Disclaimer in pt. 1.

Note: thank you to the few people who read this and enjoyed it, especially to Mats Forsen who made me realize I hadn't posted the whole thing!

IWD: Wither Wilt Thou Goes?

§§§

A thousand voices surrounded Willow, whispering, understanding coming in snatches of words, of phrases. She felt . . .cold almost, but not quite. And heavy, as if something were holding her down. Slowly she opened her eyes.

"The prisoner awakes," a loud vaguely female voice boomed to Willow's right. Attempting to raise her hand and wie the residue of her sleep? from her eyes, she discovered she was shackled. The chain ran from one manacle down to the floor and ring embedded in it, up to the other manacle. It was long enough to give her ample freedom of movement -- Willow believed that she could stand and raise both hands over her head if she wished -- but they were heavy and cumbersome. And made of iron. She couldn't magick her way out of these.

"What's going on here?" Willow's voice sounded far more stable than she felt.

"If I were you, pet," she turned in shock, becoming aware of her surroundings, and the people that inhabited it, slowly, "I'd be a bit more cooperative."

"Spike?"

"A good dose of fear won't hurt her either," Angel said from her other side.

As if a picture held to close to her eyes had suddenly been pulled away, giving her a view of the real world, Willow suddenly saw that the three of them were standing -- well she was sitting -- inside a wooden box-thing. Although she did not look back she got the impression that the structure was only three-sided, that if she weren't chained she could easily turn around and leave this place. If Angel and Spike didn't get to her first. Through the carved bars a sea of faces stared back. A sea of familiar faces. There seemed to be a dozen Taras, Dawns, Anyas and Xanders staring back at her, whispering behind their hands and making gestures in her general direction. There were even a handful of Giles, Wesleys, Faiths and Cordelias. And was that Oz? There seemed to be only one of him.

On a bench in front of the gathered audience, on the other side of the low wood fence, with her in the court was Buffy, the only one that didn't seem to have multiples. And of course there were Angel and Spike by her side, her undead guards.

"It's another dream. I never woke up," Willow assured herself.

"Hardly," the strange, multi-tonal, vaguely female voice said.

Willow looked to her right, and gasped. "Mrs. Summers?"

"No," the judge wearing Joyce Summers' face said, "this is merely the form I have taken for this trial. Those out in the audience have also taken the form of thine friends."

"Where are they?" Willow demanded of the as yet unnamed power.

"Only the vampires, Slayer and Werewolf are here in person," she/it went on as if she had not spoken.

Willow felt herself growing angry, felt the power well within her. "Where are my friends? When I woke from my dream they were gone. What did you do with them?"
"They are here. In part," the thing who wore Joyce Summers' body so well. It was a little strange. "It was necessary, for the magic, to posses thine friends' bodies so that they might be cloned as we saw fit. Each person in the audience who bears one of thine friends' faces owns some part of them. We need only one living cell to reconstruct their being."

"Why not just use a glamour?" she accused.

"Why not just let the Slayer stay dead?" she/it shot back confidently.

"We needed Buffy back!" Willow covered her mouth. No, she couldn't have meant to say that. "We loved her and missed her."

"Thee spokest true the first time, Willow. Thee brought back the Slayer out of selfish need. Is there not a way to call another slayer to take the place of the one ye had lost?"

"But Faith is still alive. Another won't be called until she dies."

The Judge leaned over the side of her/its stand. "And the thought of killing Faith crossed thine mind, didst not?"

No! "Yes," Willow heard herself answer solemnly. Once more her hand traveled like lightning to her lips. "No! That's not true. How are you making me say these things?" she demanded.

"Thee art under a geis to speak truth whilst arraigned before this council."

"But I never thought of killing Faith!"

With a wave of her/its hand, the Judge brought before the court a still of Willow some weeks after Buffy's death. "Dost thee remember this moment?"

"I-I'm not sure." Willow felt a distinct urge to bite her nails.

