Hello again! Quick couple of notes. I don't have the time to dedicate to this story that I'd have liked, so it isn't hugely long. As I mentioned before, it's just a quick ship-fic for a friend.
Enjoy!
Buffy and Giles sat near the front of the bus, occasionally talking. Paige could only hear snippets: apparently they were working out a route to Cleveland, and what they should do on the way there.
Paige and Willow sat in the back, talking. Paige had quickly explained the basics of whitelighters and witches: neglecting, of course, to mention to Willow she'd scared the Elders. Scared them more than she'd ever heard them being, even when the Source of All Evil and the Titans were let loose.
Willow had passed the strange scythe to Buffy, to speak more easily with Paige.
"So…" Willow said, slowly, still only just waking up, "I'm not a witch?"
Paige had just finished explaining why the Elders had taken so long to assign her a whitelighter. Willow's expression had clouded for a moment before she spoke. Her tone had sobered, now: Paige wasn't entirely sure whether that was a good thing.
"Kind of," Paige said, "You are, just not the normal kind, I guess."
"I'm not normal?" Willow echoed. Then the serious edge to her voice faded, and she smiled. "Heard that before."
"Normal witches are born," Paige said. "Witchcraft is in their blood. You- you weren't like that. But through willpower and location and strength, you made it so. You made yourself a witch. I mean, it happens, but- it's rarer. Much rarer."
Willow frowned as she absorbed the information. She tilted her head; Paige hesitated. She'd expected openness to be the best policy, especially in this situation.
Still, Paige wasn't entirely sure that this was helping. If anything, she just seemed to have confused Willow. Unsurprising, if this was her first introduction to the concept.
"Guess it explains Amy," Willow said, murmuring to herself more than Paige. When Paige frowned, Willow spoke up: "Witch, in Sunnydale. Her mother was too: thought Amy'd just looked at the same books. Guess if it runs in the family… Don't think she had a whitelighter though."
"We can be inconspicuous," Paige said. "Or maybe she was like you, it's possible. Was she good?"
"Huh?"
"Whitelighter," Paige said, "It's in the name, kinda. Only good witches get them. As soon as a witch goes evil, they get revoked."
"Oh," Willow said, and looked down. "No wonder it took so long for me to get one."
Almost immediately, Buffy came back from the front of the bus. Paige couldn't say she was surprised that she'd been listening in; she needed to earn their trust, apparently. And Willow had been through a lot by the sound of it, it was no wonder Buffy was being cautious.
Still, the Slayer didn't join in the conversation, only sitting closer, apparently just in case Willow needed someone she knew. Paige hesitated, uncertain.
There was something she didn't know here, no question. Still, Willow seemed friendly enough now, and if she didn't want to share, then Paige wouldn't force her.
"That was only because they didn't know how to find you," Paige said. "The fact I got sent here at all is proof you're a good witch."
She spoke blindly, but was gratified to see Willow smile, somewhat. Perhaps she needed confirmation of that.
"So every good witch has a whitelighter?" Willow said.
"Pretty much," Paige said, "Well, not ones like you. Self-made witches, I don't know if there's any proper term. You get one when we find you, though."
Willow glanced sideways: out the window. A few seconds passed.
"Is there anyone you want to ask about?" Paige said, softly. "I can find out, if I orb upstairs. If you want me to."
A few more moments of silence. Slowly, Willow turned back, regarding Paige. Then, she spoke with a voice that was barely audible. Little over a whisper.
"Tara Maclay," Willow said. Then, louder: "So I became a witch because I wanted to be?"
"From what I've gathered, yeah," Paige said. "Harder than just that though, it takes a hellmouth, and a strong will. A really strong will. I- was she near a hellmouth?"
Paige didn't use her name. She couldn't say way, beyond the fact there were clearly bad memories here. Buffy had mentioned a Tara, too.
"She was a witch before Sunnydale," Willow said, and for a moment she smiled. Then that expression faded, to be replaced by pain; "I don't know whether there was a hellmouth there too. She didn't like to talk about it. There might have been."
Paige nodded.
If nothing else, this would hopefully be a step towards gaining her charge's trust. Ideally, even friendship. She couldn't serve any purpose without that.
Even without that, though, Willow seemed to want to know. Whether she sought any titbit of information, or possessed a genuine curiosity, Paige couldn't say. Either way, she would be glad to help.
"If you want me back," Paige said, "Call my name, Paige. Just call, and I'll be down here in a moment. Ok?"
"Ok."
They shared a smile, before Paige was gone, turning to orbs of light, and rising up through the roof of the bus, and away.
For a few seconds, Willow stared at the empty air. She straightened in her seat, and rubbed her eyes clear from her sleep. A yawn; she was still worn from the great spell she'd woven. Then she hesitated, suddenly finding herself unsure of what she could do.
"You good, Will?" Buffy said, from a few rows in front.
Willow nodded. "Sleepy," she managed another smile. "Don't think I've done anything that exhausting."
"You affected the entire world," Buffy said, "Take a nap, you've more than earned it."
