A/N: This part is basically just a lot of the original stuff from the episodes, which I've tried to explain as best I can. I didn't want to get too into it because everyone probably remembers the original scenes anyway.
"...What do you mean, she just left?" Buffy all but yelled at Tara in the hospital room Willow had been occupying not so long ago. "She was shot," Buffy pointed out. "I'm not an expert, but shouldn't that mean a distinct lack of getting up and walking away with a gaping shoulder wound?"
"That's what I tried telling you on the phone," Tara said. "Her powers...they're more advanced than I ever thought," she said sadly. "The injury made her weak, but...but she used some of my power and she healed herself."
"So, she's okay?" Buffy asked.
"Well, the bullet's out," Tara told her, the panic within herself not subsiding at all since Willow's departure not so long ago. "I wouldn't exactly say she's okay."
"What do you mean?" Buffy asked suspiciously.
"You saw how she was back at the house," Tara told her. "What she did to Osiris wasn't within any normal Wicca powers. The stuff that happened before, when she got addicted...that's how she is now, only ten times worse, because she's been without the magic for so long."
"And you didn't go after her?"
"I...I couldn't..." Tara told her, lowering her eyes from Buffy, almost embarrassed. "She-she used a spell on me, a barrier."
"On you?" Buffy asked, surprised. After everything, the last thing she had expected was for Willow to risk her relationship with Tara again, especially with magic. That was when the serious alarm bells began to ring loud and clear in her head. That was when she realised that this was far worse than she could ever have imagined.
"Yeah," Tara told her. "I mean, I broke it, obviously, but I think she knew that I would. But, it's just...the forgetting spells, that was one thing...but using an actual physical power on me... This is bad, Buffy."
"I know," Buffy said sadly. "So, what do we do now?"
"I don't know," Tara told her.
"The first thing we do is find her, right?" Buffy asked, starting towards the door determinedly, looking back at the other girl. "Do we even know where to begin looking?"
"She said she needed more power," Tara told her as Buffy opened the door to the private room. "I think I know where she'll go."
"She's at the Magic Box," Anya said, standing in the open doorway, causing Buffy and Tara to start. "Where is he?" she asked, looking at them expectantly.
"Anya!" Buffy exclaimed loudly, a look of surprise on her face as her hand flew to her chest. "My God, where did you come from?"
"That doesn't matter," Anya said nervously and impatiently. "Where is he?"
Buffy held up her hands at Anya. "Wait a second," she said. "Did you just say you know where Willow is?"
"Yes, she's at the shop," Anya told her, irritated. "And judging by the look on her face, she's probably not looking to levitate any pencils."
"Well, that doesn't sound good," Buffy said quietly as she turned to look back at Tara. "We should get over there."
"Hold on," Anya said, grabbing Buffy's arm desperately. "Where is he?"
"He..." Buffy said, feeling confused for a split-second as she slowly caught Tara's eye and felt tears sting her eyelids. Then, she felt the grief well up in her body and her features. Looking at the girl in front of her, the girl she knew loved Xander with all of her heart, she realised that in all of their haste to find Willow, no one had thought about Anya, and that made the guilt she already felt at his death increase.
"Yes," Anya said impatiently. "Xander. Willow came to the Magic Box, and saying that she was pissed is an understatement. She said something had happened to him, which is why I'm here."
"Here at the hospital..." Tara said, almost to herself.
"Well, yes," Anya told her. "Xander's human, and if he's been hurt, the hospital is the best place for him to be, right?" she asked. "I mean, they have all those medical supplies, and funny instruments and machines that make noises that annoy the crap out of you." She looked at them both expectantly. "So, if you just tell me which room he's in, you can go and do whatever it is you were going to do, and I can stay with Xander and take him grapes and flowers and tell him he's going to be okay."
"Anya..." Tara said slowly.
"What?" she answered. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do when someone's sick?" she asked. "Or did they change the rules again? You know, like when they decided that leeches weren't good enough. Which, I bet the guy who put a stop to that is just burying his head in embarrassment, because I heard that some places in Europe—"
Buffy cleared her throat gently, closing her eyes briefly, trying to summon the words she needed but finding them stuck in her throat. She was relieved and terrified when the sound silenced Anya's ramble, and she desperately looked around the small hospital room for something, anything, to focus on to take away the pain. How do you tell someone something like this? "Anya," she said gently, placing a hand on the other woman's arm. "I, um..." her eyes flicked back to Tara, "Maybe you should sit down..." she told Anya.
