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Part Seven
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"Buffy..." Willow said, as the door opened and Buffy entered. The sounds of the hall fell muted with the disparate slam when the door fell shut behind her. Willow had been sitting on her bed, in the dark, her stuffed bear clung close to her chest. She had been idly stroking its chenille fur, and thinking. No, thinking was not a good word for it. She simply let memories fall in on her and around her of all that had happened, trapped in the feeling they produced. There was nothing cerebral about it. It was an outpouring of grief, confusion, and not a small amount of loneliness.
She forgot all that when she saw her friend's face. Her eyes were red, her face looked drawn. It snapped her from her reverie, and suddenly all she had been lamenting fell away and she could only see Buffy.
"What happened to you Buffy? Are things ok?"
"Oh you know," she said, swallowing, trying to project strength and authority again, "Same demons, different day..."
"Yeah..." Willow responded. She looked at Buffy intently, trying to read in her face what was wrong. It was like a shadow had passed over it. Buffy turned and broke the moment, turning Willow's focus her own, internal darkness.
"I thought I'd come by, like I said earlier."
Willow bowed her head.
"Will... what was that? What's been happening to you?" she asked, sitting down on the bed next to her.
"I..." Willow started, and immediately burst into tears. Buffy put a conciliatory arm around her.
"You what, Will? What do you need to tell me?" Buffy asked, gently.
"It's true Buffy... it really is. She's there."
"Tara?"
"Yeah... she's stuck. Like, a ghost, you know? Well not like a ghost... she is a ghost, and she needs me," Willow found it difficult to speak, and was surprised at her own gasping voice, breaking through her sobs. She entreated her friend in a hollow whine, begging her to understand.
"Giles thought Jenny had come back... when she died..."
"But it's not like that-- not at all. She's there, I can see her."
"In the room?" Buffy asked.
"I think so... maybe the whole house. But look at what happened-- we'd just come back together, we'd just made things start to go right. And then it's cut off, it goes wrong-- what more unfinished, aborted life could there be? She couldn't leave. Not yet. She told me."
"How did she tell you?"
"She can be seen... I felt her, dreamed her at first... but she's there. She broke the window... or it broke when she came, because that's the moment she's trapped in. And she wanted me... no one else ever wanted me and she wanted me, even when she died Buffy-- how can it be wrong? I couldn't let her go-- I couldn't just leave her. I couldn't!"
Buffy looked down at the institutional, dormitory carpet, remembering her earlier encounter. Her friend lost herself in sobs, shoulders shaking under Buffy's arm.
Couldn't just leave her, no. The words sounded bitter in her skull. Couldn't leave her. Of course not.
Neither woman spoke, and there was no sound save the dull hum from the hallway, and Willow's sobs. Over time, though, those tears began to subside. Willow furrowed her brow, trying to grasp something that was passing through her mind.
"Buffy," Willow said, breaking her from her thoughts. Her tone was suddenly serene, as if a puzzle had come together and the last piece was in place. Or if a painful splinter, pushing into one's heel, had suddenly fallen away.
"Buffy..." she said, her tone steadying and her eyes dry, "When she talks to me, I feel... accepted. Like I can get over, you know, everything that's happened... like with just a little effort, that things can get better than I ever thought they could. I just needed someone to forgive me..."
"We all forgave you," Buffy said gently, stroking Willow's hair, "As soon as it was over, we all forgave you..."
"But it wasn't real, not to me," she responded, "You were still scared of me, I saw the fear in you when you found me today... you can't trust me, but she just loved me. No awkwardness, no fear... just love. And that makes everything possible... like I can do anything and choose to be better in the future... and I want that, I want it so damn bad Buffy..."
She looked for confirmation in Buffy's eyes. Buffy looked back, affected and earnest and hopeful.
