Title: Fireborn
Author: wintercreek
Disclaimer: Actually, the only thing I don't own in this is Willow. Well, and the memory of Tara. (*sniff*) And Carl Sandburg. Hmm.
Spoilers: Through Season 6.
Dedication: To anyone who's ever walked through a fire, of any kind.
A/N: Third chapter of Outrun, as you've no doubt figured out. Thanks for the reviews (All 3 of you). Willow continues to run.
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This town was different. Harder to fool. Willow hadn't yet figured out why, but the people here didn't see her as just another stranger passing through. Their looks were knowing, suggesting an insight that she couldn't grasp. It made her uneasy.
The cemetery was large. Many of the headstones were new. That was the first thing that stood out. That, and all the flowers. A bouquet on every grave, it seemed. Willow had taken to visiting the cemeteries in the towns she rolled through, walking through them only by day. She wasn't here to fight vampires, only to acquaint herself with the grief of others. It was a way of training herself in preparation for her return to Sunnydale. A long warm up before her eventual visit to Tara's grave. So she'd made it a habit to buy some flowers and leave them on untended graves.
Willow hadn't seen any untended graves yet. Row upon row. She'd had to walk clear to the back of the cemetery to find lonely graves with no flowers. Those were the graves over fifty years old. Out of curiosity, Willow began checking the dates as she headed back to the gate of the cemetery.
A huge number of the graves, perhaps two-thirds of the well-tended ones, were from within the past year.
Many of those were children.
Willow sank down where she was, dumbstruck. This outweighed everything.
~W~
The sun had been high overhead when she'd arrived in this particular town, and it was now nearing the midway point of its descent. Around five o'clock, then, a detached part of her noted.
"Are you alright there, hun?" The voice was young, but the hand that reached out to touch Willow's shoulder was gnarled.
"I ... it's ... I'm overwhelmed."
"Yeah, I understand. Took us a while to get over the shock. Not 'over', I guess, but past."
"What ... what happened? If you don't mind my asking." Willow looked up at the woman, realizing as she did that the gnarling was not a result of age but rather burn scarring that made its way up the woman's arm.
"Come here. The bench over there will be more comfortable."
Willow followed mutely, a part of her noting with silent horror the extent of the scarring on this woman's body. Summer clothing of shorts and a spaghetti-strap tank top left none of the woman's limbs to the imagination. Her right leg—Same side as the scarred arm—was patterned with the aftermath of flames as well, and a few of the toes on the woman's right foot seemed melted together.
They'd reached the bench, but Willow was still taking in the burn marks. She looked up to find the woman watching Willow examine her, a wry look on her face. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to stare . . . ." Willow gasped, flushing a bright red. She reached up to cover her hot face with her hands, only to be reminded of the woman's burns again.
"It's alright. Look all you want. I'm used to it."
Bashful, Willow couldn't bring herself to lift her gaze back to the woman's face. She sat on the bench instead, arranging her skirts until the embarrassment passed.
"'s'alright, hun. Here, I'm Candace." Candace extended a hand.
"W-willow." Oh, that awful stutter! Willow hadn't stuttered since before she'd met Tara. As expected, even that vague thought of her lost love brought a twinge of pain.
"I see you've lost someone recently."
"How did you know?"
"You have that look to you. A little haunted still. A little bit of pain in the back of your eyes. I'd bet there's more, when a stranger's not looking on."
"Yes." That syllable was all Willow could muster.
"I understand. Everyone here does." And with that, Candace began to pour out her story. About the fire, started by a carelessly thrown cigarette butt, that eventually raged through the children's ward of the hospital. About Candace's dedication to her patients, her pride in her career as a pediatric nurse. About the mad dash into the smoky, hot room, again and again, pulling out as many kids as she could. About the terror of the ceiling collapsing in on her, pinning her right side. About the despair when the rescue workers pulled her out, but couldn't reach the children further into the room. "At least they were unconscious from smoke inhalation. At least, that's what we hope." About the children they'd pulled out, only to watch them slowly fade away. And about the rest of the town, the other places the inferno had reached. Not a single family was left intact.
Willow read deeper into Candace's eyes and identified with the survivor's guilt she saw there. That endless pain inside that seemed like it would never stop asking, Why not me?
The two women sat in silence for a moment. Candace turned away, and then turned back
again. "Do you know what the ironic part
is?"
Willow shook her head.
"'Candace' means 'fire white.' You know, like when people talk about something burning white-hot?"
Willow nodded this time, still incapable of speech.
"A lot of folks think that white-hot is about as hot as you can get. They're wrong. The very hottest part of a flame is blue. Like the innermost part of a candle flame."
"Or the flame from a Bunsen burner. If you turn it just right, it's all blue," Willow put forth hesitantly.
"Exactly! So maybe you'll understand this, too. I'm guessing that you've walked through your own fires recently—maybe metaphorical fires, but those can still be just as hot and just as scarring. This guy, Carl Sandburg, said this thing: 'Only the fireborn understand blue.' You know?"
Willow nodded. She did.
"No use in explaining it to those who haven't been there. No matter how many times they look at a Bunsen burner, they'll never believe that blue is the most frightening color. And you may not ever understand blue either, but I'll wager that there's something ordinary that will never be ordinary for you again. Only the other fireborn will see it."
"I ... thank you."
"Courage, hun. You'll make it." Candace stood, gave Willow's shoulder a final squeeze, and walked away.