Title: Any Day Now
Author:
Rating: PG-13 to R
Summary: It's the sequel to Serendipity's spectaular story "When Stars Collide". We kind of went bonkers and changed the plot (i.e., swerved in a completely different direction so it's hardly recognizable but the origins are still important), so cave spectator! (Some nifty Latin for those of y'all that aren't geeks.) Anyway, have fun. Read. And the story is named after the song "Any Day Now" by Bif Naked.
Part III
Three weeks later
"Okay, guys," Willow said finally. " Um it's late, and stuff, and I think my nails have been done sooooo many times that they might drop off, so I'm gonna go home."
Cordelia's bedroom was filled with disappointed cries of, "Ooooh.." and "Are you sure?" and "But just one more layer of sparkles"
"No. Guys. Seriously, I gotta go. It's 2:15 now, and I told Angel I'd be home by 2:30."
"Oh, well," Buffy said with a laugh, "if Angel said so" Everybody giggled. After a week of carefully enforced conversation sessions' by Giles, Buffy and Willow had managed to clear up the weirdness that was their friendship, and Willow had forgiven Buffy for her breakdown at her house, and Buffy had mostly come to terms with Willow and Angel's relationship.
"Can't you just call him and tell him you're sleeping over?" Amy said, sticking out her lower lip in an overemphasized pout.
"Um" Willow began a little awkwardly, "He's expecting something to happen tonight"
A chorus of taunting "oooooo"'s filled the room.
"No, no no!" Willow protested, turning bright red. "Something Hellmouthy."
Another collective sound, this time of understanding "aaaaaah"'s, was to be heard.
"Well, in that case," Buffy said, "I should walk you home."
"Oh! No, it's okay, Buffy. I'll be fine."
Buffy raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow. "Yeah, right. And I haven't died before." God, how it hurt to make that quip. After all, she was expected to die again soon, and like she'd said to Giles, this time for good.
And she still hadn't told any of them. Not Willow, not Xander, not Amy or Cordelia, not Angel. Only Giles knew, and she'd convinced him not to tell anyone. She didn't want to be coddled for the last days –weeks, months?—of her life.
Willow sighed, bringing Buffy back to their conversation. "Fine, Buffy. I'm sorry to drag you away from the party." There was a lot of scrambling for nail polishes—Buffy had like twenty-five different colors, as did everybody else, so they had to be sorted—and whose hair thing was whose, and then finally shoes and socks were found under the bed and Buffy and Willow said goodbye and headed home.
They walked to Willow's house slowly, arm in arm, chatting softly. The streetlights were dim, but Buffy was the Slayer, after all, so neither worried. Finally Willow interrupted their talk of history grades.
"Buffy, there's something wrong, isn't there? Something that doesn't have to do with, you know, the me and Angel thing?" Buffy sighed and bit her lip. Willow grabbed her arm and stopped walking. "Was it that prophecy Xander mentioned? That Giles wanted us to come look at but he made us figure stuff out first? Or am I just paranoid? I'm just paranoid, aren't I?"
Buffy was beyond shocked. How could Willow know? How much did she know?
"What do you know about that prophecy, Wills?"
Willow furrowed her eyebrows. "Nothing. I just know there is one. That's the problem, isn't it?"
Buffy was silent.
"What did the prophecy say, Buffy?"
"I'm going to die" Willow gave a little cry and drew Buffy into a hug. Buffy let a small sigh into Willow's shoulder, and they stood there for a little while in each other's embrace, both letting the tears come silently.
"Oh, Buffy" Willow sniffed and leaned back a little. "What else? Don't you have to do something?"
"Oh, God, Willow, the next Slayer—it's gonna be--"
And that was when the vampires attacked.
Distracted by the heavy emotional situation, Buffy hadn't noticed the vampires surrounding them. There were five, tall, wide brutes and each toted a long, metal pole. The ends of the poles were vaguely rust-colored, as though they'd been used before. With a sickening lurch to her stomach, Buffy realized who they'd been used on. She snuck a glance at Willow, who kept taking little steps back, towards an alley.
And then she bumped into Spike.
"'Ello, pets," he said jovially, taking a puff on a cigarette. "Lovely evening, isn't it?" When neither girl answered, he shrugged. "I think so. Anyway, how's me granddaddy doing? I heard he's supposedly changed his preferences." Spike gave a suggestive wink to Willow, who now stood next to Buffy. She briefly gave him a disgusted look, then decided it might be better to not provoke one's vampire acquaintances.
"Ready to have a little fun?" Spike asked, raising a scarred eyebrow. He lifted his chin a bit towards his minions, then gave a tiny nod. "Get em."
* * *
The phone rang.
