A/N: Hello lovelies! This isn't too too late of an update, is it? Thank you to all of you who are still reading this beast.
This is a short chapter, sorry, but it starts pulling things together and I feel like there's a lot in here. Chapter 30 or 31 will see lots of developments - I'll see to that!
Things are winding down, I'm still not even sure how it will end, but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
"What are we doing down here?" Willow asked, still adjusting to the dream-like world she was stuck in. If she didn't focus, she ended up wherever her mind wandered off to, and it was never the happy thoughts filled with naked, honey-dipped girls. The space was dark, with a gritty green luminance that cast shadows everywhere, most imaginary. The cool dampness of the room made her think she was in a basement.
Somehow she knew exactly where Spike was before she saw him move, or caught the flash of his eyes in the dark.
"Nothing," he said, taking wide steps over… what she wasn't sure. Masses began to form, completely covering the ground in front of her. "A few ghosts," he muttered when he came closer to her. She saw the silhouette of someone in the mass, striking into the pile with an ax, a sick wet sound cutting through the air when the blade stuck into something.
"Who is that?" Willow asked. Spike was pulling her away, up a flight of steps. She wasn't sure if he'd actually grabbed her hand, or if the sudden claustrophobia of the space collapsing and panic at the idea of being stuck down there made her rush to follow him. She caught a last glimpse of another dark figure standing amongst hundreds of rotting corpses. "Oh my god!" Willow cried. She was yanked off of the stairs, the door snapped shut behind her, and then Spike slammed his fists against the door on either siding of her, pinning her back against the frame.
"Whatever you think you saw, or know, you're wrong," Spike told her in a deadly tone, punctuated by the slice and crunch of the ax falling into the heap of corpses below her.
"That's you down there," Willow said. "Both of you."
"It's important to him," Spike said, his white eyes rolling as if he didn't even want to admit it. "It was mutual."
Willow frowned at him, slowly turning her head back to the door. She could hear the reverberations of each blow coming through the wood. He grabbed her face in his hand, turning her back to look at him.
"If you listen too hard, you start to hear what you want," he warned her in an angry hiss.
"What's the truth here?" Willow asked, knowing there was a world of lies here.
"It was what he needed."
"You're making him into a serial killer," she accused.
"No," Spike just shook his head and let go of her. "He'll be back to cuddling and eating sweets. This is only a nightmare for him to overcome. You have a lot more darkness in you than he does right now."
"Is that supposed to upset me?" Willow asked, although her voice began to waver. "I've done bad things, yeah, and I'm paying for them."
"You're running away from them," Spike accused, his face close to hers.
"I'm not," Willow denied, shaking her head.
"You haven't even seen her since you left her on the floor," Spike reminded her. "You ran. You kept running."
Willow closed her eyes, trying to clear away the images and guilt his words conjured. "I never-" she stopped, realizing her mistake to close her eyes for even a second, because when she opened them, he was gone, and she was standing against the doorway to a room that had long been destroyed. "Tara?"
"What are you?" Buffy asked, her arms folded as she paced in front of Sarah, who was tied down to a chair. "Some sort of shape shifter?"
"You're all crazy," Sarah shot back. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked fearfully, eyes widening and then she scowled at their resolute stares. "You're all going to jail for life if you so much as lay a hand on me."
Buffy stepped forward a pressed her face against Sarah's cheek. "Oops," she quirked her eyebrows, daring Sarah to try anything. She pulled her hand away just in time to avoid Sarah the chance of biting it. Once again she folded her arms, giving Sarah a disdainful look. "Whatever you did to him, you're going to pay dearly for it."
"You can't prove anything," Sarah sneered.
"Actually, there are a few tests that can help us narrow down exactly what you are," Wesley told her ominously. "Some of them can be… incredibly painful, I imagine. You'd be better off revealing what you are."
"So we can kill you," Cordelia added brightly.
"Aren't you supposed to help me?"
"No," Angel told her. "Not anymore. You lied to us and pretended to be someone you weren't in order to prey on someone we care very much about. You're going to tell us exactly what your game is, and trust me, I have ways of making people talk."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you had something to do with Willow," Buffy added, narrower her eyes as she considered the validity of the idea. "She was onto you."