Willow chuckled, and yawned again. Buffy moved back until she sat in the same row as Willow.
"So, what do you think of her?" Buffy said.
Willow mouthed the word 'Paige', not entirely sure whether or not that constituted summoning her whitelighter. She'd have to ask. Regardless, Buffy nodded, and Willow shrugged.
"She's nice," Willow said.
They again lapsed into quiet. Paige hadn't been around long enough for Willow to gain more of an opinion. Nice was enough, really.
Then she recognized the look in Buffy's eyes. She sighed, from fondness more than frustration. It was more than a friendly query: was Paige safe? Was she a threat?
Buffy had needed to focus on pragmatism over kindness in the past months, with the threat of the First looming. Such habits couldn't be given up so quickly; Willow smiled.
"I think she's genuine," Willow said. "She's trying to help. She-"
Willow hesitated, and stopped again. No need to talk about Tara unnecessarily. It hurt.
Apparently, Buffy understood. The blonde nodded and, recognizing Willow's need for quiet, moved back toward the front of the bus.
Willow waited, trying not to fall asleep again, immediately. This was the longest she'd been awake since leaving the Sunnydale crater.
After a few minutes of staring out the window, there was a quiet chiming. Orbs shone in the centre of the bus, and the familiar, dark-haired Paige came into being. She regained her bearings, looking from side to side, before sitting next to Willow.
"Hi again," Willow said.
"Hi," Paige said. "Think I found answers for you. If you want?"
Willow nodded, silently. Slightly worriedly: what was she to think if Tara did have a whitelighter?
Well, she wouldn't accept Paige, then. As it had done a thousand times, the scene replayed in front of her mind. A gun shot, a shattered window, a shirt stained red.
Paige had said whitelighters could heal. If they could heal, and hadn't saved her, Willow didn't want anything to do with her.
Willow blinked, trying to clear her mind, and school her expression again.
After a moment, hesitating at the sudden harshness that had come across the normally-gentle redhead's face, Paige spoke.
"Well, firstly," she said, "Found out you were right. There's an Amy Madison registered, formerly of Sunnydale, power of transfiguration. When she started using her powers for personal gain, her whitelighter left."
She wasn't sure what made her start with that. Maybe just being able to put the redhead at ease. Still, Willow watched her, as if to silently ask and?
"Tara Maclay had the power of amplification," Paige said. "Her mother was a witch too, with the power of aura-reading. From what the record-keeper said, her powers were sealed by her mother, at the insistence of her father, shortly before she died. The same happened to me, when I was growing up, my powers had been sealed. I didn't know I had them, though she did. And when a witch's powers are sealed, she stops being a witch."
"You left her," Willow said, simply.
"Not me personally, but yeah," Paige said. "It was- there are only so many whitelighters. We can't look after every witch and ex-witch, as well as our other charges. I'm guessing she was kind of like you, though: she wanted to be a witch again strongly enough, that the hellmouth answered. We didn't know."
At that, Willow smiled, only somewhat bitterly.
"She was strong," Willow spoke, soft. "Always was."
A pause. The records up where the Elders lived hadn't gone into a great deal of detail; a witch so young, who had every indication of never using her powers again, in the grand scheme of things she seemed ignorable, compared to all the others.
They were wrong. Unsurprisingly, really, but the Elders were nothing if not set in their ways. Still, it meant Paige knew nothing except the fact this Tara had a relatively obscure power, had lived in Sunnydale for some length of time, and then something happened.
And, thinking about it, Paige wasn't sure she wanted to know the whole story.
"Are you ok?" Paige spoke, after a quiet few seconds.
"No," Willow said, before smiling, and shrugging. "But I'm coping. Don't worry about me, I'm used to it."
There didn't seem much of a way to respond to that. Thankfully, after a few more seconds of silence, Willow was the one to continue the conversation.
"What's amplification?" she said.
"About what it sounds like," Paige said. "Affects other peoples' or creatures' powers. Can be offensive, if you want someone to lose control, but it's more often used to support others," she paused, "I don't know if she'd have had it, when she came to Sunnydale. I don't know how this hellmouth stuff works."
Willow shifted on the spot, momentarily lost in a memory. The first time she'd really met Tara, a memory of that, of the Gentlemen; and of taking her hand, and feeling a power she didn't know she'd possessed barricading the door.
"She could do more than that," Paige said, when the silence dragged on. "Which you probably know. All witches have an inherent power, in addition to being able to do spell and potion work. Plus it's probably different when a hellmouth's involved."
Willow nodded, to show she'd heard. Still, she didn't speak, caught both in reminiscing, and an anger that still didn't feel natural to her, but always threatened to overwhelm.
Tara should've had a whitelighter. Someone to be there, to be able to heal her. Maybe these Elders were justified in not guarding witches with their powers sealed, maybe not. Regardless, it burned Willow to know just how close Tara could have come to surviving.