"I don't want to sit down," Anya said loudly, suspicious of the Slayer and frantically searching her eyes for some kind of sign that the sense of foreboding she felt meant nothing. She snatched her arm out of Buffy's grasp as she took a step backwards, a sense of dread filling her as she felt her heart rate quicken, even in her demon state. "Just tell me where he is."
Tara stepped forward slowly, a comforting hand on the small of Buffy's back when she saw the tears come into the Slayer's eyes. "He's not here," she told Anya slowly.
"What do you mean, he's not here?" she asked. "I thought he was hurt?"
"He was," Buffy told her quietly.
"Then why isn't he here?" Anya asked.
"Anya..." Buffy said, her voice catching, threatening to break with the emotions she could feel running through her. "They couldn't bring him here," she told her. "There was nothing they could do for him..."
"You mean he didn't need the doctors?" she asked, confusion and denial ruling her mind.
"No," Buffy said, shaking her head sadly, unable to meet Anya's eyes. "I mean that..." she looked up at the other woman's confused face. "I'm so sorry, Anya..."
"You're sorry?" Anya asked. "Why are you...?" she trailed off when she saw a tear falling down Tara's cheek. "I've heard many people say that on many of the television shows I used to watch with Xander. When you say that there's nothing they could do, that's just another way of saying that he's...dead, isn't it?" she asked desperately.
Buffy nodded her head slowly, putting a hand to her face as she felt her resolve breaking once again.
"But he can't be gone," Anya said, her voice growing louder with hysteria. "This isn't how it's supposed to go. He's supposed to beg me to take him back for a long time, until I finally relent and we have lots of little people and we live happily ever after." She shook her head. "I don't understand..." she said as tears began to fall down her cheeks and she felt herself crumble. "He was supposed to warn me when this was gonna happen. He was supposed to tell me. He promised...I don't understand..."
Buffy wrapped her arms around Anya, allowing her sob into her shoulder, dampening the hooded sweater she was still wearing. "He didn't feel anything," she whispered to her. "There was no pain, I promise."
"Buffy..." Tara said softly, placing a hand on the Slayer's shoulder to catch her attention. When Buffy turned to look at her, Tara continued, "I'm sorry," she said apologetically, "But Willow...I can feel her getting stronger. She has power," she said. "A lot of it."
Buffy felt Anya disengage from their embrace, sniffling and wiping at her eyes, and looked from her to Tara, like she was trying to make a decision. She didn't know what she should do, when she had Anya who was grieving for a person they all loved in their different ways on one side of her, and Tara, who wanted to save Willow from herself and her powers.
"Where's Xander?" Anya asked, trying in vain to stop the tears falling from her eyes. "I mean, his body..." she said quietly.
"He's, um...he's back at the house," Buffy told her. "We had to wait for the coroner."
Anya's head snapped up to meet Buffy's with a glare. "What?" she asked. "You left him alone?"
"I...I had to..." Buffy mumbled out. "All this stuff with Willow..."
"So you left him alone?" Anya asked angrily. "Gee, that was nice of you."
"You don't understand..." Buffy began.
"No, I think I do," Anya said accusingly, eyes flaring with anger. "But when it was you... When it was your cold, dead body lying in the rubble, he wouldn't leave you. Not for a single second. Him and Willow, they didn't want to leave you alone. This is how you repay him? You can't even do the same for someone you claim to love..."
"Anya, please," Buffy begged. "Please understand—"
Anya took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Look, I'm not getting into this. Go and find Willow," she told them through clenched teeth. "I'll go and wait with...with Xander..." she finished shakily.
"Are you sure?" Tara asked.
"Anya," Buffy said quietly. "You know that we would be there with him, but—"
"Whatever," Anya said wearily with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Just go."
The Vengeance Demon waited for the Wicca and the Slayer to hurry down the hospital corridor, worriedly chattering between them, and disappear through the exit before she teleported herself to the body of her ex-fiancé.
Dawn pushed the open front door to the Summers house so that she could cross the threshold, and looked around nervously as she came into the foyer at the bottom of the stairs, the open door not usually a good sign when your sister's a vampire slayer.
"Buffy?" she called out uneasily, already knowing something was wrong by the feel of her skin goose-bumping under her shirt. When there was no reply, she put down the schoolbag that had been hanging on her shoulder on the floor of the hall, and started up the stairs slowly.
"Buffy?" she called again as she reached the top of the stairs and headed down the hall. No sign of anyone in Buffy's room, or in the bathroom, so eventually she came to the door to Willow's room.
