Hey guys.

Here's today's chapter.

Enjoy.

DISCLAIMED: W.I.T.C.H.


-Twenty-Eight: Will To Love-

"Do I know you?"

Will barely remembered asking the office to take her home, only vaguely recalled her breakdown that was timed by fate so that her mother was at the door when she collapsed, and didn't recollect the ride back to her apartment or how she shunned her mother from her room, at all.

"Do I know you?"

All she knew was that someone had gotten her into her room, where she could fall into her bed in complete privacy, shivering into the collection of pillows and frog-shaped stuffed animals lying on her bed. No more tears fell—she'd run out somewhere between the office and home, dry sobs replaced the wet gasps for air. Will had never had many tears to begin with, but very rarely did she exhaust them like she did here.

"Do I know you?"

Her numb arms encircled one of the bigger pillows, holding it so tightly that the soft filling was retreating from her grip, overstuffing the ends and leaving almost nothing but flimsy cloth in her embrace. Will's entire body shook, shock setting into her small, lithe frame.

"Do I know you?"

Matt's caring love and gentle understanding, the one thing that kept her going through the weights of the worlds when barely anyone understood her burden, the immeasurable amount of affection and warmth she knew he held for her, seemingly infinite and wide as the expanses of space and time, able to cross the lines between good and evil, demon and angel, of life and death itself, had disappeared, shot into oblivion within the space of a single weekend.

"Do I know you?"

Without Matt's love, the weights on her shoulders tripled, sending the small redhead into an intense struggle underneath, barely able to keep them afloat when all she wanted was to drown in her own shock-filled tears.

"Do I know you?"

It was too much. Mr. Olsen, cooped inside a house he owned but was not seen in; Hay Lin and Taranee, looking to her with worry and love for their missing lovers written in the tears in their eyes; Napoleon looking to her for information on Matt's location when he himself had said the boy's magic had disappeared; Lillian's horrified face when they'd told her her only human Regent had been kidnapped; the way her mother had gained a third line underneath her eyes just from coming to the school.

"Do I know you?"

It was too much. Knowing that billions of people and other beings, entire worlds, counted on her to protect them from evil's clawed clutched; knowing that however many lives they saved, there were still people ending up as torn as she was, lying on floors or on beds and sobbing their mutilated hearts out to the world they inhabited.

"Do I know you?"

It was too much. Matt's magic, just gone into the ether, fertilizing the growing amount of concern and love-sick worry for the boy Napoleon said might not have survived the extraction.

"Do I know you?"

It was too much. Will's heart, while strong, couldn't handle it all.

"Do I know you?"

It was too much…"

"Do I know you?"

Will looked up and blindly reached for the cup sitting on the edge of her bed. It tipped over, sending it's contents spilling onto the spread; pencils, pens, a ruler, rubber erasers, both square and caps, and…

"Do I know you?"

She gripped the rubber handle in sweaty hands, opening the silver maw wide and moving the shining edge down towards the unmarred skin on her wrist.

"Do I know you?"

The metal glinted, as if in sadistic anticipation for the soft flesh it was heading towards and the blood it would coax from it.

"Do I know you?"

Will closed her eyes.

"Do I know you…"

"WILL!"

Will's eyes flew open at the sound of her name. The world was blurred, as if someone had taken freshly picked cotton and created a veil and spread it across her eyes. Hands wrenched the blades from her grip, throwing it and sending it to clatter noisily against a wall.

"Don't you give up on me, Will," the voice continued as those hands took hold of her shoulders.

"Matt…?" she asked, blind to the space around her.

"Will!" More voices joined the original as footsteps charged on the hardwood floors of her bedroom. Thin arms wrapped around her shoulders and soon an innumerable amount of limbs joined them in a massive embrace Will knew she would only receive from four certain friends of hers.

"Guys…"

"Hush." Slowly, the cotton veil was lifted and, just as the lifting of the old Veil had brought the five of them closer and clearer in their relationships as Guardians, made the room and the girls around her slide into focus. Cornelia was speaking, her blonde head on top of hers, gently stroking her cherry hair. "It's okay, Will."

"No, it's…"

A hand pressed against the bottom of her jaw, closing her mouth. "Normally I don't agree with her, but right now Corny's got a point, Willie," Irma told her gently.

"But he…"

"He still loves you," Hay Lin spoke up, at the bottom of the five-girl dogpile, her arms around Will and squeezing hard. "He'll never stop loving you. Some part of him always will, no matter how much it's buried underneath whatever happened."

"But he…"

Taranee came into her field of vision, tears falling from the corners of her chocolate eyes. "He needs you, Will," she told her, wiping Will's tears from her face and ignoring the ones falling down her own cheeks. "He needs you to help him."

Will sniffled. "Help with what?" she asked tearfully.

"Help him find his Will to Love."


Written listening to "Airplanes" by B.o.B ft. Hayley Williams. All rights to whoever owns 'em.

~Tibki