* * *
They all attacked at once. Two ran at Willow, while three took Buffy. The poles came down on Willow, hard. At first they didn't get anything too badly. She got a pole in the stomach, which doubled her over, but they kept aiming for the stomach, which was, she reflected absently, behind the pain, better than having her neck broken.
The vamps fighting Buffy were having a little trouble. She was fighting panic-stricken, which made her kicking and punching frenzied, which repeatedly knocked them down. Finally, after about five minutes of watching his minions fight the Slayer with no success, Spike gestured to one of the vamps fighting Willow to join the ones fighting Buffy.
* * *
"Hello?"
"Angel? Hey. It's Amy."
* * *
Buffy was weakening. She was getting tired. The vamp that was watching Willow was kind of slow, so he'd knocked her feet out from under her a few times as well as the wind out of her, but not much worse, so he took the time when Willow was curled up on the ground to watch what the other were doing.
They were all attacking her at once—coming in with the ends of their poles raised high and jabbing repeatedly. Buffy could only dodge four vamps so well, and her stake had been pickpocketed from her right before she'd begun to fight. It was lying farther down the alley, far beyond her reach.
A pole jabbed her hard right in the shoulderblade, and she stumbled.
* * *
"Is something wrong?"
"No...not yet. Willow and Buffy left for Willow's place like ten, fifteen minutes ago—I was just calling to tell you, cause they left a little late."
"Fifteen minutes ago? They should be here by now."
* * *
Buffy fell to the ground, wrapping her arms around her head in her best defensive gesture. The poles continuously slammed down. The shots got better and better—first, one vamp hit her in the ribs, breaking the bottom one and digging the fragmented bone into something inside that hurt like hell. Then the poles that hit her pelvic bone and broke it, twisting her leg round in an angle she'd never been able to manage, even when she had taken gymnastics when she was little. Then one pole hit her hand off her head and ground her fingers into the cement. She turned her head in a sick desire to look at the bloody mess that had been her stake-wielding hand, and a pole caught her jaw.
* * *
"They're not there yet? Look out the window--"
"They're not coming, Amy. I can sense Buffy two blocks away, and I can smell Willow."
"D'you think something's happened? Oh, God"
"Wait—I smell something--"
* * *
As a red haze fell over her eyes and pain overtook every sense she had, Buffy wondered if this was how Willow felt the time she'd died.
The vampires beat Buffy's still body uselessly for a few moments as Willow cried and got a half-hearted swipe to the back with a pole for it.
And then they all turned on her.
* * *
"Smell something? What?"
"I'm out on the porch. Oh. Oh. Oh my GOD--"
"Angel? What? What is it?"
"Blood--"
* * *
Willow screamed as all the poles came down on her, just like last time.
Then the power infused her, and she knew what to do.
* * *
"Oh, God. Angel, run--"
"I know."
Click.
Click.
* * *
She fought like she'd only seen Buffy fight. The moves were commands: instant, futile to resist. Kick right. Duck. Punch up. Slide. Kick again. Kick, kick, punch
But it was barely enough.
Slowly the vamps cornered her again, forced her back up against the wall. She had no room. How could she move?
Then one more vampire entered the scene, but this one fought with her. Relieved, she ducked away from one pole, only to have another crush the bones in her left wrist.
Angel heard the one he loved scream in pain and the reaction was instantaneous. She was among the vamps like a maniac, fighting as though he himself was a Slayer. Quickly, he staked two vamps and went to help Willow to dispatch of the rest. She was fighting nearly as well as he was, but she had no stake to finish off the vamps she at least temporarily disabled.
"Willow!" Her head flew up, and then she shot her good arm up and caught the stake he threw to her. She wielded the stake at a vamp that was snarling at her throat and he backed off; but then at some unspoken command, the three remaining vamps abandoned Willow and jumped Angel at once.
Willow turned and came face-to-face with Spike.
"Lovely fighting there, Slayer," he hissed. "Never would have guessed that you'd be the next one" Willow threw a punch that knocked his head to one side. "Nice," he commented icily as he kicked her extremely sore stomach. "I guess you spent a lot of time watching Buffy, huh? Wondering if you could be like her?" A knife hidden somewhere in his sleeves found Willow's cheek, and a long red line was swiftly drawn from her chin to her hairline on the left side of her face, barely missing her eye. She was now squinting out of her left eye, and blood trickled down her face.
"Well, now you're just like her" Spike continued in a more casual tone of voice as he blocked a kick she aimed at his thigh. Then, somehow, he grabbed hold of her long hair in one hand and her shattered wrist in the other, and pulled her against his chest. "At the cost of her life, of course."
Tears trickled out of Willow's eyes from pain and sorrow, and the blood covering the left side of her face became watery and dripped along her nose and down her neck.