"Hey. Hello?" she called loudly. "Uh," she said, gesturing to where she had just entered, "The door was..." She trailed off as she paused at the side of the bed, ready to make a quick exit if needed.
From where she stood, she could see blood staining the carpet. She felt her breathing grow ragged as she nervously took another step into the room proper, where all she could see was more of the sticky substance. Something caught her eye at the other side of the bed, one of Tara's favourite shoes, and she felt a queasiness fill her.
"Tara?" she asked quietly, moving towards it slowly. To her relief, the shoe was just a discarded item, something that was probably thrown off carelessly at some point, the probable causes of which making her blush. But still she followed her instinct to investigate the circumstances, something she wasn't exactly glad of inheriting from Buffy.
She stood at the side of the bed, kneeling down at the pool of blood on the ground that looked like it had been there a while, the edges around it hard where it had begun to dry, the metallic smell that she had become used to after so many demon slayings with her sister filling her nostrils. She couldn't see where it had come from, no sign of any demon carcass, but something told her that this blood was human, even though she wasn't sure why she knew that.
She looked from the blood and followed the rays of sun that were warming the air, and saw the spider-webbed hole made in the pane of glass in the window. She stood up slowly, walking over to it, touching the fragmented glass tentatively, and froze at what she saw.
Downstairs, in the yard, Anya knelt on the lawn, her head hung down and her hand covering her face. Dawn took a step closer to the window when she saw the familiar sight of Xander's sneakers at the woman's side and strained her eyes to see more.
She saw Xander's dead body.
Anya silently chastised herself as more tears fell from her eyes, the useless feeling she'd always had when she had been human, the feeling that always terrified her now back in full force for the first time since she had taken D'Hoffryn up on his offer. She didn't want to feel this way, didn't like feeling she was out of control, and she didn't want to cry for him either.
She kept telling herself that she was a Vengeance Demon, emphasis on the word 'demon', meaning that she wasn't supposed to feel like a human anymore. She wasn't supposed to feel like she'd had her heart ripped out, and she didn't want to weep like one of the stupid, mortal humans she had grown to loathe in her demonic days. But still, here she was, feeling like one of the creatures she pitied so much.
"Xander...?" she heard from beside her, and she spun around to look at the frightened teenage girl stood behind her, her hand over her mouth in complete horror.
Dawn stared down at the lifeless body on the ground, a bullet wound in the chest, right in the place his heart was. A few years ago, when she had been doing some homework for her biology class in the library of Sunnydale High while Buffy was training with Giles, Willow and Xander had been helping her with an experiment.
They had been learning about the human body in class, and that week they had been studying the respiratory system. They'd had to test heart rates, what made them speed up, slow down, that kind of thing. Xander had been especially helpful, running around the stacks like a crazy person until he had nearly passed out, then he let her put her hand on his chest, over his heart, so she could feel how hard it was beating after the exercise.
She had blushed at the time, because that was when her crush on him had begun, but Willow had blushed even more when he had grabbed the redhead's hand and made her feel it too. Suddenly that day was all she could think about.
"Dawn..." Anya said quietly, getting to her feet unsteadily, pain cramping her legs after so much time spent in the same, unchanged, knelt position.
"Xander...?" Dawn said again, devastated, as she looked at Anya. "What...what happened?" she asked her.
"There..." Anya began uncertainly, looking back at Xander, lying on the lawn like he was just basking in the sun at the beach, his pale face and cold skin the only telltale signs that something was wrong. "There was a gun...Warren tried to...he came to get Buffy..."
Dawn's eyes snapped up to Anya's. "Buffy?" she asked quickly. "Is she okay?" she asked. "Was she hurt? Is she...?" she didn't finish the sentence, she couldn't after what had happened the year before when she'd had to attend her sister's funeral.
"No, no," Anya said immediately, touching Dawn's arm in a comforting, reassuring gesture to both of them, something that had no effect on either of them. "Buffy's okay," she told her. "She's fine. I saw her a little while ago at the hospital. She had some stuff to take care of."
"But the blood..." Dawn said tearfully. "There was blood...in the bedroom, I saw it, I thought it was Tara..."
"It wasn't Tara," Anya told her. "It was Willow."
Dawn's eyes widened at her words. "Willow?" she asked. "She's—"
"She's okay, too," Anya said. "I mean, I think it was her who got hit and that must be her blood, but she's okay."
Dawn closed her eyes and tried to maintain a normal breathing pattern. "But he's not..." she said, breathing deeply and gesturing to Xander. "Is he?"