"I'm sorry," Buffy said, "About today... I hurt more than I helped. It's just hard... you know, not to be afraid-- not to think the worst, like other people might do wrong considering everything what's happened before... but I need you to forgive me, too, for things... it's still hard sometimes, for me, being back. I do things the wrong way. I've done wrong... so much wrong. But I'm sorry... And I want to help."
Willow smiled.
"That's ok," she said, "And it'll work out... we'll help each other."
"Ok," Buffy said, smiling back tenderly.
---
Drusilla was crying. She was sitting on the stone wall, outside the cemetery, and she was lonely. He'd thrown her down in his eagerness to run off. She'd tried to stop him from going. He didn't even look at her when he pushed her aside.
But she'd kept the cocoon safe, she could smell the life in it. It was almost ready to hatch, it was moving inside and she could hear the rustling... and then it would fly away.
And her Spike... he'd gone off. He'd gone off to kill her new pet... he would never have done that before...
Well, perhaps if he'd been very angry with her. Or jealous. But he was neither. He was something new...
No, there was no malice there, no jealousy. She didn't understand it and didn't understand him, which frightened her. And she knew he was frightened too, frightened of the burning light that was dancing around him in electric jolts. Like baby fishes... She sometimes thought that if she touched him she would fall to ash.
She hopped down from her perch, still lost in her fitful thoughts. Sometimes she uttered half-sentences out loud, exclaiming her frustration to the dark.
He didn't want her to have her fledgling. It was dreadfully wrong. How could he go and kill it and make her cry? He knew she needed somebody. She'd have to go get another.
Would he just try to kill it again? She couldn't go alone... and she knew he couldn't come with her.
But he hadn't killed her. No, he wouldn't do that. Because he'd loved her, once. He was very sentimental that way...
And she smiled, and ran off down the road, her footsteps clattering delicately on the pavement. She hadn't felt so well in quite a while. Things seemed to be taking a turn for the better.
She was very, very clever, when she put her mind to it. And she would get everything she'd wanted.
---
Spike was alone. He sat in his crypt, on a worn armchair. Typical, really. He threw his open flask at the wall in frustration. It spattered the stones, sending the insidious odor across the room.
Buffy sat in this chair once, her legs tossed over one arm, her back leaning against the other. Her hair hung in wild strands down her shoulders and across her cheek. She had still been flushed, and her naked flesh was beaded with perfumed sweat. She looked like some wonderful pre- raphealite painting. Flaming June. Glorious youth against the course, worn old upholstery. The memory was lost in the past. It seemed unreal. Like it had happened years ago.
And he remembered, when he'd just returned, when he'd been half mad with confusion, how he had been sleeping in this chair when the door opened. Dawn. Her eyes. She threw the coat at him and had walked briskly away. The door had hung open behind her. And that he carried with him.
And now he sat in the dark, alone, drinking. Just like he had at the beginning, because he always came back to this. Old habits die hard.
---
Dawn put down her physics equations. She was remarkably good at them. It was in her blood like nothing else. The door to dimensions, the mystical portal. It knew the way reality wove itself together. And now it learned to articulate it in its most basic form, learning the human names for the rules in her blood. Force equals mass times acceleration. Torque. Gravity. She was mastering the skills of college-prep.
Maybe she should study astronomy in college... then she could forget this world and get lost in another-- the equations, the puzzles that she was born to solve.
She had opened all the windows. It was uncommonly hot out, and she wanted the fresh air. A warm breeze floated over her where she sprawled.
She shifted on the couch. There was a Babylon 5 repeat playing in the background. Xander would have appreciated it.
"If one does the right thing for the wrong reasons," Bill Mumy instructed, "The work becomes impure, corrupted." She wondered if any demons had bones like that on their heads. And then she shut off the television. It was a boring weekday. She had nothing to do, and no one to do it with.
And there was a sound from upstairs. Hard and loud and violent. Slamming. One, two... three...
And then the windows next to her slammed shut of their own volition. Dawn jumped up, her eyes wide.