"Keep guessing," Sarah laughed. Her voice was ripe with sarcasm. "You guys are crack detectives."
"I know why that vampire wanted to kill you now," Cordelia returned. "If I'd known where this was going to end, I would've offered to lend a hand."
"You still have no idea who you're talking to," Sarah said, shaking her head in amusement. "You should probably go check on your boyfriend. Cuddle him as close as possible, 'cause that always makes everything all better. I know I got a laugh."
Buffy clenched her teeth, unable to stop the worry from crossing her face.
"Oh," Sarah laughed at the emotion. "You left him alone, didn't you? And still not the faintest clue what goes on in that head of his. I'm sure he's handling all of this so well."
Buffy faltered, both stubborn to let Sarah get to her, but unwilling to ignore a good point just because she hated to show weakness. "I gotta-" was all that she said to Angel before turning away. She left the training room, trusting Angel and the others to grill Sarah just as hard. She shut the door behind her and crossed the hotel. Outside in the semi-light of the garden, Fred had been sitting with Galen.
"Hey," Buffy said softly to break the calm silence. She tried to let her anger for Sarah slip aside, not wanting to upset him.
Galen's eyes flickered over to her general direction. "Hey," he returned, managing a small smile and then sort of giving up on it.
"Whatcha talkin' about?" Buffy asked, attempting to sound perkier than she felt.
"Fred's been trying to coax me into literacy," Galen said. "She's very persistent."
Fred gave Buffy an anxious look. "I just thought it would be…."
"Yeah," Buffy said, understanding fully. She stood awkwardly, wishing she knew even what to say.
Galen turned towards Fred, reaching out until he touched her arm. "Could you excuse us, love?"
"Of course," Fred said, nearly tripping over herself to give them space. "I'll just – oh… never mind," she laughed nervously, then whimpered and fled into the hotel.
A long moment of silence passed while Buffy agonized over what to say, but her mind was blank.
"You can sit down," Galen told her. "Please. Even just for a bit."
Buffy settled where Fred had been sitting, took a nervous breath and held it, her hands twisting together on her lap. She finally let out the breath after what felt like minutes had passed. She slackened somewhat then, slowly breathing in and out in soft sighs and sat still. She wished she had kept a better eye on him, wished she had pressed her suspicions about Sarah harder, wished that she knew more about him, wished that she could make all of it stop and just fix things.
"I'm sorry I kissed you," Galen finally said. He smiled an then dropped his head, trying to will it away.
"It's okay," Buffy said quickly, finally able to form words. She sounded like an eager teenager and she hated it.
"Honestly I just needed to get your attention up for a second," Galen said.
"Oh," Buffy said, suddenly crestfallen.
"But… that doesn't mean that I didn't really want it," Galen added. "Just… under better circumstances."
"Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be 'better circumstances'," Buffy sighed. "It's always one life-or-death circumstance or another. There's always another apocalypse to avoid, or someone gets kidnapped, or turns evil. And there are always demons and vam- very bad things to deal with."
"That makes me feel more normal," Galen mumbled, almost relieved but not quite.
Buffy frowned, wishing she could understand. "I know it's different for you. But if you want, you could try to explain it to me. I promise I'll just listen if you want me to. I just… there's so much of you that I don't know."
"I don't really want to think about most of it," Galen admitted. "And I can't remember the rest of it. It's hard to explain."
"Okay," Buffy said, lowering her gaze. "But I'm curious about… How did you know she wasn't Sarah?"
"Different things," Galen shrugged. "She was sullen, didn't particularly like relationships. She wouldn't have been so brass, like Rachel. And her hair was black, but that… thing told me she was blonde. And she did her wrists wrong. That's what got me the most. Sarah would never do them sideways. Those were just for show."
"How long did you know?" Buffy asked.
"A while," Galen admitted. "I thought it would be almost nice… pretend she was around. But it wasn't nice at all."
"Yeah, I get that," Buffy nodded uncomfortably. "We're trying to figure out what she is, and what she wants. I should probably help, unless you want me to sit?"