Anya put her arm around Dawn's shoulder, following the girl's eye-line to his form, and shook her head sadly. "No," she said quietly. "He's gone."
Warren Meers shifted uncomfortably in his seat, half disgusted when he felt the material of his pants stick to the chair with something he'd rather not think about, while his eyes darted around the room.
It's not my fault, he thought to himself. It was her own fault. She asked for it. She had to pay for humiliating me like that. She deserved it.
His mind re-ran the events from earlier that afternoon, when he had been in the bar. He had been so sure, so full of himself when he'd walked into the place. Why was that a bad thing? That was all he'd ever wanted, to prove to the rest of the world that he was worth something. Unfortunately, in Warren's warped mind, that action was eliminating the local slayer.
Even now, when he knew that he hadn't actually killed her, he still felt some self-satisfaction that he'd go down in the history books as the guy who shot her, who'd injured her enough to have the newscaster's announcing it on the TV.
There had been very few times in Warren's life when he had felt the elation he had experienced when he had ran from the Summers back yard with a firearm in his hand. The last time he had truly felt anything close to it had been...
...Katrina.
The name and the images of her resounded in his head so much he had to physically shake it off. And it hadn't been when she'd been under the influence of the spell he and the others had cast, either. It was before, when she'd been his willingly. She'd made him feel that everything was okay, that it always would be when they were together. But the bitch had taken it away from him.
She'd paid for that with a cold, hard crack of her skull when she'd tried to get away from him.
The emptiness he felt after her death was like a cold void in his chest. But not because he was devastated at the tragic event. It was the opposite. He felt nothing.
Buffy had gotten in the way again, then, with her little band of followers, making sure that he knew she had him all figured out.
At first, when he had first returned to Sunnydale after the April incident and joined up with Jonathon and Andrew, it hadn't been anything personal against Buffy. Even late at night, when he used to lie awake in his bed, thinking of the things he'd do to her when she realised that he was the real power now, he didn't really fantasise about her. It was the power he'd have over her, having her at his mercy, and that had turned him on more than anything else.
But then they'd seen her out patrolling, watched her thwart their every single attempt to take over their pathetic little town, and he'd realised that she was the one thing that was standing between him and his ultimate goal. Every time he saw her after that, he'd see black and feel the bile rise in his throat that refused to go away.
Back in the bar, there hadn't been any specific details about the so-called 'incident' at Rovello Drive. Even if there had been, Warren wouldn't have heard them. His mind had been buzzing with the news that the victim had survived, and he'd turned himself off. He'd gotten up, walked away with the vampires and demons laughing at him, and he'd tried to figure out what to do next.
He'd thought briefly of breaking Jonathon and Andrew out of jail, but dismissed it as a bad idea that would take too much time and energy. They'd both been good to him, followed him like all good puppies should, and he knew that. Again, it was about the power he had over them, and he figured that the two of them languishing in a jail cell was better than the three of them, and he didn't feel guilty at being the one that got away. They were good guys, before he had corrupted their minds, but in his eyes he had been making them better, stronger men, just like him. He was taking them away from heir dull, boring lives, and from being the dweebs they had been in high school. He was changing them into people that the world would take notice of. It wasn't his fault that they couldn't take it, couldn't handle the pressure.
Another thing the slayer was to blame for, in one way or another.
The look on Buffy's face when he marched into her garden with the gun was enough to calm him for just a second. She'd been stunned, terrified, and that made something inside of him stir. She'd had no idea what he had in mind for her, what he could do to her with just a tiny amount of pressure on the right bit of heated metal.
This wasn't the end, he knew that much. He'd try again. Coming to Rack's was just an insurance policy against his health. Plans were already formulating in his head. He didn't know exactly how yet, but he'd get her back for everything she'd done to him.
He'd make her sorry they had ever met.
He glanced around at the waiting room, which was hardly that of a doctor's surgery. The magazines that lay on the dusty, stained coffee table were out of date by at least a few years, and were indeterminably soiled by something or another. The décor was cheap, tacky, and unclean. The off-white paint that had obviously been on the walls for what looked like a decade or two was chipped and peeling, the furniture twice as old and in need of some definite repair. The standards of the place was made all the worse by the dimness of the low bulbs in the small lighting fixtures around the room, and the people waiting around for the services of the man through one of the doors were definitely of an unsavoury reputation.
Rack came out of his room as his last client scurried out of the door, away from the place as quickly as possible, and the deeply scarred man looked around the room questionably. "All right," he drawled loudly, "Who's next?"
Warren, who had been fidgeting with nerves and excitement, jumped up impatiently on hearing the warlock's question. "I am," he yelled a little too enthusiastically.