And the door flew open as a woman kicked it. And then a draft flew up and it slammed shut in the woman's face. Dawn gasped, and backed against the wall. The sound of beating on the door continued, and for a moment she was paralyzed. Then she darted fast for the weapons case.
She opened it, her arms becoming clumsy as she tried to work with speed. She scatted the axes and swords that were too heavy for her, and removed her sister's crossbow. She went to load it, wondering at the slow and uncoordinated maneuvers of her fingers as she tried to do so.
And the door was shattering and it fell apart. A shape stood outside, and looked in. It held a glass jar in one hand. There was a piece of a thin tree branch in the jar. The figure seemed to stroke the air in front of it, as if it were a solid surface.
And then a noise came like no other Dawn had ever heard.
Rustling... organic, quick rustling of leaves and petals. And the thing outside shrieked. The streetlight's glow faded as the windows were obscured, and the shadows of vines threw themselves in patterns across Dawn's face.
It struggled with the rose vines, that were climbing around the walls of the house. It tugged and tore. They formed a solid wall across the doorway. And then suddenly, there was darkness and silence.
Dawn stood up in the quiet, crossbow in hand, encased in her living bower. She walked cautiously to the door, arm steady and aiming outside. The vines were woven thick and heavy. She could only see a few points of light in-between them, like a dense lattice.
And a pair of bloody hands thrust out. They grappled with the vines, tearing at them. Dawn jumped back. And a perfectly symmetrical, dark eyed face peered through at her. It was riddled with scratches from the thorns. She aimed her crossbow between the eyes. The bloody hand gestured elegantly in the air, behind the little window, and the lips opened, and a mesmerizing voice lilted through.
"Oh," it said, the eyes full of wonder, "Such pure, green light... such beautiful green-glowing, glorious light..."
Dawn's breath trembled, and she fumbled for the trigger. But somehow, she never found it. She was staring at those glowing eyes.
"Look at me, dearie... that's right... see me... and now love, can you do something for me?" it said.
---
"Buffy..." Willow said, as the door opened and Buffy entered. The sounds of the hall fell muted with the disparate slam when the door fell shut behind her. Willow had been sitting on her bed, in the dark, her stuffed bear clung close to her chest. She had been idly stroking its chenille fur, and thinking. No, thinking was not a good word for it. She simply let memories fall in on her and around her of all that had happened, trapped in the feeling they produced. There was nothing cerebral about it. It was an outpouring of grief, confusion, and not a small amount of loneliness.
She forgot all that when she saw her friend's face. Her eyes were red, her face looked drawn. It snapped her from her reverie, and suddenly all she had been lamenting fell away and she could only see Buffy.
"What happened to you Buffy? Are things ok?"
"Oh you know," she said, swallowing, trying to project strength and authority again, "Same demons, different day..."
"Yeah..." Willow responded. She looked at Buffy intently, trying to read in her face what was wrong. It was like a shadow had passed over it. Buffy turned and broke the moment, turning Willow's focus her own, internal darkness.
"I thought I'd come by, like I said earlier."
Willow bowed her head.
"Will... what was that? What's been happening to you?" she asked, sitting down on the bed next to her.
"I..." Willow started, and immediately burst into tears. Buffy put a conciliatory arm around her.
"You what, Will? What do you need to tell me?" Buffy asked, gently.
"It's true Buffy... it really is. She's there."
"Tara?"
"Yeah... she's stuck. Like, a ghost, you know? Well not like a ghost... she is a ghost, and she needs me," Willow found it difficult to speak, and was surprised at her own gasping voice, breaking through her sobs. She entreated her friend in a hollow whine, begging her to understand.
"Giles thought Jenny had come back... when she died..."
"But it's not like that-- not at all. She's there, I can see her."
"In the room?" Buffy asked.
"I think so... maybe the whole house. But look at what happened-- we'd just come back together, we'd just made things start to go right. And then it's cut off, it goes wrong-- what more unfinished, aborted life could there be? She couldn't leave. Not yet. She told me."
