Only a few years ago wandering around a deserted and abandoned hotel would have given her a major wiggins. Major wiggins, left over from an ill-conceived junior high era sleep-over with Xander, where they had huddled under seperate sleeping bags (hers Rainbow Brite, his Aquaman). Seperate at first, then together; both Rainbow Brite and Aquaman shaking like leaves--if leaves could shake from fear and terror, that is. That had been pre-high school, pre-Buffy, pre-knowing that Sunnydale was a Hellmouth and that the scariest things in town weren't in fact to be found at the local VideoTowne, rent one new release, get your second catalog selection free on Tuesdays.
So the hotel, though she would agree parts (whole sections, in fact) of it were creep-a-licious, didn't throw her so much off her game. She didn't expect a ghost at every turn, floating balloons and twin girls to materialize (though she had always found the concept of twins ooky). Instead, while she waited she took to wandering up and down The Hyperion's corridors, felling more like Snow White having wandered into the dwarves cottage and found it in desperate need of a spring cleaning, or like Goldilocks trying out the possessions of the Three Bears. Not that she had any intention of enlisting herself as a Merry Maid--and no matter the number of chairs (broken and otherwise) she sat down on, or beds she faked sleep in, none of them felt "just right." They were too empty for that.
But as she wandered she did occasionally pick up a fallen sconce or brick or unhinged door where she needed to to clear her path. The building was old, 98% of it long ago far-beyond the moniker "fallen into disrepair," and she wondered if Angel and the others ever walked among it, hiking the seemingly endless corridors, looking into rooms that would have smelled shut-up and old as grandmothers if their windows hadn't been knocked out and bird's hadn't been nesting among the chandeliers, tiny mice families being born in the bedding, and water from antique taps in the bathroom sinks running rusty--if it would run at all.
...
The first morning after--after Buffy--had not been the hardest. It had been an easy morning, the remembrance of the previous dawn had not yet settled in, but hid somewhere among so many other thoughts, so many other duties she had to perform. It had been the fifth day that proved to be her breaking point. Willow had never imagined the world without Buffy. It was not that she thought Buffy couldn't die--she had no delusions of immortality for her friend--only she had always simply assumed that as Buffy went so did the world: no Buffy, no world. But here was the sun, still coming up, the cable bill still coming due, pop quizzes being given, toddlers celebrating birthdays. They didn't know the world had ended. They didn't know the girl that had saved it.
...to be continued...
......
Disclaimers: See bottom Part One. For those who left feedback: don't worry, yes, undoubtably Angel will get to say his piece. ;) As the author, I can darn near guarantee it. Thanks.