1999

Willow lay on her stomach in the schoolyard, concentrating intensely on a pencil that spun lazily in front of her face. Buffy glanced at the pencil from where she lay next to Willow, doing sit-ups.

"The Watcher's Council shrink is heavily into tests." Buffy told Willow as she mentally counted the number of sit-ups she'd done so far. "He's got tests for everything. T.A.T.'s, Rorschach, associative logic..." Buffy finished sit-ups on five hundred and decided to take a break. "They even have that test to see if you're crazy that asks if you hear voices or have ever wanted to be a florist."

Willow grinned. "Oh, I used to... Wait. Florist means crazy right? I never wanted to do that."

Buffy nodded at the pencil. "Neat." She commented.

"Thanks." Willow said, turning to look at Buffy instead of the pencil. It was strange how quickly she'd gotten used to seeing Silvery Buffy all the time instead of normal-colour Buffy. Willow mused. "It's all about the emotional control." Willow explained, focussing back on the pencil. "Plus, obviously, magic. You wanna go to the espresso pump? Get sugared up on mochas?" She asked.

Buffy grimaced and began to pack her stuff into her school bag. "Pass." She said. "I'm gonna hit the pool, do some laps."

"And how come all the sudden callisthenics?" Willow asked, frowning slightly. "Aren't you sort of naturally buff… Buff?" Willow contemplated what she had just said and grinned. "Buff, buff!"

"Well, they've really got us running around on the physical side, too." Buffy explained. "A lot of precision training and reflex evaluation, and I just wanna do…"

"…Better than Faith?" Willow asked when it looked as though Buffy wasn't going to finish the sentence by herself.

Buffy looked ashamed. "So very shallow."

Willow shook her head. "Competition is natural and healthy." She supported her friend. "And you'll definitely ace her on the psyche tests. Just don't mark the box that says 'I sometimes like to kill people'!"

Buffy frowned. Sometimes Will can be so judging. Would she still feel the same way if it was me? "Look, I know Faith isn't exactly on the cover of Sanity Fair, but she's had it rough." Buffy said in defence of her fellow Slayer. "Different circumstances, that could be me."

"No way." Willow said quietly.

"We can't control the way we grow up!" Buffy said, getting mad that Willow didn't understand what she was trying to say now.

How can I explain this so Buffy understands what I'm saying and doesn't get madder at me? Willow thought. "No." She said, carefully choosing her words. "You're you. She's her. Some people just don't have that in them."

Buffy relaxed, understanding where Willow was coming from. She glanced at the pencil and smothered a grin. Emotional control huh? "I'm sorry." She apologised. "I know you hate talking about Faith."

"No, it's okay." Willow told her earnestly.

Buffy tried again. "Really, I…"

Willow cut her off. "It doesn't bother me. I mean it."

Buffy grinned. "Uh, Will?" When Willow looked at Buffy, Buffy indicated the pencil that Willow had left spinning in mid-air.

The pencil was now spinning so fast that it was starting to smoke.

"Oh!" Willow cried, mentally reviewing her options for slowing the pencil.

She attempted a hand gesture and the pencil stopped spinning violently in mid-air, only to embed itself in the trunk of a nearby tree.

"Emotional control." Buffy said, trying not to laugh.

"I'm working on it." Willow said defensively.

Buffy looked at her best friend, amusement dancing in her eyes, before a thought struck and her gaze snapped to her watch.

"Uhhh!" The Slayer moaned, staring stricken at her watch.

"Buffy? What's wrong?" Willow asked, concerned.

Buffy finished gathering up her stuff, throwing it haphazardly into her bag. "I'm late." She exclaimed before getting up and running off in the general direction of the library.

Willow carefully damped down the slight niggling sense of betrayal. Buffy had Slayer things to do, that was all. It wasn't that she wasn't interested in hanging out with her, it was just that there were more important things that Buffy needed to do.

Willow pulled a textbook and notebook out of her bag, intending to study. Her science teacher had hinted that there might be some questions on mutants in the finals and Willow wanted to make some extra notes. She started looking for a pencil and then realised that her last one was currently half-buried in a tree. Well, if magic got it in there then magic was darn well gonna get it out. Willow thought.

She held her hand out and imagined the pencil backing out of the tree and into her hand. She imagined what it would look like in her hand, the colour of it, the feel. As an extra touch, she added the silvery sheen that was now an accepted part of her vision to the pencil.

And that was when it happened. A pencil popped into existence on her palm. Willow blinked. That wasn't magic. She checked the tree. Her original pencil was still half-buried in it. Willow dropped the new pencil and pictured another one. That one also appeared from nowhere.

Willow breathed in and out carefully, trying not to panic. She examined the facts logically. She wasn't using magic, and the pencils only appeared when she added the silver light to the picture. Willow tried again, this time shading the pencil with the correct hue of silver for chocolate. A perfect chocolate pencil was suddenly in her hand. Willow nibbled on it.

Definitely chocolate. What the hell was going on? Wait a second, if it was connected to the silver light that was now a part of her day-to-day life... that had first appeared in the boiler room, when she'd thought she was going to die. Wait, that sounded familiar somehow.

Willow frowned, trying to remember what she'd seen that rang a bell and where she'd seen it. Then she noticed exactly what she was frowning at.  Her science textbook; open at the chapter on human mutation.

Oh God. She realised. I'm a mutant!