Angel staked the last vamp and came up behind Spike, who started at the large hand almost completely encircling his neck.
"Let her go," Angel growled in his ear, "or I break your neck."
"Sure thing, dad," Spike said with a grin. He slipped away before Angel could react or stake him, and Willow fell backwards, unconscious from pain, into Angel's arms.
Angel just caught her, and held her to his chest as he leaned against the alley wall. There was so much blooda lot of it Willow's, a little of it his, but most of it Slowly, Angel allowed his eyes to go to the main source of the blood he could smell, and that was Buffy.
She was lying on her side in a pool of her own blood. Her legs were twisted around, facing up. Her face was pale except for the splashes of red that trickled from wounds in her head, and her hair was thick with blood.
Angel swallowed and slid down the wall into an awkward sitting position, cradling Willow's torso in his lap. He stared at Buffy's prone form for about an hour, and then Willow began to stir in his arms. "Willow?" He bent his head to try and look her in the eye. "Sweetie?"
She gave a tiny choked cry in the back of her throat and tried to sit up. She made it to lying, propped on an elbow (which Angel supported), and then she fell back down. "My back--"
"Ssshh. It's okay" Angel tenderly wiped blood away from the knife slash on her face, and winced when she did. "Sorry." His fingers gently grazed her lip, and she kissed them.
"It's okay," she whispered. Willow tried to turn around again. "Where's Buffy?"
"Oh, Willow"
"Where is she?" Willow was crying. "Please, Angel"
"You don't want to see it, Willow," he said is gently as he could.
"Oh, God." She laid her head in his lap again and wrapped her arms around his waist, grabbing fistfuls of the back of his shirt.
"Willow, I have to get up and get a phone." Her grip on his shirt got tighter.
"Don't leave me here..."
"Can you get up?"
Another sob. "I'll try."
It took about ten minutes for them to figure out a way for Willow to get up without bending her back too much or bending over her bruised stomach. She had stopped sobbing by the time she stood, but there were silent tears trickling down her cheeks and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. Angel was near tears as well, but it was from seeing her in so much pain and not being able to do anything about it.
"Okay. We'll count the steps, alright?" Willow gave him a tiny, grateful smile, and took a step.
"One... two... three..."
"Buffy..." It was a whisper, a tiny bit of breath she had let escape. Angel looked down at the top of her head and saw the direction in which she was turned. He stood, silent, as Willow limped over to the body of her best friend and painfully knelt to see her face. For a long moment Willow crouched there, and then she stretched out a hand to push a lock of hair, sticky with blood, away from Buffy's eyes. Angel noticed, sickened, that the blood in Buffy's hair made no difference to Willow's hand because she was so bloody already.
"Angel?" Her voice was small. Angel was behind her in a second, ready to help her back up.
"I'm here."
"Did I look like this?" With much effort, Willow turned her head to look him in the eye. Her gaze was afraid. Angel turned his head away. "Oh, Angel--" She held out her right hand to him. "I'm sorry..." He knelt to her and gently placed his hands on her waist to lift her back up.
"We have to call Xander," he said. "You need help." She nodded, and they walked back towards the entrance to the alleyway, counting the steps away from Buffy.
* * *
They had to walk for a couple of blocks to get to a pay phone.
Upon searching his pockets Angel found that he did, indeed, have change and they wouldn't need to call collect. Willow leaned painfully back against the phone booth, and Angel gently touched her cheek in a comforting gesture as the phone in the library rang.
Giles picked it up after the third ring. "Hello?" He sounded worried. And well he should be, Angel thought.
"It's Angel. I'm on Winchester Street. I need you to drive down fast, so use Cordelia's car. Willow's hurt badly, but she can't go to the hospital because they'll ask questions. You've got to hurry—she'll need a splint for her wrist and for her back... can you have splints for a back? I'm babbling. Oh, God... Willow, are you okay? Try to stand up, honey..." She had slowly slid down the side of the phone booth and was scrunched into a ball, with tears of pain drawing pale rivers in the blood on her face.
"I'm okay," she said tightly, through clenched teeth. "Talk to Giles."
"Yeah..." he said, and turned his attention back to the phone.
"Angel? Are you there?" Giles was saying anxiously.
"Yeah, Rupert, I'm here."
"I'm sending Xander and Cordelia down in her car."
"Thanks."
"Oh!" Giles exclaimed suddenly. "Where's Buffy?"
Silence.
"Where's Buffy, Angel."
"I don't know how I can possibly tell you this, Rupert..."
"No. Oh, no..."
"I am so sorry, Rupert..."
"No..."
"Sit down. Xander is almost here. I've got to go."
There was a click as Giles slowly hung up.