"No," Galen shook his head. "I can't, anyway. Not until she's gone or something."
"But later on," Buffy began.
"Later on," Galen agreed.
Buffy hesitated to smile, biting her lip. "Is that a date?"
"Oh, yes," Galen said suddenly, and she couldn't help but grin at the way he jumped to agree.
"We'll sort this out," Buffy promised, leaning in to gently stroke his hair. She caught sight of the dark spot on Galen's lip again, and the next thing she knew she was just barely touching it with the pad of her thumb. "Sorry," Buffy whispered, blinking as she realized what she had done. She moved her hand away and started to stand up, but Galen caught it instead. She meshed their fingers together, pulling him to his feet in a fluid motion.
"Come on," Buffy said, leading him back to the hotel. "I'll fix you something to eat. You need your strength."
"I need sleep," Galen mumbled. "But I don't want to sleep. I'm tired of being tired."
"You've been worn down a lot," Buffy noted, pausing to brush a hand across Galen's forehead, but he felt cool. "You just need to let yourself rest and get lots of healthy foods."
"If only it were as simple as it sounds," Galen muttered wistfully, but he let himself be guided and he let her pamper him, even though it made him hate himself even more.
"You're-" Willow trailed off, wanting to say alive, but her words were taken away by the red stain on Tara's shirt.
Tara just smiled at her, her face serene and forgiving, but occasionally blurry like the image of her kept slipping.
"You're not real," Willow said, disappointed but trying to keep herself grounded in reality.
"I'm as real as you are," Tara responded, tilting her head and giving Willow a sympathetic look.
Willow paused, looking around the room, although she was terrified of letting Tara slip from the corner of her eye. In this place, she was liable to disappear, or become something else. "Are you like Spike?" she questioned, wondering if she had found her way to some limbo. She wondered if she had slipped too far away without realizing it, let herself be led astray, and now Tara was ready to collect her. "I'm not ready to go," she blurted out.
"You're not going anywhere," Tara reassured her softly. "That's part of the problem."
Willow thought of her own body lying in a hospital room, and suddenly worried desperately about how she would get back to it. The thought of that reminded her of Kennedy, stuck on the other side not knowing if Willow was going to come back. The familiar pain of losing a lover slammed into Willow like a truck. She put a hand to her mouth, trying to will back the thoughts, mentally promising over and over again that she wouldn't give up. Tara waited patiently until Willow could manage to speak again.
"What's the other part of the problem?"
"You need to let go of me," Tara said.
"No," Willow exclaimed before she could stop herself. Her fingernails dug into her palms and she suddenly wished for something to hold onto, desperately needing the illusion of being grounded by something real. "I won't."
"I'm always going to love you," Tara said. "But your friends need your love more than I do. They need you to be there for you. And Kennedy. You know she cares about you."
"I-"
"Don't say something you'll regret," Tara warned her, as if she knew Willow's thoughts, and she was suddenly convinced that Tara did. "She believes in you."
"We should have been together forever," Willow said, feeling like she was finally admitting to a crime.
"We were," Tara smiled sadly. "I'm happy. Really. There are worse ways to go. I didn't even feel it."
"I tried to bring you back," Willow told her, tears flooding her eyes although she tried to stop them.
"I know. I know what you did," Tara said, and Willow sobbed helplessly. "Come here," Tara beckoned softly, and Willow went to her, unable to resist if she wanted to. She collapsed into Tara's arms, suddenly wrapped in embrace, and it felt all too good to be true. Tara moved to sit on the edge of the bed, drawing Willow down with her until the redhead was settled alongside her, holding her while she cried.
The tears only lasted for a while, too exhausted to be sad for very long. "You can't shut your heart to love, baby," Tara said softly when the sobs had quieted for a long time. "Don't ever forget that. You have people who love you very much."
"I just missed you so badly," Willow groaned softly.
"I'm okay," Tara whispered, stroking her hair. "It's very peaceful for me… when you're happy."
Willow sat up and wiped away the tears that hadn't yet dried. "I can be strong."
"Just let yourself be happy," Tara sighed.
