Brave New World
Chapter Eleven

Willow slumped onto her bed. The sky was slowly darkening, the chalky blue deepening to royal blue velvet. She couldn't remember the last time she went to bed normally, at night. They usually caught forty winks whenever they could, an unvoiced fear threaded between them that if they were all asleep, there would be no one there to raise the alarm should anything happen.

So tonight, she made the most of it. She showered, washed her hair, drying it thoroughly with a towel, as hair dryers were an unnecessary luxury. She pulled on soft, warm pyjamas and slipped into bed, listening to the distant sounds of her friends talking and laughing. There was the occasional clang of steel as someone went on practising and an Irish curse pierced the air every now and again, usually directed at Anya. There was the muffled sound of padding feet on the wooden floor and doors groaning.

She stared at the ceiling unable to sleep.

Before Tara and Anya shared with her, this used to be her and Oz's room. They had pushed two single mattresses together and giggled as they fought over the sparse blankets.

The floor creaked when they made love. When he gently thrust inside her and the next morning, the others would cast them amused looks. There was a spring in the mattress that jabbed her in the back, so he would suckle her neck until she arched. He would slip his arm around her then and roll over, pulling her away from it.

The night he died, as Buffy coaxed her into bed, she pushed the mattress away. She refused to sleep on it and refused to sleep on the creaking floorboard. So Wesley went to find another mattress and she slept on that in the farthest corner of the room, curled into a ball, eyes squeezed so tightly shut that fireworks exploded in the blackness. She didn't sleep, but she remained like that until the new witch, Tara, knelt beside her and stroked her back, gently asking her if she wanted breakfast.

She had said yes, but she hadn't been as compliant as that before.

Oz had died to save her. They had all gone out, Oz; Dawn, Wesley and herself after Buffy called for back up when she found Tara, Doyle and Anya just outside the border.

She still remembered turning to see the wolfish gleam in his eyes as he bore down on the demon about to attack herself and Tara.

She remembered his elbow colliding with the demon's chin, knocking it off course. She remembered the gleam of the fading sunlight on his sword as he pulled it back. She remembered the determination on his face, the way he didn't see the demon reaching forward. As Oz's sword pierced the demon's flesh, the demon's hands closed around his head. He was already lost as the sword burst through the demon's back and the demon's hands moved and twisted. She remembered seeing the bone shift through the soft skin of his neck. The skin there tasted like cinnamon, she remembered thinking. She even remembered the sickeningly wet crunch, the way his head wobbled, his eyes bright and alive as he looked toward her.

She was frozen as his eyes dulled and he sank to his knees and crumbled in a heap as she wrenched her hands from Tara and screamed his name.

Wesley had pulled her away from Oz, lifting her slightly to drag her away from the Mayor's army, still held back by the magickal barrier she and Tara had invoked.

"Willow, he's gone," she vaguely remembered that Wes sounded choked. She hadn't moved then, just shook violently and at Oz, whose neck was twisted at an unnatural angle.

"Willow!"

Buffy's voice was high pitched, a sure sign of her desperation. "We've got to go. Come on!"

The tears came then and her voice was hoarse with misery and rage.

"Oz!" she screamed, shaking off Buffy. "We can't just leave him!"

Buffy and Wes exchanged a look and Buffy dived for Oz as Wes wrapped his arms around Willow's waist, lifted her off her feet and ran with Buffy and Dawn back to the mansion. She could remember how Buffy didn't look at the friend she carried in her arms, how Dawn was sobbing, clutched by the new witch, Tara. She remembered how pale Anya had been, how Doyle had slipped his arm through hers. She remembered how Wes's arms shook around her and when her gaze flickered up to him, his eyes shone with tears. He and Oz had been friends, as the only two males around, they were close.

Wes only let her go once they were in the relative safety of the mansion and they had regarded her, Buffy's fingers clenching in the fabric of Oz's shirt. Buffy hesitated and Willow made it easier for her.

"You should put him in the living room," she had said. "I just need to…"

She tailed off as she mounted the stairs, slowly entering their room. The first thing she saw was his guitar, propped under the window where he left it as they ran out to help Buffy. The tears had dried on the way back to the mansion as she slowly shut down. Her face had felt sticky and tight as her fingers wrapped around the neck of the instrument and pulled it toward her.

"Well, the E-flat, it's... it's doable, but that diminished ninth, y'know, it's a man's chord. Now, you could lose a finger."

Her fingers tightened until she felt the wood begin to weaken. She grabbed it with her other hand and holding it like a baseball bat, she slammed it into the wall, screaming and crying. Wes and Buffy burst into the room; Dawn could be heard yelling after them, asking what to do.

Buffy's hand closed around her wrist, forcing her to a halt. She dropped the broken neck to the floor, gave an ironic chuckle. Broken neck, like him. Oh God. She turned then, grabbing the sword Buffy insisted they have in their room and headed to the door.

