Act III
Willow sat in the rain, still as a statue, gently stroking Tara's damp hair.
Buffy ran to her, looked down, took in the scene in an instant. Behind them, she could barely see the remains of the demon, its ash outline, already almost washed completely into the ground. "Oh, no -"
Blood. Everywhere, on Willow's clothes, on her hands. It told the tale, as always, like words couldn't.
Willow looked up then, and Buffy flinched involuntarily. Not at the sight of the eyes, black like dead coals, but the expression that framed them. Sitting on the ground, in the middle of a rainstorm, tenderly stroking her lover's dead body, and there was no emotion on her delicate face.
"Will," Buffy whispered, pathetic. "Will, I -"
"Buffy," Willow said, her flat voice matching her expression. She turned back to Tara's corpse. "Did you ever dream about being a superhero?"
Buffy was absolutely stunned. She was prepared for any of a number of things to come out of Willow's mouth, but not this.
"We used to pretend. Me and Xander, and Jesse when he moved here in third grade. Used to use old blankets, and go weaving around the back yard, Xander with his laser-beam eyes, Jesse with his super strength, me with..."
She paused, frowned in concentration, as if trying to call up some long lost memory. "Me...I can't remember what I did. Something...We laughed about it later, in high school. Outgrew it, then met the real thing in tenth grade,"
She smiled slightly at some happy memory.
"But back then, when we were kids...it seemed like the real thing. At least, we couldn't tell the difference. Somehow, we...we knew that maybe, if we practiced enough, it might happen. Just, poof. We'd wake up with special powers. So we practiced."
Her voice trembled ever so slightly. "We didn't practice for this part."
Willow suddenly looked back at Buffy. "How did you do it? After you had to kill Angel, how did you live? There's so much..."
"I..." Buffy started raspily. "I know. I had help."
Willow stared for a moment, then nodded slowly.
Buffy let another moment pass, then spoke up. "Will...I'm sorry...but Jonathan's still alive. If we can get him to a hospital -"
"Still alive," Will said distantly, and then she turned slowly to look across the street. "He's still alive. Amazing."
Buffy shook her head, not knowing how to take that, but knowing intuitively that the situation was about to spiral out of her control. "Willow, please, I know they -"
"They killed her." Willow said, standing up. She started purposefully across the street.
"Will, Tara wouldn't have wanted -"
"How do you know what Tara would have wanted?" Willow said stonily, gazing steadily at Buffy. "She didn't want to die. Isn't that enough?"
Buffy shook her head. "Killing them isn't going to solve your problems."
"No," Willow said, tilting her head back briefly toward the house. "It already has."
Buffy's blood went cold at the words, but she moved to stand between Willow and Jonathan.
"Don't get in my way, Buffy," Willow warned her icily.
Buffy gritted her teeth, her eyes pleading.
Without another word, Willow motioned with her hand, and Buffy felt her body lifted by hands that were as powerful as they were nonexistent. She flew soundlessly until she crashed into a red station wagon parked in the neighbor's driveway. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, and for all her slayer's strength she could only watch helplessly as the scene unfolded.
Willow stood over Jonathan's prone body. He squinted up at her.
"I'm sorry..." he whispered, broken.
She nodded, raising her hand. "I know. I'll make it quick."
A noise from behind. Footsteps. "Red -"
She whirled around, an instant too late to do anything but watch as the wooden end of an axe flew towards the side of her head. There was a blinding flash of pain, then darkness.
Spike gazed down at the tiny, crumpled body before him, an expression somewhere between awe and sympathy on his angled features.
"Didn't think you had it in you, pet," he said softly, and turned to look at Buffy. "You alright?"
She pulled herself slowly to her feet, face suffused with shock and horror.
"Buffy..." he started uncertainly, but he didn't know what to say to ease her mind. "Pet, the boy needs to get to a doctor."
She didn't reply, could only look down at Willow, then up at the house.
"Buffy, wait -"
She ran across the street, up the driveway, Spike a step behind. She entered the basement before he did, saw the grisly display, and ran back out almost immediately, clutching her mouth.
He walked into the basement. Andrew was stuck on the wall like a trophy buck, already cooling. His hunger for the blood splattered randomly over the wall made his mouth water at the sight, but the rest of him felt vaguely nauseous. Pieces of the robot were flung here and there like party confetti, the body minus head at the bottom of the stairs, twitching weakly like a cockroach. He backed out of the basement.
"Slayer -"
She was sitting on the edge of the driveway, pale as a sheet, clutching her sides. He grabbed her shoulders, brought her up to face level.
"This is no time for your bloody catatonia, luv. The boy needs to get to a hospital, or Willow's not going to have to finish the job."
Her eyes teared up. "Willow -"
"I'll take care of her, pet. You tend to him."
Behind them, Jonathan started to moan. Buffy nodded slowly, and walked away.
The paramedics came quickly enough so that they thought Jonathan would have a decent chance of surviving the night. The back injury itself was not life-threatening - however, the fact that he had spent the better part of an hour lying in the middle of a rainstorm meant that the doctors were much more concerned with staving off pneumonia.
They hadn't asked Buffy what she knew about what had happened to him, and of course, she hadn't told them. The police were much more concerned with the bodies of Tara Maclay and Andrew Bell found at the same scene.
"PCP gang."
The detective leaned forward. "Pardon?"
"Roving gangs of dope fiends," Buffy repeated, nearly laughing despite herself. "That was what they used to say in high school. Gang-related."
The detective glanced back at the sergeant, who shrugged. "Well...Ms. Summers, ah, we'll look into that. But you say you were on your way to meet Ms. Maclay?"
Buffy nodded.
"You both were going to meet another young woman. This -" the detective tapped a pen on his pad. "This Willow Rosenberg? Ms. Maclay's..." he cleared his throat. "...lover?"
Another nod. "She never showed up," Buffy added quickly.
"Hmph," the detective grunted. "You have any way of contacting Ms. Rosenberg?"
Buffy looked up at him. "Yes. I want to talk to her as much as you do."
Xander burst into the ER, glanced around, disheveled. Dawn was in tow, crying silently.
"Oh, God, Buffy, we heard -"
The detective moved to the side respectfully, and Buffy ran into his arms, fighting back tears. Xander held her. Dawn watched, her expression of perpetual shock matching her sister's.
"Buffy," Dawn said softly. "Tara..."
Buffy closed her eyes, shook her head, as if she didn't want to say it. But finally, her voice choked with anguish, she spit the words out.
"Tara...she's dead."
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