Chapter Eighteen

Something is coming

A/N Not got a lot to say really, so I'll shut up. Had a little break yesterday for stuff. But am back now. Yay. Am going to be messing up the order of some episodes, mainly just moving an episode to much later, but will explain when I come to it. This is the second to last, there will be a chapter after this. But yep guess that was kinda long sorry.

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 2002

The bathroom door sidled open, Buffy walked through it slowly. She was scooping out the place, and the bathroom was an important place to scoop, lots of people came in there and cried and peed and well you know. She peered into the mirror, the faint approximation of herself peered back, the same poignant green eyes and lenient stare.

"It's not mum hair." It was a statement, she checked over her hair to make sure but no, she looked young and youthful, full of life. There was something different next to the sink, not soap or hand towels or anything, obviously that would be ridiculous. It looked like some sort of bound spell or poultice or something Willow would use for well Buffy wasn't entirely sure what Willow would use this sort of thing for, but there were lots of options skipping around her head. It was like a twig and bone and a feather all tied and bound with some string, looks pretty harmless to me.

Buffy thought as she sighed, bringing it up to inspect it further. Her eyes glimpsing the mirror, a feminine form stood behind her. Buffy didn't move. Just stared as whatever it was began speaking in a strange tongue. It's a freaky thing. Maybe the stick thing awakened some sort of ghostly thing. The Buffy logic was flawless. The 'ghost' looked more like a zombie, flesh draping from its face, hair ragged and hanging down by force.

"You couldn't protect her. Couldn't protect me." A voice croaked behind her, it was low but tainted with higher flecks. Buffy assumed it was nothing, but the figure behind her was really quite real enough. Not just an excuse for a daydream roaming about her head. The voice was raspy, dead sounding, if bones could talk. Protect her. Protect Dawnie? I can too. I have to. She's only got me left.

She turned swiftly, only to find the room empty of ghostage. The stalls just plain and boring, their contents absent of life. Buffy was still holding the twig in her hand, shifted from one foot to the other, she stared around the room, perhaps expecting something to attack her. Well, that was all weird, it's just silent.

Plain silence, then attack. A different one, a man, he was wearing overalls like a janitor. His hands were outstretched pushing Buffy aside, her hand flaying out to catch herself against the nearest stall.

"Get out! Get back! Get out!" He shouted, leering over her, he sounded angry for something Buffy couldn't explain, it was freaky. Then he too, was gone, disappeared into the pale nothingness of the bleak air.

She was holding her to the ground, the thick carpet of Tara's dorm acting as a blanket between Willow and the excruciating pain of being forced to the floor. Her head kept down, like something was pulling her, thick gravity. She could feel it. The dark energy swirled through her veins as her mouth opened and closed rapidly failing to take even a single breath. It was the power of nature binding her, even though they were inside, the Earth was calling out to her, speaking its evil through the falling breaths. The ache of her chest as it rose and fell in sync with Tara's heartbeat, each beat pulsing more and more until Willow began calling out.

"I-I can't." She gasped out, reaching for one of Tara's hands as she felt the forces leave through her extended palms. "Goddess." Her breathing gradually returned to a normal hum as Tara held her shoulders and rocked her gently.

"Can't what Wil, w-what happened?" Tara squeezed out between gentle brushes of red hair. Willow sat up, leaning back into her girlfriend still breathing far too deeply, the oxygen coming in and out in floods as she came up with the words. Tara had felt something too, the energy coming from the Earth seemed wrong somehow, like a warning. But it had hit Willow far worse, making her drop to the floor, the rasping sound escaping from her lips. Tara had felt slightly nauseous all day, her tummy had a washing machine feeling that just wasn't going away. But she'd dealt with this kind of thing before, just before her mother died, she'd known something bad was going to happen. She felt the death before it happened, she also hated to admit she'd felt it before Joyce died too, the ache of bad feeling creeping through her.

They'd been sitting on the floor about to practice tuning their minds to work without distraction, when Willow had been pulled instantly to the floor, her breaths coming in great gasps. But now it was over, now Tara was ju st rocking Willow's tired body in her arms, stroking soft hands through her hair.

"I felt, I felt the Earth." Willow began to utter, Tara nodded, she'd felt something pulling sharply the moment Willow had fallen. "It's all connected. The Earth, the roots, the darkness, all of it." Her palms shook as she gently lifted them from the floor, like a magnetic release they clicked back to her side, pulling Tara closer.

"There's deep, deep black." Tara suggested, the colour of Willow's aura had drastically changed for a few seconds, that purply all consuming blackness Willow had been the summer before, when she'd been dark. Willow nodded, she knew not to ask how Tara knew, she just did. She could sense Tara's skin resisting in tension too, the pull of it tightening around her. The grip was comforting for now, but she knew, something is coming.

