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Repercussions

Buffy stared at the woman sat opposite her. She never thought she'd see Willow again and suddenly,

out of nowhere, here she was, sat on the slayer's couch, drinking tea and staring at her with almost no

emotion. Buffy couldn't help but wonder why on earth her old friend had bothered to come here.

Finally Willow spoke "I'm a watcher."

Buffy wasn't sure how to reply to that. "So let me guess, you're here to train some new slayer."

Willow's eyes betrayed nothing; she stared blankly as she began to explain. "I am here to help the new

slayer. She's a student at New Sunnydale High. Her name is Lizbeth Richards."

Buffy gasped, Lizbeth, the English girl that Ella had brought home with her the other night. That tiny,

polite young girl was a slayer. Although Buffy new that 16 was not that young for a slayer, she couldn't

help but feel surprised. Finally it hit her, the girl that ELLA had brought home, the girl that ELLA was

staying with tonight, the girl that ELLA had suddenly decided to spend all her free time with. Her

daughter was quickly becoming best friends with a vampire slayer. That was why Willow was here. It

wasn't to forgive her. It wasn't to ask for her help. It was about her baby. She finally looked up at Willow

and spoke.

"I won't allow it."

"You know why you have to. It's exactly the same, we all did it for you, of course she'd want to do it for

Lizbeth."

"You come here after nearly two decades with no word and expect me to just say yes. To just let you

take my daughter away from me."

"I'm not taking her anywhere. If I had my way none of them would be involved. But I'll be able to stop

them about as much as Giles could have stopped us. As much as you could have stopped us."

Buffy thought for a minute. The last thing she wanted was for her baby to be caught up in that world.

Especially after she'd spent the last sixteen years shielding her from it. But she wasn't stupid. She knew

that Willow was telling her the truth. And she remembered what she'd been like at that age. If Buffy tried

to stop Ella from becoming involved she'd only end up pushing her away.

"She won't patrol or do anything without me there. You train her just like you train this Lizbeth girl. And

Willow..."

The watcher looked up her in the eyes, still showing no sign of emotion.

"...If anything happens to her. I'll kill you AND your slayer."

Willow stood up slowly, looked at her former friend briefly and walked towards the door. As she opened

it she paused to speak, "Then we will fight side by side again. I'll let Ella and Lizbeth know. But

remember, you and I, we're not friends." And with that she stepped outside and slammed the door

behind her.

At the sound of the door slamming Pike Williams ran downstairs to be greeted by the sight of his wife

curled up on the sofa, tears streaming down her face.

"Buffy? What's wrong sweetie? What happened? Who was that?"

The blonde slayer looked up at her husband and grimaced through the tears.

''Just someone I used to know.''

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~

Rob stared at Will, who was sat opposite him on a small table in the Bronze. It was ten o'clock and his

friend had just finished relating the story his father had told him earlier. Rob was speechless. About

many things. Firstly, Mr. Osbourne was a werewolf. Secondly, he had dated Ms Winters – who

apparently was really called Willow Rosenberg. Finally, according to Will, not only had his mother been

involved in the whole Demon hunting thing, but she had once been an actual demon. Oh yeah, Rob was

definitely speechless.

"That's not all of it though." Will said, slowly, making sure that Rob was still listening to him.

The larger boy looked up in an obvious state of shock. "There's more?"

"The slayer, Buffy...Her full name was Buffy Summers."

Rob spat out the drink that he'd just had and stuttered "y...you m...mean. Ella's ... Ella's mom!"

"Yeah."

Rob jumped out of his seat, grabbed his jacket and, throwing it on, said "Come on."

Will looked at him questioningly, although he too grabbed his coat, "Where are we going?"

"To crash a sleepover."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~

"Gotta have it, really need it to get by, sugar high..."

Ella and Lizbeth stopped dancing around the room when they heard the hammering on the front door.

As Lizbeth rushed over to open it she managed to knock the half empty whisky bottle and Ella launched

herself across the room to catch it before they lost the rest of their alcohol.

At the sound of Lizbeth's scream, Ella jumped up and ran to the door only to find Rob holding on to a

highly inebriated redhead as she hugged him tightly mumbling something about lovely American boys

with cute arses. Will looked on amused and glanced at a rather dishevelled Ella, who looked incredibly

annoyed by the fact that the slayer was draping herself all over her crush.

Ella turned to look at Will when she felt him staring at her. He smiled and winked, causing the blonde to

turn red and stumble back into the living room. Lizbeth jumped off of Rob, who had also turned a nice

shade of beetroot and she turned to grab Will next. Gracefully the quiet musician slipped out of reach

and wandered into the living room also, with Rob and Lizbeth trailing behind.

'"Well suddenly the manic behaviour makes a whole lotta sense" Rob commented as he glanced at the

bottle of Jack that Ella was cuddling on the sofa. Rob busied himself with getting Lizbeth to sit quietly

while Will attempted to relieve Ella of her bottle. Finally, five minutes later, Ella and Lizbeth were both

sat quietly with pint glasses of water and Will began. He quickly relayed his father's story once more for

the girls and then an hour later when he'd finished he turned to Ella, who seemed, along with Lizbeth, to

have sobered up considerably.

''Ella, there's really only one way to say this. The slayer – Buffy – her name is Buffy Summers. The

slayer is your mom.''