Willow turned and looked at her, stretching out a hand and resting it lightly over the blood-stained spot where a bullet had made Tara's heart explode. "Does it hurt?"
"Not like you'd think," Tara responded calmly. She laid her hand over Willow's, pressing slightly harder than Willow had dared. "It's okay," she said, guiding one of Willow's fingers to the edge of the wound. It grazed over the skin and then slid into the wound a few centimeters. Tara looked down at her shirt as a flow of blood made it's way down. Willow watched the stain on Tara's shirt grow, mesmerized.
"Now it can heal," Tara said, looking up and smiling at Willow before she faded into thin air.
The woman was left sitting alone with blood-stained hands. She stared at them for what felt like forever, only vaguely caring when Spike slowly walked into the room.
"I get it," she said quietly, before Spike started any "did-you-learn-your-lesson" pestering. She didn't want to accept it, but she somehow finally could.
"There's too much of that," he commented vaguely. Willow looked up to realize that it wasn't Spike, but the human reflection that crossed her path, hovered, and then sat down beside her.
"I saw you," Willow said as he settled beside her, taking a similar stance by sitting on the very edge of the bed. Her hands were still open in front of her, still unable to stop looking at the blood on her palms. "You were in the basement," she stated. "With all of those bodies. You're finally up."
"Hm? Oh…" She felt him tense beside her. "I've been up for a while."
Willow nodded and slowly curled her hands closed, keeping the blood inside, like it was part of her. "It's weirdly easier when you face it."
"Hm. Facing the nightmare," he murmured. "Sounds like the title to a novel of my life."
"This is what you see all the time, isn't it?" Willow asked. "It's what you live in. That must be hard."
"Don't patronize me," he barely growled, voice low and strained. "I'm tired of it." He paused and sighed softly, lowering his head and running and hand through his hair. "But I'm so tired."
"You have people who love you." She reached out to touch his shoulder. He lifted his head at the same time she realized what she'd done, and they both stared at the blood on his shirt, dismayed by the mark. "You have people who care about you," she said, resolute.
"Yeah," he said slowly. Willow wasn't sure if he believed it or not. In a place like this, she wasn't sure what she believed, either.
"Spike said you had to learn something," Willow remembered, trying to sound off-handed. "I'd understand… if you wanted to tell me."
There was a long silence, and Willow worried that he hated her for asking, but then he finally spoke. "Spike?" he echoed slowly, as if the name came back from some recess of his memory, and she realized her mistake.
Willow tried to be brusque and push past it. "Yeah, he said--"
He slowly furrowed his brow, shaking his head while she spoke and then cut her off. "People keep saying that. To me. Saying that name. Saying it… to me, about me. Buffy… she keeps calling me that," his voice rose in pitch as the realization distressed him. He turned to her, his expression a mixture of betrayal, confusion, and anger. "Why does she keep doing that?"
Willow hesitated, troubled. "You look like someone that we knew."
"But I'm not him," he said, distress mounting. He rose to his feet and Willow jumped to hers, panicking. "I'm not anyone," he continued. "You're all being so nice and caring because I look like someone else."
"No, that isn't it at all," Willow shook her head, trying to discourage the line of thought.
"It is," he shrugged already realizing it. "Nobody just takes in people. Nobody wants to be the girlfriend to a complete head case. Buffy loved him, didn't she."
"Oh god. Look, Buffy loves you."
"She doesn't know anything about me," he shook his head. "I'm just a stand-in." The thought hurt him like none other, feeling an immense amount of suffering connected to the idea. He felt as if he'd been in the situation before, like it was a cycle he couldn't escape. Even though he couldn't remember what had happened before, he acutely felt the pain from those black spots in his memory. "I can't do this again," he whimpered, suddenly clutching his head.
"Galen?" Buffy's voice cut through the fog, suddenly lifting the darkness. She stood holding a bowl of diced apple, looking like she might drop it.
"Buffy," Willow said, eyes wide, as she realized she was in the lobby of the Hyperion, and had been sitting on the couch with Galen. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to."
"Didn't mean to," Galen echoed. He shuddered all over, whimpering, "What is this?"