"Tara?" Willow said after quite some time, the rest had helped calm her but there was still something she needed to get out. They stood up together slowly, sitting down on the bed, the covers screwing up with the weight, blankets warming them from beneath.

"It's so dark, it has teeth baby." Willow purred, her hand on Tara's knee, not intending to start anything, she just wanted the comfort. It was a sign between them. "The Hellmouth, it's-it's gonna open." There was a small sob elicited before Willow finished, "it's gonna swallow us all." She breathed out, collapsing into a heated mess. Her cries were quiet but resistant, she could do this, move past whatever badness she'd suffered, for the goodness of it all. For Tara, to prove that I can do this, that I am better than the darkness, it doesn't consume me.

Oh Willow, how can you think like that, I'll always be proud of you for overcoming the darkness inside you, it'll always be there, but you overcame it. But Willow didn't hear Tara's mind mumbling, the warning filling her head was all powerful, all consuming, it was overtaking her slowly. She would be fine for now, but if she didn't learn to control the thoughts and let Tara back in, who knows what kind of evil could transpire.

The basement reeked of dankness, the smell conjured from mildew building on the thick walls, she was running, fighting the ghosts, ghosts, zombies, still not entirely sure. Then all she saw was him. His curly tendrils of peroxide flavour hair had grown into dark roots, his cheekbones were still a musculature wreck and he was wearing thin all of a sudden. Spike.

She gasped, not sure what to make of him. He smelt like the stone surrounding him, dank and dewy. Her lip quivered as she tried to come up with anything concrete like words, feigning professionalism. "Spike?" It was a question because the man in front of her so resembled him it was hard to fake but he didn't resemble to cruel badass she'd abused into a toxic relationship, his entrails were different.

His eyes were kinder, the expression in them of curiosity was enough to make her question her own sanity. "Are you real?" She could swear she was dreaming or her hand could pass through him if she so desired, a non-corporeal, an illusion. A spell, or hex, or dream.

Then he was sniggering, a long giggle protruding from his thin lips as his teeth glowed. Their yellow-stained ashy remnants haunting his mouth. It developed into a crazy-person laugh. An asylum dweller. He was mad. Mad as a box of frogs.

"Buffy." The hand to her face was cold, his usual room temperature get up with the leather. And dark, dark black. A smoke show. "Duck."

What? Where? "What? Duck? There's a duck?" Her mind was playing tricks on her, no one in there right mind would say duck right now. Absolutely totally, ridiculous. Why would there be a duck in a basement? Where's the nearest pond? Where would you even get a duck? Was he going to eat it? Was it a pet? What? What colour of duck? Do ducks have different colours? Buffy couldn't think rationally enough to think her way out this, she was so confused about his realness it faulted her.

Then something rather blunt hit her over the head, a sharp blow landing her on the floor, head battering to the cold ground with a thud. "No visitors today, terribly busy." She heard Spike say, his English lilt swaying as she drifted into oblivion.

Another fight and she was alone with him, spurting voices creeping from his mouth in jittery half-statements. His words eluded her, a confused mess of sadness. She came closer to him, in the darkness, her hand reaching out to touch his quarter degree chest. Deep scratches had penetrated into the once soft flesh, even though months had gone by his pain was only matched by what it had once been. It was a hatching.

"What did you do?" She said, looking at the wounds whilst his eyes avoided her. His head rolling around on his neck as he spoke only the truth for her. The cuts on his chest were hardened with cold blood, red sticky lines drawn on with pain.

"I tried, I tried to cut it out." Tried what? He was acting so strange, this was definitely a different Spike to one who'd tried to kill her five years ago, and certainly a different Spike to the one chained up watching Passions with a 'kiss the librarian' mug. He had a softness to him that she'd never seen in his eyes before, maybe this was the Spike of the past, the poet. Old romantic William.

The insistent beeping of her cell interrupted Spike, it's Dawn, it's important, you have to take it life is in danger. Buffy walked away from him, picking up the phone and speaking to Dawn alone. Spike's insipid weeping-like vibe made him refrain to the corner. He sheltered himself, his arms wrapping around his shoulders tightly. The compression of his chest burned as he gripped tighter to the flesh underneath the sweaty clothes.

Buffy had to go, leave. She left him for Dawn, she was more important than him. She deserves this, the little niblet, the attention. I am alone. Always alone. And surrounded. The song, the song. It burns through me like ice. I can't revoke it now, not now, not ever. I don't make sense. I am alone.