"How did she tell you?"
"She can be seen... I felt her, dreamed her at first... but she's there. She broke the window... or it broke when she came, because that's the moment she's trapped in. And she wanted me... no one else ever wanted me and she wanted me, even when she died Buffy-- how can it be wrong? I couldn't let her go-- I couldn't just leave her. I couldn't!"
Buffy looked down at the institutional, dormitory carpet, remembering her earlier encounter. Her friend lost herself in sobs, shoulders shaking under Buffy's arm.
Couldn't just leave her, no. The words sounded bitter in her skull. Couldn't leave her. Of course not.
Neither woman spoke, and there was no sound save the dull hum from the hallway, and Willow's sobs. Over time, though, those tears began to subside. Willow furrowed her brow, trying to grasp something that was passing through her mind.
"Buffy," Willow said, breaking her from her thoughts. Her tone was suddenly serene, as if a puzzle had come together and the last piece was in place. Or if a painful splinter, pushing into one's heel, had suddenly fallen away.
"Buffy..." she said, her tone steadying and her eyes dry, "When she talks to me, I feel... accepted. Like I can get over, you know, everything that's happened... like with just a little effort, that things can get better than I ever thought they could. I just needed someone to forgive me..."
"We all forgave you," Buffy said gently, stroking Willow's hair, "As soon as it was over, we all forgave you..."
"But it wasn't real, not to me," she responded, "You were still scared of me, I saw the fear in you when you found me today... you can't trust me, but she just loved me. No awkwardness, no fear... just love. And that makes everything possible... like I can do anything and choose to be better in the future... and I want that, I want it so damn bad Buffy..."
She looked for confirmation in Buffy's eyes. Buffy looked back, affected and earnest and hopeful.
"I'm sorry," Buffy said, "About today... I hurt more than I helped. It's just hard... you know, not to be afraid-- not to think the worst, like other people might do wrong considering everything what's happened before... but I need you to forgive me, too, for things... it's still hard sometimes, for me, being back. I do things the wrong way. I've done wrong... so much wrong. But I'm sorry... And I want to help."
Willow smiled.
"That's ok," she said, "And it'll work out... we'll help each other."
"Ok," Buffy said, smiling back tenderly.
---
Drusilla was crying. She was sitting on the stone wall, outside the cemetery, and she was lonely. He'd thrown her down in his eagerness to run off. She'd tried to stop him from going. He didn't even look at her when he pushed her aside.
But she'd kept the cocoon safe, she could smell the life in it. It was almost ready to hatch, it was moving inside and she could hear the rustling... and then it would fly away.
And her Spike... he'd gone off. He'd gone off to kill her new pet... he would never have done that before...
Well, perhaps if he'd been very angry with her. Or jealous. But he was neither. He was something new...
No, there was no malice there, no jealousy. She didn't understand it and didn't understand him, which frightened her. And she knew he was frightened too, frightened of the burning light that was dancing around him in electric jolts. Like baby fishes... She sometimes thought that if she touched him she would fall to ash.
She hopped down from her perch, still lost in her fitful thoughts. Sometimes she uttered half-sentences out loud, exclaiming her frustration to the dark.
He didn't want her to have her fledgling. It was dreadfully wrong. How could he go and kill it and make her cry? He knew she needed somebody. She'd have to go get another.
Would he just try to kill it again? She couldn't go alone... and she knew he couldn't come with her.
But he hadn't killed her. No, he wouldn't do that. Because he'd loved her, once. He was very sentimental that way...
And she smiled, and ran off down the road, her footsteps clattering delicately on the pavement. She hadn't felt so well in quite a while. Things seemed to be taking a turn for the better.
She was very, very clever, when she put her mind to it. And she would get everything she'd wanted.
---
Spike was alone. He sat in his crypt, on a worn armchair. Typical, really. He threw his open flask at the wall in frustration. It spattered the stones, sending the insidious odor across the room.