One of the other guys who had been waiting, a guy who looked like he had seen better days before his magick addiction had taken hold, looked pissed off as the new guy walked quickly over to Rack, cutting in line in front of him. "Hey!" he complained loudly.
Rack looked Warren up and down critically, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "You're new," he told him.
"Yeah," Warren said impatiently, looking around the room suspiciously and holding up a large wad of cash he had pulled from his jacket. "And I come bearing dead presidents," he told Rack, "So you think we can just skip the small talk?"
Rack smiled a little, his eyes drawn to the cash, and gestured toward the room behind him. Once Warren had entered and Rack had followed, the latter closed the door behind them, sanctioning them in the private room, the noise of the door closing audibly making an already nervous Warren jump.
"How'd you find me?" Rack asked, a trace of a smirk on his smarmy, untrustworthy face.
"I talked to a guy," Warren told him. "He's one of your regulars. Offered to show me the way for twenty bucks."
Rack grinned smugly. "Should have haggled," he told him. "Most of my customers'll bring you here for five."
"Great," Warren told him impatiently, his eyes scanning the murals on the walls and the old, dirty once-plush pillows lay out on the floor of the room. "Great, I'll file that away. Look, I'm in a bit of a situation here," he said quickly. "I tried to do us all a favour and eliminate the Slayer, but it...I..." he trailed off, unnerved by the way the other man was looking at him, staring as if waiting for something to happen, like it was part of a joke he wasn't aware of. "I guess it didn't take."
"Killing a Slayer," Rack said, taking a few steps closer to Warren, making the kid avoid eye contact with him. "That's big business for a kid."
"I'm not a kid," Warren snapped at him.
"Okay," Rack said, closer than before, inches away from the other guy, making him more nervous by the minute.
"I had my own guys," Warren said defensively, jutting his chest out proudly with a self-satisfied smirk. "The Trio, yeah, you've heard of us."
"Right," Rack said with a shrug. "What were you, a band or something?"
"I thought word travelled in the underworld," Warren pointed out, almost to himself, frustrated and exasperated. "You know, we were evil. Robots were my thing." When Rack looked at him with another shrug and a blank expression, he continued, "You didn't hear about the freeze ray?"
Rack shook his head. "Sorry," he told him. "So why aren't your guys helping you?"
"Look, I thought this was a cash for service gig, not an interview process, all right?" Warren snapped at him, waving the money in his face. "I need protection. I've got the Slayer after me."
Rack moved away solemnly. "Slayer is the least of your problems," he said, drifting away from Warren.
"You're right," Warren said dryly. "Let's talk about my skin troubles. You know, I'd say on the scale of problems, that she ranks!"
"If I were you, I'd be worried about the witch."
"Witch?" Warren asked, surprised at the statement. "W-which witch?" he stammered out.
"Willow," Rack clarified. "Slayer's pal?" he asked, walking closer to the boy again in an attempt to jog his memory. "She's the new power, man, anybody with intuition can feel it. She's going to blow this town apart," he said, his face inches from Warren's, intimidating the other guy. "Starting...with you..."
"Me?" Warren asked, a little more scared now, still surprised. "What did I...what did I do to her?" he asked. "O-okay, okay, I, I shot her friend..."
"You didn't even hit the Slayer," Rack said with a scoffing laugh, even though he wasn't listening anymore as he closed his eyes, his face contorting as if he were in pain, turning away from Warren. "I feel death..." he said weakly.
"But the Slayer's alive," Warren pointed out. "I mean, it was on the news, the girl who got shot is okay."
"Slayer might be," Rack told him, "but somebody's stone cold, and that..." he said slowly, deliberately unnerving him, "...is why the witch wants your head. She can sense your essence right now, man. It's just a matter of time before she finds you."
Warrens face fell in a panic, his hands shaking and clammy as he lunged forward to where Rack was standing and pushed the whole wad of bills into the man's hand. "All right!" Warren yelled at him. "Take it," he told him. "All right, there's that, and I can get more. Just give me something," he begged.
Rack looked down at the money in his hand casually. "Hide or fight?" he asked.
"Both," Warren told him. "All of it. I-I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, but it's not enough. I need-I need a cover, and I need lots of fire power."
"I can't guarantee anything," Rack told him casually, shrugging with his warning. "Not this time." He leaned in towards Warren solemnly. "The girl is running on pure fury. I've never felt anything like it," he whispered, a smug grin slowly spreading over his lips.