Buffy rushed to him, slowing down to approach him cautiously and rubbed his arms. "You're okay," she cooed. "You're safe. Galen, what's wrong?"
He laughed scornfully but couldn't open his eyes, too stressed out for that. "It isn't real."
"I'm real," Willow burst out quickly. "You can see me. You can hear me. Buffy can't. You have to tell her I'm here!"
"What isn't real?" Buffy set the bowl down on a table, devoting her attention to Galen, but he remained tense and withdrawn, slowly shaking his head with the occasional whimper. "She's doing it again," Buffy determined, setting her jaw and casting a glare towards the training room. "She's doing something, and this time I'm going to stop her. You're okay, Galen, sit down," she coaxed, pulling him slightly towards the cough.
"Don't touch me," Galen growled in such an inhuman voice it chilled her and she instantly let go.
Buffy stared at him, torn between frustration and fear, and decided to turn all of it into anger instead. "Stay here," she muttered, headed off to the training room.
Willow almost flinched when the training room door slammed. She could feel the air shift, almost throwing her off-balance, something that she never felt in physical form. "Galen, you have to tell Buffy I'm real."
"I don't want to talk to her anymore," Galen shook his head.
"I know you're blind, but you can't be that blind," Willow snapped at him angrily, and he dropped his hands to glare at her, except he could still barely open his eyes. "She's crazy about you, and you know it. I know you feel the same way."
"I don't feel!" he shouted out, frustrated.
"That's not true."
"But I wish I didn't," he muttered, sinking down to the floor and collapsing in an exhausted heap.
"I know it can hurt," Willow told him, slowly kneeling down in front of him. "I've been dumped and cheated on and left behind."
"It's like I'm not here. I'm still not here. I can't even see myself but apparently it doesn't matter. I don't exist."
"I'm the one that doesn't exist," Willow reminded him. "But I'm supposed to! I'm stuck like this. You can help me; they'd see you then."
"As crazy," Galen muttered, lowering himself to the floor.
"No, no, I promise," Willow persisted. "You can relay things to them to prove I'm really here."
"I'm just so tired," he muttered, sounding absolutely miserable and then passed out shortly after.
Willow's eyes widened and she slowly rose to her feet, feeling chilled. She noticed that Spike's eyes were on her, and he looked strangely forlorn.
Willow stared at Galen collapsed on the floor, wondering how long he'd lay there before Fred or Buffy came back and found him. She looked around at the unnatural shadows, and then at Spike who stood like a pure form of shadows, and was reminded of the image of Death.
"Is he dying?" she asked, the first thing that came to mind.
Spike moved closer, his form hunched with what she guessed was concern, if only an abstract interpretation of it. "Yeah."
Willow didn't expect that answer, stumbling away from both of them in surprise. "I thought I was just— How did I know that?"
"You're connected to him through me," Spike reminded her. "If he dies, you're going down too."
"And what if I'm the one who's dying?" Willow asked him. "This is all some roundabout way of showing me that I'm dying, right now, possibly on the brink of the very definition of dead. And if it works one way, it has to work the other way. Whatever happens to me happens to you, and if you die, Galen dies. Isn't that it?" His unblinking stare was enough of an answer, and she pressed on. "One way or another, we all die together. That's why Tara spoke to me today and not any other day. That's why you've been leading me through this nightmare."
"How you deal with your nightmares is your issue," Spike snapped at her. "I didn't let you walk through his subconscious just to piss around. There isn't anyone else who understands him more than you do now. Ungrateful little arse," he muttered darkly.
"But you're his other half," Willow said.
"I'm his demon," Spike sneered. "I don't do sappy 'open your heart to love' speeches. If you want to live, fix him."
Willow shook her head quickly. "I don't know how to do that."
"Don't be stupid," Spike glowered. "When he dreams, he'll listen to you. You'd better suss out a bloody good thing to say to him."
Don't forget to check my profile for a link to my everyone-friendly writing comm. There's a new story or chapter to something every week, so you don't have wait months to read more from me. Love you guys always. See you in a bit with a new chapter.
