Author's Note: This is my very first Buffy fic, and it's set after the final episode, so those who haven't seen it (I understand completely, from this side of the globe nothing's shown on time), kindly don't read.
Disclaimer: I have no ownership rights over BtVS (unfortunately so), but the plot is all mine.
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She tended to cry in the middle of the night.
Each and every night, and the nights before, Willow suspected, that passed between the downfall of the First to the night she first found her crying. It was a funny thing to be sad when you should be rejoicing, but that was the thing with being a victor of war: the act of winning wasn't always a joyous thing when there were so many sacrifices under your belt and blood on your hands.
At least, that was how it should be with all victors, Willow felt.
Buffy would be no exception. A woman who has rid the world of so many demons that they trailed long shadows of death in her path and hovered above her head like an annoying conscience. Thankfully though, the weight of the world's fate no longer rested upon her small shoulders. They were, in fact, distributed evenly among a hundred girls who are now, by Willow's hands, fully functioning demon killers found in every country - even better than a police force- with the instinct to protect the good and kill the supernaturally bad. Which sounded all good and well, but Willow was sure that in light of this it wasn't just super strength that she sparked to life in them, she was also probably responsible for a lot of teenaged girls' identity crisis.
Well, better that than being responsible for the end of the world.
As safe as the world was now, Willow's comfort was not derived from a bunch of slayers who just woke up and started smelling the coffee. She wasn't even comforted with the presence of Kennedy, her own girlfriend. Willow felt that the state of the world now was at its safest, no matter how much harm might be coming their way, because Buffy was still around. And in Willow's ever so humble opinion, Buffy was still the strongest and the most powerful slayer there was.
And right now, this strong and powerful slayer was crying quietly, so to not wake anyone up, in her bedroom.
This kind of vulnerability reminded Willow of how human Buffy could be, in spite of every other thing that seems to prove that she's a whole lot more than that. But everyone's allowed weaknesses. Achilles had his heel. And so Buffy has her… Okay, maybe Willow wasn't too sure about what it was that made Buffy cry so painfully at nights. Not yet, anyway.
Though she did have an inkling of an idea. She remembered those kinds of tears. Those painful, heart wrenching, gut-splitting kind of tears. And she remembered there was no remedy for that kind of pain. That, she remembered all too clearly.
But still, it kind of sucked feeling content when the two people you love most in the world were far from it, and it really sucked knowing that there was not much you could do to help.
Like Xander.
Xander was having his own share of depression over the loss of Anya. Willow could only be sympathetic. She really couldn't offer him much help, other than to be his best friend. And with this in mind, she also understood that Xander wasn't a person she could go to for advice right now. He was fighting his own demons. It wouldn't be fair to ask him to help Buffy battle hers, on top of everything else.
It seemed like such a cruel coincidence that the three of them, best friends from the beginning, had a connection and bond that was intensified by the fact that they had all lost someone they loved so very much over the course over too few years.
"No," Buffy objected, when Willow mentioned this to her. "No, Will, I didn't love Spike. Remember?"
It was in sheer blood-rushing-up-to-your-cheeks finding-yourself-naked-in-the-middle-of-lunch-hour embarrassment that Willow had to say, meekly, "I was kind of talking about your mother."
"Oh," she said, staring at Willow, eyes wide and baffled at her own absent-mindedness. "Of course you were. My mother."
"Well, we've lost a lot more," Willow said kindly. "I'm a little befuddled about the whole list too, to be honest." She tried to laugh it off, then remembered too late that death wasn't supposed to be a laughing matter, and stopped.
Buffy smiled, a little sadly.
"But do you miss Spike?" Willow pressed, tentatively.
"Sure I do," she said, shrugging, trying to be nonchalant. "But no more than you guys do." She thought about it. "Except for maybe Xander, that is."
Willow remembered that conversation, more than she remembered a lot of things, each time she got herself out of bed and tiptoed across the hall to check and see if Buffy was crying. Each time, Buffy never disappointed her.
And Willow wondered if maybe the reason for Buffy's tears had nothing to do with being a slayer, or saving the world, or crying for those who died to fight by your side. Maybe, like Xander, it was a whole lot simpler than that. And just about a hundred miles more painful.
"Are you crying because of Spike?" Willow asked her finally, because patience had worn itself really thin and she needed to know what was so incredibly sad that would make her best friend cry herself to sleep every night.
"How can I miss him if I didn't even love him?" she replied, but the tears kept on running, and Willow could tell that Buffy's brave I'm-A-Slayer façade was starting to shatter into little pieces around her naked feet. She shook her head and said it again, "How can I miss him if I didn't even love him?"
There were some questions Willow didn't know the answer to. There were some battles that Willow wasn't sure they could win from. There were some flavors of yogurt that she couldn't eat. There were some kinds of magic that, despite being cured for the most part, Willow never touched because she wasn't sure if temptation was such an easy thing to resist.
And there were some of her own demons hovering above her that Willow wasn't sure she could face yet.
But as she leaned over and hugged her best friend so that she could sob as much as she wanted on her shoulder, she knew there were also some things that she was confident of. Like how love was a very unconditional thing and how it could change you and make you do anything once you're absorbed in its overwhelming force.
Things like trying to end the world.
Going through very likely death to get your soul back.
Spitting a huge snake out of your mouth.
Turning evil.
And turning good.
Torture.
Sacrifice.
Willow hugged her, and in Buffy's wracking cries of both relief and pain, she remembered that an attentive ear would never go amiss, either.
And she understood just a little bit more about her best friend.
She understood that Buffy was facing her own demons, every night.
She understood that a slayer wasn't powerful forevermore, that there were times of insecurity and remorse and vulnerability, and despite the fact that Willow was confident that Buffy would always protect them, she knew that sometimes she needed to be equally- if not more- strong. For all of them.
She understood that just by being Buffy and Xander's best friend and seeing them through their pain was enough help than anyone could possibly ask for.
And most importantly, she understood that Buffy, like the rest of the slayers, needed to get over a few personal issues of her own.
"How can I miss him if I didn't even love him?"
Denial being the starter course.