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* ~*~*~

Willow paused as she approached the door to her house.

"You know you don't have to hide from me. We agreed remember. Besides which, I can quite safely

walk home alone. It's not like I haven't been trained in every form of hand to hand combat."

Angel appeared next to her, a guilty smile on his face. "Sorry, I was kind of taking a trip down memory

lane. It's been a while since I've had to be stealth guy, and obviously I could really do with the practice."

Willow turned and smiled at him. ''I wouldn't worry too much, I didn't clock you until two blocks back.''

Angel shuffled a bit, with an embarrassed look on his face, before finally admitting, "I only started

following you two blocks back."

Willow grinned even more before saying, "Do you want to come in? Maybe have a drink?"

Angel stared at her for a moment, waiting for the endless babble that he was sure would follow that

invitation. When it never came his brow creased in confusion but he nodded and followed her into the

house.

While Willow pottered about in the kitchen he asked, "What's with the hair? I mean it really suits you,

you always did look better as a red head, but I thought that you preferred it brown."

"I don't prefer any colour." Willow answered as she handed him a mug. "But I figured it'd cause a lot less

confusion if I went by the same name to all of the people I'm going to be working with. Tomorrow I'm

going to tell the kids the truth. Angel?"

He was staring at the inside of the mug, not really hearing what Willow had said until he heard his name

being repeated. He looked up suddenly. "What...how...why?"

Willow grinned again as she answered, "Pig's blood...from the butcher's...because I figured that you'd

come."

Angel gave her a small smile of thanks, before continuing with his line of questioning.

"So, you've spoken to Buffy then."

Instantly Willow's smile vanished and her eyes turned cold. "Yes."

Having a feeling that he already knew the answer Angel asked, ''and what happened?''

"I told her the deal, she argued for a bit, but eventually she accepted it. Made a whole load of conditions

and then I left. Ella's staying at Lizbeth's tonight so I said I'd tell them tomorrow. That is, if Will hasn't

already told them."

"How could Will know?"

"Oz said that he was going to talk to them – Will and Jenny, his daughter – tonight. I told him to tell as

much as he wanted. So Will's probably over there right now telling Ella, Lizbeth and Rob everything."

"And you're okay with that?"

Willow rubbed her temple before replying, "It's really not my choice. I'm not gonna hide everything like

Giles did. We nearly lost a lot of people because Giles kept secrets from us. I only have one secret that I

don't want them to know and Oz promised not to mention it."

Angel stood up and walked towards the piano. "Spike. That's your secret right?"

Willow glanced up at Angel's back. "He's here you know. In Sunnydale."

Angel spun round and stormed towards her. "You're sure?"

"Yes."

Angel stood still and gave an unnecessary sigh. He had never liked Spike. Even when Willow had called

him in LA all those years ago to tell him about the two of them, he'd warned her of course, told her Spike

was a monster, heartless and thoughtless. Eventually he said that he wouldn't come to Sunnydale to

kick his childe's ass but he promised that, when he finally betrayed Willow, Angel would kill him for her.

At the time the happy witch had laughed and called Angel overdramatic. Four weeks later Angel was

running around Sunnydale like a man possessed hoping to find his traitorous childe and stake him into

oblivion. Unfortunately he'd been distracted by a slight case of the apocalypse. When it was over, Spike

could have been anywhere. So Angel had vowed that the day Spike crossed him again would be the

blonde vampire's last.

"Where is he?" Angel growled.

"No." Willow replied. "You don't get to kill him. He's not feeding and you can't just go around killing every

guy who's ever hurt me. Besides which, how come you're so bothered?"

Willow paused before she realized that of course this wasn't really about her, she was just the excuse.

This was because Spike had dared to touch "Buffy. This isn't about me it's about her. Of course it is.

Even after all this time she's still the centre of the world isn't she. Well fine, see if I care. Bollocks to you.

Bollocks to all of it!" Willow yelled the last part and threw her mug at the wall just next to Angel's head.

Instantly he had her in his arms. She struggled against him, hitting his chest with powerless punches as

he began to softly whisper nonsense into her ear. Eventually she calmed down and Angel explained.

"Willow, this has nothing to do with Buffy. It's like I told you earlier I owe you my soul. So when

something hurts you, I want to hurt it. I'm sorry that I upset you. I just hate him for what he did to you.

Hate both of them for treating you that way." Angel sat down on the sofa with Willow still in his arms,

clinging to him, tears running slowly down her cheeks. "I can't do it here Angel. I can't be strong here.

Anywhere else it wouldn't matter, the past would be left as exactly that and I could shut it out, just do my

job and not be so involved. But here...here there are so many memories. I hate it here. I hate being here

without him, it just feels wrong."

Angel looked at her in confusion. "You hate being here without Spike? I don't under..."

''Not Spike you prat...Xander.'' With that Willow collapsed again into floods of tears and Angel finally

understood her pain. She wasn't angry at Spike or Buffy for betraying her. She was angry with Xander

for leaving her. And so Angel sat there, blindly comforting the broken woman in his arms as he searched

desperately for an answer, for some way to help. But deep down he knew what was wrong; she needed

to cry; she needed to be sad. She hadn't stopped fighting; she hadn't stopped moving. She hadn't

stopped to grieve. And it was eating her up. It was killing her.