"Let us watch then." With another wave of her/its hand, the scene started.

Suddenly Willow was both inside the moment and watching it from her guarded box. Packing away some odds and ends she had come across a rare picture of Buffy and Faith together. She could not remember where or when it had been taken or even who had taken the picture. If only she were dead came clearly to Willow's mind.

The scene stopped. The picture was just a picture, not even a still, and Willow's consciousness inhabited the body in the box. Willow shook her head slowly. She looked first to Angel then Spike but neither would meet her gaze. Despite the familiar faces in the audience, their eyes were alien, and like the vampires, Buffy would not meet her eyes. But Oz looked at her. Oz stared at her dead on, willing her to do something, to be someone genuine, to . . .to . . .to come out on top, one way or another.

"It is all right," the Judge spoke, it's multi-tonal voice somehow comforting. "We have all had stray thoughts. None is perfect. We do not judge on this one thought, but rather from where this thought stems.

"Thee have been tested night after night for a five-day. The vampires have come to thee, thy lover, the Watcher, the Wolf, the Demon, the Soldier and the Slayer and yet thee hast found no repentence in the face of their accusations. Thee hast no guilt at all! Night after night, even as the evidence of the dreams have become part of thine waking-world you refuse to see the message each sends. Headstrong and foolish in thine abilities thee hast not even told thine lover of your night terrors.

"Are these thy friends, then, whom thee proclaim to love yet manipulte for thine own will and ignore at thy fancy? Thee pushes all help away from thee, traveling farther and farther down the path of destruction and call it thine supremacy of all that is. Sound advice is given thee and thee makest threats under thine breath. Not idle threats, threats whose idea are, at this very moment, taking root in thy mind.

"Thee who hast proclaimed to be a white-hat must then be judged by a council of white-hats for thy actions, for thy perversion of our way."

Willow felt the tears hovering on spill, held in her eye by surface tension, will, and not blinking. "How are you going to judge me?" She couldn't stop her voice from wavering. Who will stand in my defense?"

The Judge turned her/its attention to the audience. "Who will stand in Willow's defense?"

Oz rose from his aisle seat in the first row of the audience. "I will."

"The Wolf, hereby recognized as Oz, as is his name of preference, will stand in Willow's defense. So let it be written." The Judge turned back to Willow. "We are not like thine Earth-bound court. What thee seest here is a manifestation of what we truly are. The error thee hast committed is grievous, and many that thee think thee seest here visit from the Astral Plane. We shall argue thy case in private and come back with a decision."

"What?!"

"Oz, as thy representation, shall speak for thee." She/it turned back to the audience, addressing Buffy in particular, "The Slayer mayst speak for herself, if she so wishes, as the crimes are, in particular, against her. Dost thee wish to have another speak in thy defense Slayer?"

Buffy rose from her bench within the actual court. "No, Your Honor. I'll speak for myself." She remained standing.

"The Slayer, hereby recognized as Buffy, as is her name of preference, will stand in her own defense. So let it be written. Let the hearing commence."

And without flash or fanfare or anything else that would have made it special, the entire court, including the audience, were gone. Willow was left in her carved cell with her guards. She realized she was no longer chained when she sank her head into her hands. Probably because there's no place for me to go, 'specially with Spike and Angel playing babysitter, she thought perversely. Longingly she wished for her long hair and the curtain it once provided. Raising both hands to the top of her head, Willow drew them down over her hair. Nothing happened. She felt the unspent energy of the glamour underneath her fingertips, ready to be used as she saw fit but, running her hands down once more, could not force it into being.

"Nuh uh uh," Angel teased, "no magick for little old you until the council has a verdict."

"Aww," Spike joined in, "looks like Red here's gonna cry."

She did.

Willow was flicked, none-too-gently, on the back of her neck when the court returned.

"Thee will conduct thyself in a manner befitting this court, Vampire. Understood?"