She felt a familiar prickle in the back of her eyes, a too-familiar seductive voice at the back of her mind. Wincing, Willow shut her eyes; looked away from Paige, instinctively not wanting her own whitelighter to see what she could become.
"Buffy," Willow said, and raised her voice. "Buffy," again, more urgently, "Scythe, please."
She didn't speak much: didn't trust herself to. She knew she could say cruel things, when the darkness within her rose.
"Are you ok?" Paige said, uncertain, as Buffy slipped past her, to pass the silver scythe to Willow. "If you need healing, I probably can't do it, but I can call someone who can?"
Another few moments of silence. Buffy watched Willow, and the redhead held the scythe, breathing softly. When Willow opened her eyes, Buffy looked into them, and nodded. Then, as the blonde moved back to her seat, she turned to Paige.
"She's fine," Buffy said, somewhat curtly.
"No," Willow said, exhaling. Her voice was kinder now; lighter. "You should know," she looked at Paige, "If you're going to be my guardian angel, and all. It was- There's part of me I don't like. I got desperate a while ago, took in dark magic. I don't- I control it, most of the time. Rarely use it, but it's there. Scythe's the only thing that helps me control it. I don't know if that makes me a bad witch or what, but it's there."
Paige hesitated. For the life of her, she couldn't picture Willow being evil, try as she might. Then again, she couldn't have imagined Phoebe becoming evil, before the matter of Cole and the Source. Instinct wasn't always accurate.
In this case, however, it felt more so. Whatever Willow was, whatever she could be, malevolent wasn't on the list. At least, pure malevolence wasn't.
"I see," Paige said. She didn't know enough to contradict Willow. "It doesn't matter. The Elders wouldn't have sent me, unless you were good."
A lie, technically. Part of the reason she'd been sent, was to assess how good Willow was. Still, Willow seemed to need the comfort. The confirmation.
"Besides, you saved the world," Paige said. "Or at least had a hand in it, a few days ago. I only heard a few details, but there was something about the original evil. Whatever else you've done, you saved the world from it."
"And tried to destroy the world last year," Willow said.
Now, however, her tone wasn't quite so dark. She might even have been playful, even if Paige had the impression she wasn't joking. Yet more she couldn't picture the redhead doing.
Still, she decided to respond in kind: making light of atrocities. If that was what helped Willow, then so be it.
"My ex-brother-in-law was the Source of All Evil," Paige said, shrugging. "No one's perfect."
Willow blinked: then, surprisingly, chuckled. "That sounds like a story," she said.
"I guess," Paige said. "Sounds like you've got a few too."
"You know mine," Willow said. "Some of them, at least."
Not enough. Paige didn't say that, though.
"You want to hear about me?" Paige said.
"If you want," Willow said. She looked down. "I've been talking about me a lot. It feels weird."
"Ok," Paige said, "I guess. We'll hopefully be spending a bit of time together, so probably best. Whatcha want to know?"
And so it began. Paige outlined much of what she'd lived, while Willow listened. Willow even managed to stay awake throughout it.
Paige started when she'd first met her sisters, and described how she'd come into her power. How she'd been amazed, and scared: how she'd learned to adapt, eventually. It was a fear Willow could sympathize with.
As Paige went on, she gave only the broadest outline of what she'd done. There wasn't much opportunity for detail. She spoke vanquishing the Source, and of the Avatars, and of her two nephews, and her to-be-born niece.
The road grew increasingly busy as Paige spoke, until they were clearly on the outskirts of a city. They were in Cleveland, judging by the signs.
When they entered the busier streets, Paige fell silent, with nothing else to say. Willow didn't ask much more: she'd queried a little, and asked a few questions, but apparently everything she wanted to know had been answered.
It was after a few seconds that Paige sighed. She hadn't wanted to ask, respecting Willow's need for secrets, but it had been playing on her mind. It seemed like something she'd need to know, as Willow's whiteligher.
"Who was she?" Paige said, softly. "Tara."
A pause: Willow looked down. "My everything," she said.
Almost immediately, Paige regretted her question. She opened her mouth to apologize, and Willow shook her head.
"Don't apologize," Willow said. She chuckled at Paige's frown: "What? I know that expression. It's not- you've been open with me. Guess I should be too."
"Not if you don't want to," Paige said.
"I do," Willow said. She paused: exhaled. "Tara, she's- was- is my everything. The only other witch I've really known," a pause, "Well, that wasn't a rat. Long story," her momentarily light tone faded. "She died. Was killed, in front of me. He took her life, and I couldn't help her. I tried, I just…"
"I'm sorry."
"Not as much as he was," a flicker of darkness. Willow gripped the scythe, tighter. "It's not something I'm proud of."
Paige took her hand. Whitelighters could heal physical wounds: and while that was something she'd only really managed on Henry, back when things had worked between them, Paige couldn't help but wish she could do the same for injuries of the mind.
Maybe she should have been frightened, or scared. It was true enough that the Elders had told her to be wary of Willow: to warn them if she showed signs of being a danger. And apparently she'd tried to end the world.
Somehow, though, Paige didn't worry.
