The One Who Does Magic
Chapter 10
A/N: This is just a short little chapter, and it's a little different from the recent ones on accounta it has no dialogue. But I wanted to put this in its own chapter because...well, like I said, it's a little different. More prosey. Anyway, here it is, and the next chapter it almost done, too, so it'll follow shortly. :)
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He dreamt innocuously for the first time in months, his breathing even, his hand curled around hers. In his dreams, Willow wasn't crying or lost, wasn't dark-eyed or angry, scared or upset. She featured prominently, yes, but there was no darkness or urgency this time. He saw no sharp, broken pictures, no helter-skelter montage of pain. Instead of biting images of doom, there was a sensation of comfort and peace, of both homecoming and constancy, as though he'd never left home to begin with. He didn't see Willow in his dreams so much as feel her. She spoke to him in tones he didn't hear but understood all the same. The lull of safety was enough to jar him awake.
She dreamt deeply, clearly, of things real and imagined. Lines blurred, memories strayed to merge reality and potential. Comfort shifted, turned inward, became a voice—hers. She said his name in her head, a mantra. It was soothing; it was pleading; it was lacking. She held his name in her throat, where it ached to be uttered. It was unsafe to lock it away and dangerous to let it out. She felt sure that he heard it anyway, and she had no control over his interpretation. She didn't like losing control, but losing control to him was like giving it to another part of herself. They were two points on an axis, sliding closer together.
It was still dark and he couldn't see her, but he felt her along the plane of his body. She faced him; she was still sleeping, but fitfully. She was dreaming. It hadn't been the uncommon peace of his dreams that had woken him. She was grasping his hand more tightly than before, and he could almost hear her thoughts, they were so desperate. He quickly realized it wasn't a desperation borne of fear or hurt, but of conflicting feelings, of longing. He felt like a spy in her head, but then he wasn't the one speaking without words. The one who does magic. Would it be so wrong if he merely lay there listening?
She felt a barrier give and knew that he could see into her. She was revealed but couldn't deny him. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe she had been denying him for too long. If she were to allow anyone to see into her, shouldn't it be him? Everyone else who'd seen her was gone—or was it that no one else had truly seen her? The one who sees.
He rubbed her arm and wanted so much to hold her tighter, but he felt her fighting for control of her thoughts and knew he was at the heart of them. She was fighting him in her dreams even as she clung to his hand in his bed. He knew he shouldn't, but he lightly touched her arm, trailing his hand gently along the inner curve of her elbow. Maybe he could tip the scales. Maybe, if she had forgiven him for that night seven months ago, she could fight the reservations she felt now.
"It isn't that easy," she said, and he jerked his hand from her arm. But she hadn't spoken aloud. Would she hear him if he did?
"Maybe it is." He dared to reach out to her again, to move closer, to touch her. His hand skimmed her arm, her swollen stomach, her hip, her leg, but in his mind looped a single phrase: "She's gay…she's gay…she's gay."
She sighed in her sleep, and her mind relaxed. Finally, she said his name. "Mmm…Xander." She didn't know she'd said it aloud until it woke her up.
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To be continued...