Chapter 4

A week had gone by with no signs of Willow recovering to fast. Buffy and Xander were growing concerned about their friend so planned to snag her out of her bedroom and to the Bronze. "You think we need to find a girl for her? I mean if she insists on dating girls she's going to need a rebound girl." Buffy said unsure of her own words.

"Rebound is good but I don't know any other gay girls or bisexual." Xander shook his head. "At least I don't think I do. Plus the dance is coming up soon, she can't be dateless like all the other dances, not now." He stopped when realizing he was in babble mode.

"She's used to it," Cordy said walking up to them. "Besides, we need to worry about getting vengeance on the demon for what she did to me. Willow will be fine eventually."

Buffy gave her a cross between I wish you were a vampire so I could stake you look and maybe you will be the first human I stake look. "What she did to you was well deserved but I will get her for what she did to my friend. Hurting Will gets you killed fast."

- - - - -

Willow sat in the Bronze with the Scoobies, though not at all interested in the festivities. She was sure now there was no social life to be had, even a demon tricked her. She kept flashing back and forth to thoughts of what Anya did to hurt her so bad and ones of sincerity when she explained herself. Willow struggled within herself, part of her wanted to believe the demon was sorry while the other part of her wanted to get over the entire ordeal. "Willow," Oz said so quietly she could barely hear him. "Lets group dance." He pointed to the dance floor where Buffy and Xander waited. Cordy was inconspicuously absent but Willow knew she'd be around eventually. Maybe she'd grown tired of being called puppycordette Willow thought and that brought a faint smile to her face.

She dragged herself up out of the chair and began methodically dancing with the gang. Her heart nor head were in it though. "Will," Buffy prodded. "C'mon try to have some fun. She's not worth you being all broody-gal over. I'll take care of her for what she was going to do to you."

Willow's eyes shot over to the slayer in a panicked look. "No Buffy don't you dare try to kill her on my

behalf! She tried to apologize to me." Willow looked around the room noticing she talked a little to loud and ran for the door.

- - - - -

Meanwhile, Anyanka had been traveling the world creating a more impressive vengeance record than before. All the while knowing in her gut D'Hoffryn had to have known what went down though he didn't mention it. She figured he was biding his time to let the hammer down so to speak while enjoying her new found fury in granting wishes. Her demon cohorts involved in the overthrow plan mocked her, only in private, for falling in love with a human. While they would have loved nothing more than to have spread her slip up across the demon community, they were blinded to the fact that D may be onto them and felt spreading such information to the other demons would make him privy to the more important information, which would surely get them killed.

Anya wasn't about to share her fear with them either because it boded well for her in a way. It kept other demons from finding out what had happened, which in turn kept them beneath her and that was important, or should have been at least. The only thing truly important to her now was Willow Rosenberg and after what she'd done, Willow was unattainable. Thus, she hid her sadness by dealing out harsh complex wishes on behalf of those wishing. She knew this was the wrong way to get out her frustrations but she was just a demon after all and shouldn't care.

A thousand years plus as a human and demon could have never prepared her for such sadness. She thought catching Olaf cheating all those years ago was bad but it paled in comparison to not having Willow. She shook her head wondering what to do next, then set her teleportation sails to Sunnydale.

- - - - - -

Willow had made it just a short way down the street before Buffy caught hold of her arm and spun her around. "Willow we're only trying to help you. We care about you and just want you to move on. Please Willow, let us help you through this." She begged wanting so badly to get through to her friend. "Xander is saying how good we rehearsed our acting scene for some little theater outside of town so it's all good. They'll believe it. C'mon Will, come back in and dance with that girl I saw looking at you."

"You know she even took her necklace but I bet I could contact her without it." Willow said with quivering lips, paying no attention to what Buffy had just said.

"Why would you want to do that Will? Look what she did to you." Buffy said trying to take the bite out of her voice.

"Because I love her and if she were purely evil she would have not told me." Willow's own words rang in her ears like a thundering revelation. "She told me because she loves me and couldn't hurt me so took a chance."

"Maybe so Will but maybe her telling was part of the deception or maybe she's gone on and forgotten now. If she'd really loved you it would seem she would have been here trying to grovel or something." Buffy said tenderly but her words didn't have a tender effect.

"So you can't even let me have this, you can't even let me believe someone cared for me enough to change their ways! You can't let me believe I'm good enough to have that positive spin on someone." She turned and broke free from Buffy then ran down the street, as Anyanka appeared.

"Good job in helping your friend slayer!" She hissed in anger.

"Good job? You have no room to talk!" Buffy said getting one good kick in before the demon teleported behind her and took her to the ground.

"Don't even try and kill me slayer, don't make me fight you because out of respect for willow I don't want to." Anya said in a forceful tone.

"Try to kill you? Rephrase that to I will kill you." Buffy kicked the demon off and began pounding on her but was instantly thrown about twenty feet.

"I'll rephrase it all right!" The demon said feeling her rage rise. "Don't make me kill you slayer!" With that she was gone before Buffy could even think of a decent come back.

Buffy stood in the street alone wondering what to do to help her friend get over this damn demon. She knew she had to find a way to kill her to keep her from hurting Willow or anyone else again but needed to do it in a way that Willow wouldn't hate her. Figuring out that way was going to be tough she thought when she heard someone say, "maybe not so tough slayer, lets talk."