Buffy sat in this chair once, her legs tossed over one arm, her back leaning against the other. Her hair hung in wild strands down her shoulders and across her cheek. She had still been flushed, and her naked flesh was beaded with perfumed sweat. She looked like some wonderful pre- raphealite painting. Flaming June. Glorious youth against the course, worn old upholstery. The memory was lost in the past. It seemed unreal. Like it had happened years ago.
And he remembered, when he'd just returned, when he'd been half mad with confusion, how he had been sleeping in this chair when the door opened. Dawn. Her eyes. She threw the coat at him and had walked briskly away. The door had hung open behind her. And that he carried with him.
And now he sat in the dark, alone, drinking. Just like he had at the beginning, because he always came back to this. Old habits die hard.
---
Dawn put down her physics equations. She was remarkably good at them. It was in her blood like nothing else. The door to dimensions, the mystical portal. It knew the way reality wove itself together. And now it learned to articulate it in its most basic form, learning the human names for the rules in her blood. Force equals mass times acceleration. Torque. Gravity. She was mastering the skills of college-prep.
Maybe she should study astronomy in college... then she could forget this world and get lost in another-- the equations, the puzzles that she was born to solve.
She had opened all the windows. It was uncommonly hot out, and she wanted the fresh air. A warm breeze floated over her where she sprawled.
She shifted on the couch. There was a Babylon 5 repeat playing in the background. Xander would have appreciated it.
"If one does the right thing for the wrong reasons," Bill Mumy instructed, "The work becomes impure, corrupted." She wondered if any demons had bones like that on their heads. And then she shut off the television. It was a boring weekday. She had nothing to do, and no one to do it with.
And there was a sound from upstairs. Hard and loud and violent. Slamming. One, two... three...
And then the windows next to her slammed shut of their own volition. Dawn jumped up, her eyes wide.
And the door flew open as a woman kicked it. And then a draft flew up and it slammed shut in the woman's face. Dawn gasped, and backed against the wall. The sound of beating on the door continued, and for a moment she was paralyzed. Then she darted fast for the weapons case.
She opened it, her arms becoming clumsy as she tried to work with speed. She scatted the axes and swords that were too heavy for her, and removed her sister's crossbow. She went to load it, wondering at the slow and uncoordinated maneuvers of her fingers as she tried to do so.
And the door was shattering and it fell apart. A shape stood outside, and looked in. It held a glass jar in one hand. There was a piece of a thin tree branch in the jar. The figure seemed to stroke the air in front of it, as if it were a solid surface.
And then a noise came like no other Dawn had ever heard.
Rustling... organic, quick rustling of leaves and petals. And the thing outside shrieked. The streetlight's glow faded as the windows were obscured, and the shadows of vines threw themselves in patterns across Dawn's face.
It struggled with the rose vines, that were climbing around the walls of the house. It tugged and tore. They formed a solid wall across the doorway. And then suddenly, there was darkness and silence.
Dawn stood up in the quiet, crossbow in hand, encased in her living bower. She walked cautiously to the door, arm steady and aiming outside. The vines were woven thick and heavy. She could only see a few points of light in-between them, like a dense lattice.
And a pair of bloody hands thrust out. They grappled with the vines, tearing at them. Dawn jumped back. And a perfectly symmetrical, dark eyed face peered through at her. It was riddled with scratches from the thorns. She aimed her crossbow between the eyes. The bloody hand gestured elegantly in the air, behind the little window, and the lips opened, and a mesmerizing voice lilted through.
"Oh," it said, the eyes full of wonder, "Such pure, green light... such beautiful green-glowing, glorious light..."
Dawn's breath trembled, and she fumbled for the trigger. But somehow, she never found it. She was staring at those glowing eyes.
"Look at me, dearie... that's right... see me... and now love, can you do something for me?" it said.
---