Warren rolled his eyes impatiently. "Thank you for the tip, Nostradamus," he said sarcastically. "Just load me up, okay?"
"Careful!" Tara yelled as the car screeched to a halt at the kerbside, the rubber tyres bouncing off the sidewalk violently, the impact causing both her and Buffy to jolt forward and back, the seatbelts they were wearing causing minor whiplash.
"What?" Buffy asked, turning off the engine and looking at her innocently.
"I thought you said you could drive?" Tara questioned, rubbing at the sore point in her neck as she unfastened herself from the car.
"I said I had a license," Buffy pointed out to her as they got out of the car. "I never said I could drive."
"Sorry," Tara muttered, "I kinda thought the two went hand in hand."
"Not with the examiner who tested me," she said. "It was his last day, he was kinda old, and I cried when he said he was gonna fail me. I gave him this whole sob story about me breaking up with my boyfriend and blah, blah, bliddy, blah."
Tara shook her head, closing the passenger door of the car, looking up at the sign for the Magic Box. "You think she's still here?" she asked, looking at Buffy.
The sound of the bell above the entrance to the shop pinged loudly, making Buffy cringe with the memories of the day that would never end, and the door opened, revealing a very different-looking Willow, all in black, hair included. "I'm gonna go with yes..." Buffy said uneasily.
At first, Willow didn't see them. All she saw was the vehicle that belonged to Xander.
Did belong to Xander, she corrected herself.
He had been so proud when he had bought that car, he had insisted on taking everyone for a drive. It turned out that he was too impatient to wait for Anya to finish work, for Buffy to finish off the vampire nest she'd found, and for Dawn and Tara to finish school. He had turned up at her dorm room, jingling keys in hand, promising candy and other goodies if she accompanied him. She had tried to tell him that she needed to study for finals, but he said it wasn't any fun on his own, and she'd fallen for the puppy dog-eyed stare like she always had. That was how it had come to be the two of them.
They had driven to the outskirts of a nearby town in the shiny purple car, the journey taking longer than they had intended because they had been so busy talking about things they hadn't thought about in years that they took a few wrong turns and ended up on the wrong freeway. When they had gotten back, Tara and Anya had admonished the pair of them like they were naughty children for making them worry. But at the time, they hadn't cared. They'd had fun together for the first time in months, and nothing was going to spoil that. They had said then that they were going to make it a regular thing, the two of them spending time together, but it never happened with work and school and slaying.
And now, it'll never happen again... she thought.
She shook the memories out of her head, chastising herself for thinking about it now. She'd have plenty of time for feeling sorry for herself later. Now, there was something else on her mind.
She finally looked at them, seeing them for the first time, the tiniest smile of familiarity on her face, as though nothing had changed. "Buffy, Tara, hey," she said politely.
"What's going on?" Buffy asked, not quite sure who she was asking the question of, looking from the girl dressed in black to a speechless Tara for an answer and finding nothing.
"I'll explain," Willow told them, "But we've got to go."
"W-why?" Tara asked.
"It's time to find Warren," Willow told them, not looking at them pushing away the memories that came to mind as she opened the car door and climbed inside.
"Faster," Willow told Tara, who was driving Xander's car along the deserted highway in the middle of the Californian desert just outside of Sunnydale. The land was dry and desolate on either side of the tarmac road, the sun beating down on the already parched surroundings.
Tara looked at her girlfriend who was sat in the backseat of the car through the rear-view mirror, still finding the black hair shocking to look at, even though she felt some sense of relief that her eyes had returned to their natural green. "I'm going as fast as I—"
"Faster!" Willow said again, insisting and unwilling to brook any argument as the gas pedal slammed down, apparently of it's own accord, making the car speed up.
"Will, would you cut that out?" Buffy asked, looking from the road to her friend in the back seat. "If we'd wanted crazy driving lady, it'd be me in front of the steering wheel."
"We need to stop," Tara said nervously. "I don't like this."
"We're close," Willow said in a quiet voice. "I can feel him."
"And we'll catch him, and he'll go to jail," Buffy said. "Look, I know you're finding the whole getting shot thing very motivating," she pointed out. "But you're using magic."
"If I wasn't, I'd have bled to death," she told them accusingly.
"Maybe," Buffy said. "But this isn't right," she told her. "Okay, this isn't how I want it."
Willow gave a smirk. "Sometimes you don't have a choice."
"Will," Buffy said desperately, "You do have a choice. This isn't good for you."
Tara looked back at her, shocked at the change in someone she thought she knew better than anyone. "You made the decision to stop for a reason," she said to her girlfriend gently. "You promised us."
