldn't stop crying no matter what she did and how helpless she'd felt and how part of her had wanted to throw them against a wall and scream for them to shut up. How easily she could imagine Xander as a father, and the bewildering little warm Betty-Crockery feeling that gave her.
She wasn't really thinking about Kennedy; she didn't need to think about Kennedy, that situation had been perfectly distilled over a year ago, when she had sat on a cot in the basement.
Your new bint's got a helluva mouth on her, yeah?
Ghost-pale muscles moving in the dimness, the flame of a Zippo.
Don't make the face, Red. You don't have to make the face. I get it. Believe me, I get it. Harmony, right? Couldn'ta been less like Dru if I'd special-ordered her. No danger there. Knew I was safe from m'self.
The clink as the lighter shut.
There's a quality, yeah? Dog Boy and Glinda and even the whelp, they all got it, don't they? Your little Slayer doesn't. And you'll need it, when you're ready to be happy again.
I'm...
No, you're not, pet. But you will be.
Willow's mind was stretching for some way to make this good, to make this work, trying to force herself to stay in the light parts of her brain, where the ideas involved self-sacrifice and compromise and sturdy good sense.
The dark side of her brain, the voice she tried so hard to ignore, spoke of easy fixes in seductive tones. For the good. Always for the good. Spoke of how very easy it would be to fix this, simply fix this, draw big thick black lines around it so it looked like a coloring book page, all simple and straightforward.
And if you like-a me like
I like-a you
And we like-ee both the same...
Tara had adored that movie, had adored most Steve Martin movies, actually; she could quote "The Jerk" nearly verbatim, periodically bursting out in exclamations about thermoses, special purposes, or phone books before giggling helplessly to herself.
But Willow had loved "The Man With Two Brains" best, because the brain in the jar had reminded her of Tara, with her soft little voice and her aching sweetness. She could feel for Steve Martin, wanting to keep that woman in his life by any means possible.
Any means possible.
I like-a say
This very day
I like-a change your name...
They'd watched it once naked, Willow's head pillowed in the soft swell of Tara's breasts, Tara's arms wrapped around her, blankets twined around them, and Tara had sung along... her lilting, pure voice joining with the brain's onscreen, love rushing up inside Willow until it seemed like it would make her explode.
'Cause I love-a you
And lov-a you true
And if you love-a me...
Steve Martin had installed the brain into his horribly bitchy wife, giving the sweet, good brain a corporeal form of her very own, and they'd all lived happily ever after.
Happily ever after.
Happily ever after was of the good.
Willow's eyes were beginning to darken.
One live as two...
Tara was in Dawnie, and Dawnie needed her own body back.
Two live as one...
And there really wasn't any reason for Dawnie not to have her own body back, was there? Willow was very, very, very good at that spell.
And Kennedy was still yelling. She was very, very loud. Shrill. Like Kathleen Turner in that movie, when they'd all lived happily ever after.
Willow turned slowly to face Kennedy, her eyes shining like onyx.
Under the bamboo tree.