Baking - Willow
"Is...anyone hungry? I made cookies. Chocolate chip. Ummm...I also made oatmeal raisin and peanut butter. And there's fudge chunk in the oven right now. Xander? Anya? Anyone?"
Shaken heads, a soft sob, and removal of glasses to be cleaned for the hundreth time in the last hour are her answers. Willow sighs and takes a deep breath, smelling cookies and smoke and death. It's hour 29 since...well, since. Anya is leaning on Xander and Xander looks like he wants to lean on someone but there's no one to lean on. Giles is quiet, a glass of brandy at his elbow. His glasses are back in their rightful place and the glare on the lenses makes it hard to see his eyes. Dawn is missing, having left the room somewhere shy of hour 13.
Willow goes back into the kitchen and pulls the tray of chocolate fudge chunk out and puts in another tray. She sits at the kitchen table and rests her head in her hands. She sits for a long time. Hours. Minutes before she can imagine hands on her shoulders, a voice in her ear. "You couldn't have done anything, sweetie. It's not your fault."
You're very wrong, Tara. Willow thinks This time I could have done so much. I just...I didn't.
And it's not until she hears another voice, a real voice, that she realizes she's said the last part out loud.
"You're not at fault."
Willow turns and sees Kennedy, clean of blood, badly bruised, ribs wrapped in gauze that shows underneath her tank top. "I should have..."
"Willow, you couldn't. Even if you could have done a spell, performed some ritual, it wouldn't have saved her. Them." Kennedy's eyes are ringed with dark purple, and the haunted look in her dark irises makes her look like what Willow remembers seeing in her history textbook. Holocaust victim. Nuclear bomb survivor. War-torn girl.
She's the only one left, which logically makes her the next slayer. Willow looks away from her.
"Have a cookie, Kennedy."
"I'm not hungry. Cookies won't fix things."
"What. Will?" Willow chokes, tears spilling down her cheeks as her head falls back into her hands, "I can't bring her back again, I can't bring them back. I want it to be...fixed. Kennedy--"
And there are hands on her shoulders, differrent hands, but good. Comforting. The cookies are burning, but she doesn't care as someone leans down and whispers, "It wasn't your fault, Willow."