She hated Buffy and Wes for stopping her. Wes helped hold her still, gripping her arms as Buffy cupped her face, whispering in her ear. She felt Buffy's tears and broke down once more, but there was no rage in her tears this time, she was full of the agonising acceptance that Oz had gone. She remembered sobbing in Buffy's arms as Wes wrapped his arms around her from behind, rocking her. She remembered Dawn entering the room, slipping under Buffy and Wesley's arms and burying her face in Willow's neck.

It was only after the original members, the first survivors, pulled apart that Willow whispered that she didn't want to sleep on that mattress.

The next morning, as dawn broke, the others went with Buffy to bury Oz with their other friends under the rose bush in the Summers garden.

The next month was a meaningless blur of visiting his grave, crying herself to sleep, waking screaming from a nightmare and reaching blindly for Tara as Anya left to make her a drink.

The only memory that wasn't blurry around the edges was of the fight she and Buffy engaged in to save Spike. The jolt in her stomach when she turned and realised who it was. The sickening pity as Wesley declared that his spine and legs were broken, as Doyle offered the writhing vampire some whiskey.

The memories came thick and fast after that.

Nights spent running a stake along the soles of his feet, searching for any feeling, as he grumbled at her. Days spent exchanging sarcasm as she handed him the few books they had. Afternoon's spent urging him to walk. Hours spent talking.

She rolled over, pulling the blanket over her as she came to a sudden, gut lurching realisation.

She didn't just want Spike.

She needed him.

"Hey."

Spike twisted his head to look at Dawn, before returning his attention to the crossbow he was trying to repair. A useless endeavour, as they were due to get far more crossbows the next day, but it was something to do as he couldn't sleep. He was too full of the up-coming war and the taste and scent of Willow to do anything else.

"Hello," he replied evenly.

"I heard you and Wes had words," she sat down opposite him and put her chin in her hand. "That's what he said, not me. Then I saw Tara go into the kitchen and she said you and Willow made up. So, did you?"

"Yeah," he answered, "we made up."

"Good," she nodded hard and stood up.

"Sorry," he said as she started to walk away.

She stopped, turned slowly, her eyebrows climbed as her eyes widened.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"I said sorry, for yelling at you and throwing the blood before," he stood up too, but didn't take any steps toward her. He frowned at her astonishment. "What's wrong?"

"I've never heard you apologise for anything," she said.

"Yeah, well I'm making a habit of it. I apologised to Willow, several times actually. And I apologised to Andrew."

"I don't think 'Don't worry, kid, I'm not gonna kill you in your sleep. You can still share with me,' constitutes an apology, Spike."

"Yeah, well, the effort was made."

"He's still staying with Doyle and Wes."

"That's if Doyle and Wes don't kick him out in the middle of the night."

"Yeah," she shrugged then, twisted her lips and looked around the room in discomfort.

"So…" he started. "Are we ok again?"

"I guess," she shrugged again. "It's not as if you scared me much. You just pissed me off."

"Here now," he scolded. "Watch your language."

"Bite me."

"If only."

Buffy was surrounded by a sea of sound.

Willow and Tara had retired to bed, but everyone else remained up, talking about the plans for getting the families out the next night. They were also taking frequent jaunts down memory lane. Recalling the fun times.

Like the time Wes taught them all to waltz, Doyle taught them an Irish jig and Buffy had persuaded Wesley to shake his booty, which was enough to make him blush even though it was over a year ago.

And the time when Anya and Doyle had a screaming argument in the hall and Wes got a black eye breaking them apart.

Like the time Willow levitated all the bolts out of the upstairs wall and most of them jammed into Spike's backside.

And though Buffy joined in the slightly too spirited conversation and laughed along with the others, she was mostly quiet.

She would find herself staring at her friends, trying to imagine their reactions to her revelation that Faith had showed up at the mansion.

Wesley would fall into yet another ashen-faced shock, coming back to life to ask probing questions she probably wouldn't see the significance of, let alone the answers.

Spike would ask her why she didn't kill her if she had gained the upper hand.

Dawn would probably "Oh my God," her way through the rest of Buffy's description, before answering Andrew's questions about the situation. And of course, she would be entirely biased.

Anya would grip Doyle's arm, while he shook his head and cursed the Powers for not warning them with a vision.

And when she thought about it, the reactions wouldn't be too bad. And Willow and Tara would probably be shocked, but they would take it in their stride. So it wouldn't be too terrible, she could deal. It would probably be best to tell them.

But then they would start asking why she was there, if they knew anything about their plans for evacuating the remaining residents, if she would break in again.

And it wouldn't matter if she told them; they could do no more about it than she could. It was stupid to burden them with it if it was done and over with.

So even as Buffy opened her mouth to tell them, she snapped it closed.

They didn't need to know.