"And can I just ask," Buffy said, "What's with the makeover of the damned?"
"Magic," Willow said simply.
"But the hair—"
But Willow wasn't really listening to them. She sat up suddenly, pulling herself forward with the back rests of the seats in front of her. "Turn right!" she told them forcefully. "Go!"
Tara searched the road ahead of her, seeing nothing but open land, and looked back confused. "Go - where?" she asked.
"Over there!" Willow gestured furiously, "Now!"
Tara looked confused. "Willow?" she asked.
"Turn," Willow told her commandingly in a voice that Tara hardly recognised, as the steering wheel turned itself under her hands.
Tara froze as the car screeched in the road, the tyres hitting the dirt of the desert, zooming between the bushes and brush of the land. She held up her hands in defeat. "Fine," she told her. "Fine! You wanna drive? Go right ahead!"
The car continued to bounce along the uneven surface of the desert, finally coming to a halting stop at the side of another highway.
Willow jumped out of the car and began to stride across the highway as Buffy and Tara got out of the car to follow, albeit more confused at the witch's actions.
"Willow, wait!" Buffy called out to her friend.
Willow looked back at them with fire in her eyes. "Stay back," she told them in the same commanding tone she had used at the hospital, gesturing to them with one hand. Purple-black bolts of energy flew from her fingertips over her companions, immobilising them and stopping them from coming near her.
She kept walking, more determined than ever and not looking back at the people who loved her, as a bus appeared over a rise on the horizon, approaching the girl who had stopped waking and was now standing in the middle of the road, glaring at the oncoming vehicle.
As she had in the car, Willow controlled the steering wheel of the bus, causing the driver inside to hurriedly try and correct the directions but not succeeding as the bus sped towards the person standing calmly in the path of the vehicle.
The driver tried in vain to press the brake pedal of the bus, finding the pressure he was applying not even affecting the speed, his face filled with panic as he continued to wrestle with the wheel.
The bus suddenly began to slow down, throwing the passengers, including Warren, around in their seats as the sound of screeching tyres reverberated loudly and the bus slammed to a stop, inches before Willow.
Unfazed by the proximity of the bus, Willow walked around to the side of the transport, waiting at the doors as they opened with a loud shushing noise, thanks to her powers. "Get out," she commanded.
The passengers craned their necks, hurrying to the windows, trying to get a glimpse of what was happening outside of the vehicle, as Warren got up, walked down the aisle and down the steps out of the bus. He barely had time to react as Willow grabbed him by the neck and lifted him from the ground, her eyes back to black.
"Please," Warren begged her, his voice raised in terror. "I'll-I'll do anything."
Willows hands closed around his neck, squeezing with vengeance as a horrible cracking sound came from his body, something Willow seemingly didn't hear until suddenly an eye popped out of the head, revealing metal and wiring and sparks in the empty socket.
Willow released her grip on the body and allowed it to fall to the floor, the thing that looked like Warren lying motionless on the floor as Buffy and Tara ran over, now free of their paralysis.
Willow looked at them, a disappointed, surprised look on her face. "It's a robot," she said needlessly. "I-I could feel his essence," she said, confused. Then, as she saw Buffy's look of sympathy, she felt her anger rise again. "He tricked me," she said through clenched teeth, before she began to walk away. "We'll find him another way," she said resolutely.
"And then what?" Tara asked, turning to follow her.
"And then we'll kill him," Willow told them, no hint of emotion or regret in her voice as she continued walking.
Buffy quickly caught up with Willow, stopping her and grabbing her arm, causing her to stop and turn around. "Okay," Buffy told her firmly, "you need to calm down."
Willow's eyes fixed on hers. "Calm down?" she asked.
"Look, you're angry," Tara said sympathetically, hoping that somehow she could reach her. "I am too. There's no excuse for what Warren did, but that—"
"He shot Xander," Willow told her bluntly.
For a second, Buffy and Tara were both speechless.
"I know," Buffy said eventually, quietly. "I was there."
"He's dead," she said matter-of-factly. "Now, Warren's dead too."
"Willow," Buffy said sadly. "Please, just stop," she asked.
Willow stared at her coldly, the blackness of her eyes scaring the girls. "I'm busy," she told them, as she started toward the car again.
Buffy grabbed Willow's arm again, feeling the witch tense under her grip. "We love you," she told her.
"And Xander," Tara added sadly. "But we don't kill humans. It's not the way."
"How can you say that?" Willow spat at them both, looking between them for a reason why she should stop. "Xander is dead."