Spike nodded gracefully to the Judge, trying, as the others were, to ignore the familiarity of her/its face. "Yes, Your Honor. My apologies to the court."

She/It nodded her acceptance. "This court has reached its decision. Willow, stand."

It was only at this command that Willow noticed that the returned court looked very much like the departed one. Oz and Buffy still stood in their respective places, the see of familiar faces still whispered behind their hands, and her wrists were once again manacled.

"As I stated, the court has come to a decision, Willow. Oz argued eloquently on your behalf as did, suprisingly, Buffy. You owe them much. Nearly your very life. But your crime was grievous. You have dabbled in magicks beyond your ken without either precaution or advisement of one older and wiser. You did not, as they say in your world, cover your back. You must pay."

Willow's eyes swept over the courtroom until, finally, the locked on Oz's.

Joyce Summers eyes glowed with the light of a millenium of magickal fires."Willow Rosenberg," she proclaimed in a booming voice, for all the universe to hear, "you have been weighed and measured and you have been found wanting. Let the punishment fit the crime." The manacles fell off with a loud clang.

"Let the punishment fit the crime," everyone, save Willow, repeated.

The Judge turned to her, her/its voice tender once more. "Ah, Willow. We had such hope for thou. Wither wilt thou goest now?" She/It stood. Angel and Spike stepped away from Willow, as if afraid that whatever judgement was meted out would fall on them if they stood too close. "So mote it be!"

The courtroom was gone.

§§§

"What's wrong with her?"

Tara looked from her girlfriend, sitting crosslegged on what was now their bed in Buffy's house, staring at nothing. "I don't know, Dawnie. Is Buffy back yet?"

Dawn nodded. "Yeah, she's downstairs making the tea right now. She said to tell you it'll be done in, like, a minute."

Tara's smile was only half-hearted. When she had awoken Willow was as they saw her now, cross-legged, staring into space, unresponsive. That had been some time around five this morning. Tara didn't know what had woken her so early but she was glad it had. Glancing over at the clock on the nightstand she saw it was eight. "You should get to school Dawn. If you rush you won't be late."

"But I want to stay here with you and figure out what's wrong with Willow."

Tara shook her head gently. "If Willow were okay she'd say the same thing. Now go."

Seeing that the blond wasn't going to give in and dawdling would only get her in trouble once she got to school, Dawn turned on her heel and left the room with just enough pomp and circumstance to let Tara know she wasn't happy.

"Buffy!"

"Tell Tara it's almost ready!" she called back from the kitchen.

"Tell her yourself, I'm going to school."

"Oh," Buffy popped out of the kitchen. "Um, okay. I'll pick you up, okay? And if anything happens to Willow I'll call the school and let you know okay? Get you out of class for a minute or two and everything."

It was the best she was going to get, Dawn knew, but that didn't mean she had to make it easy. "Oh, all right." She walked sullenly down the hall and to the door. One hand on the nob she complained, "Why do you guys always have to treat me like a kid?!"

"Because technically you still are!" Buffy called, halfway up the stairs.

"Oh!" Dawn angrily yanked open the door and nearly collided with another human being. "Oz?"

"Hey . . .Dawn. Long time no see. Is Willow here?"

"Uh, yeah. I thought you were in Nepal or something. Willow's sick, did you hear?"

"Yeah, I know."

"You know? But you've been, like, noncomm for months. We couldn't even send you a message that Buffy had died--"

Oz pushed past Dawn and ran up the stairs. Unerringly he found Willow with Buffy and Tara as her nursemaids.

"Oz!" they exclaimed together.

"I know what's wrong with, Willow."

"What?" Tara looked from Buffy to Oz. "How?"

"I was there, so were you Buff." Slowly he made his way to Willow's side. Tara backed away. "All her magick's gone. Been taken away," he murmured. Gingerly he touched his knuckles to her cheek.

Willow's eyes flickered, the muscle beneath her cheek jumped. She turned toward the source of contact. "Oz?"

"I'm here baby."

End Series