"I know..." Buffy said sadly. "I know," she repeated, tears filling her eyes and her voice. "And I...can't understand...anything. Not what happened...a-and not what you must be going through."
"Willow, if you do this, you let Warren destroy you too," Tara told her seriously. "You said it yourself, sweetie," she said. "The magic's too strong, there's no coming back from it."
She looked them dead in the eye. "I'm not coming back," she told them, turning away from them and trying to get away.
Buffy pulled her back, yet again. "Will, please," she said desperately. "We need you. Please...we'll get through this together."
"We won't!" Willow snapped at her, pulling her arm away from her violently. "Not your way."
"Please, just—" she began emotionally.
"No!" Willow yelled at both of them. "No more talking. It's done!" She turned away again, this time gesturing behind her as she refused to be held back any more, and another bolt of energy sprang from her, this one stronger than the last as the Magick flew at Buffy and Tara, knocking them from their feet at the side of the road as Willow continued walking.
As quickly as they could manage, Buffy and Tara got to their feet, brushing the dust and debris from themselves in the hope of stopping Willow from what she was so determined to do.
All they saw was the empty car and an empty highway in front of them.
Willow was gone.
The sun was setting in Sunnydale, and all around the town residents were illuminating their residences brightly, subconsciously warding away the creatures of the night that preyed on their town.
Buffy and Tara wearily walked up the path towards the front porch of the house that everyone seemed to occupy. They approached the door cautiously, noting the fact it still stood wide open, and they exchanged a glance as they entered.
"Willow?" Buffy called out in the darkened house. "Dawn?"
Buffy moved off to the left, into the living room proper, while Tara took the dining room, the two of them eventually meeting back in the foyer where they had parted when they both came upon nothing.
"You think the coroner came already?" Tara asked.
"I don't know," Buffy said uncertainly.
They both looked toward the kitchen, slowly walking through the dining room together silently, opening the back door.
"Dawn?" Buffy called into the open air as they both paused at the open door. Seeing the two figures huddled on the grass in the moonlight, Buffy pressed forward slowly, an expression of dread on her face as the body still lay there, speckled with moonlight and shadows, blood still covering his chest. "Oh, god..." she whispered to herself in horror.
It shouldn't have been a surprise, in her line of work dead bodies were an everyday occurrence, and she had been there when he had fallen. But now...now he looked different. Before she had left him, he just looked like he had been sleeping, but now he looked cold, pale...
He looked...dead.
Dark red blood had pooled underneath him on the bright green grass, contrasting harshly in a way that hurt her eyes and made her queasy, and she had to close her eyes against the sight for fear of never being able to rid herself of the image.
She would never be able to put into actual words exactly what her friends meant to her, because words would never seem enough. They were her family, it was that simple. They were her safety net, her comfort, and when she was out with them at the Bronze, or when they were all watching a movie in her darkened sitting room, she felt like nothing could ever come between them, and she felt blessed to have them in her life, but there were times – like right now – when she wished that she'd never met them, never let them into her life.
She looked back at the house for one brief moment, and for a few seconds, she hated the building that usually made her feel safe. It had been her haven for so long, the place she had shared with her mother and her sister, the place she had lived a normal life away from the supernatural complications. Suddenly, the place didn't hold so many happy memories. All she saw was the bloodshed and the pain and the emptiness.
This was where her mother had been taken from her.
This was where Spike had tried to rape her.
This was where Xander had been killed.
It would never feel safe or happy or loving ever again.
"We didn't..." Dawn said softly, tears in her quiet voice and shaking Buffy from her thoughts. "...We didn't want to leave him alone..."
Buffy turned and found Dawn huddled in a little ball with Anya, both of them crying silently, looking like they had been there a while. She knelt down beside them gently, looking back at his body. "Dawn?" she said, "Sweetheart?" she told her. "Come on," she urged, trying to get her to her feet. "Honey, we need to get inside, okay?" she said, stroking Dawn's hair gently and holding Anya's free hand, the coldness of it surprising her. "Dawn, sweetheart," she said gently. "Be strong for me, okay?"
Tara, who had been standing in the open doorway, came out into the garden, standing beside them and looking at Xander in dismay and sadness.
"Guys," Buffy said again to her sister and her friend. "We need to go inside."
"I don't understand," Dawn told her sister, sobbing, looking up at her with a look that broke Buffy's heart, causing Anya to hold her tightly.
Buffy pulled both of them towards her and hugged them as they continued crying brokenheartedly. "I don't understand either," she whispered honestly.