Disclaimer: Okay, I've accepted it, it's not mine. (crossed fingers behind back -suckers!)

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Chapter 22

Willow was pounding away on her laptop in her room. She was supposed to be sleeping right now, but it wasn't working. She had worked all night and while her body was exhausted, her mind just wouldn't shut up. So here she was, dawn approaching, with her dry eyes opened and glued to the screen.

She honestly had no idea what she'd gotten done today. The Academy hadn't fallen down though, so she must not have done anything real bad. Goddess, she swore at herself as she sat back and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, you can't keep doing this to yourself.

It hadn't gotten better after a second conversation with Dawn either. The younger woman had merely come back with a dazed expression and absolutely no information.

"You weren't hallucinating," Dawn had told her and then wandered off, lost in her own world.

"Like that did me a fat lot of good," Willow muttered darkly, "Maybe I should get some ice cream…or some sleep…"

"Sleep's probably better for you."

"Yeah, probably…Holy Hannah!" Willow spun her chair around, jumping up to find Buffy sitting on her window ledge, watching her with golden eyes.

"Did I ever mention how that was a little wiggy…with the eyes, I mean," Willow tried not to hyperventilate.

"Oh?" Buffy jumped off the window sill and sauntered in.

"Yeah, I know you don't do it often and it kind of came with the whole super-superpower deal that you got, but it kind of reminds me of this nightmare I had senior year where you turned into a vampire. Only, your eyes aren't really yellow like a vampires' are…they're kind of gold…and…and…I'm tired and feeling kinda crappy and confused and I'd appreciate an explanation for last night." Willow found herself letting everything out in one breath and then she stood there, shaking.

"Why don't you sit down, Wills," Buffy gave her a concerned look, her eyes going back to normal. "You look a little tired."

"I don't want to sit down, Buffy!" She wailed to her friend, "I want to know why you kissed me last night!"

"Okay."

"Because…wait…okay?" All her anger put on abrupt hold, Willow deflated.

"Sure," Buffy shrugged and went over to sit on the bed. "I figured after Dawnie cornered me that we'd have to talk. I just didn't have time before this. Actually, I don't really have time right now…but you're Willow, so I can make it."

"What's wrong?" Willow was starting to get concerned. Come to think of it, Buffy was supposed to be on patrol right now.

"Somebody with some pretty good charms and some tranquilizer darts sent a group of vamps after the Baby Patrol tonight."

"WHAT?!" Willow stepped forward, eyes wide, "Goddess, Buffy, we've gotta' go…"

"Faith, Lucky, and I stopped it," Buffy waved her off, downplaying her role in the rescue. "The problem is that if they've coordinated this strike with others…"

"Jeepers…," Willow sat down on the bed next to Buffy, "I've got to get on the phone right now."

"We've got a bit of time. I stopped by Gile's office on the way here and got him on it."

"Good," Willow felt a little better knowing there was a Scoobie on the job.

"Mmmm, looks like those guys I was looking for decided to jump to the next level." Buffy tapped her lip with one finger. "I just can't figure out what they're after. Their not killing anyone and they have to know this is going to attract our attention."

"I don't know, Buffy," Willow sighed, her mind felt like mush right now. "We'll have to be careful though, these guys don't seem to be your normal 'take over the world' baddies."

"Not so much. Man, it almost makes you miss the days when all we were facing was weird bug teachers."

"Poor Xander," Willow snorted, feeling herself begin to giggle hysterically. Laughing, she overbalanced and fell sideways onto the bed. Her breath caught as Buffy looked down, leaning over her.

"You should sleep," Buffy reached out and sifted her fingers through Willow's hair. For some reason Buffy looked very different tonight, almost predatory. "You're tired right now. You've been up to long. Giles and Dawn can coordinate the investigation for a while."

"What about you?" Willow felt as if she was caught on the cusp of a dream.

"I should probably bust down a few doors, but somehow I get the feeling these guys are a little more on the high end side. I doubt I'll find anything at the local demon bar."

"No, I don't think you will either," Willow murmured, her eye's caught in Buffy's. She'd been so tense and nervous before and now she felt all soft and fluffy, like a cloud. Buffy was still leaning over her, smiling softly and running her fingers though Willow's hair. She could almost…fall…asleep………now………….

"Wait a minute!" Willow sputtered and sat up so fast she almost knocked heads with Buffy. "You're not getting out of this that easily, girlie! I still want answers here."

"Alright, alright," Buffy straightened up, holding her hands up innocently, "Get yourself settled and I'll talk."

"That's more like it," Willow stated, nodding her head decisively, "More talkage, less with the hair playing stuff."

"Are you sure?" Buffy chuckled darkly and moved in.

"Uhhhhh…?" Once more Willow found herself scrambling for words. "What are you doing exactly, Buffy?"

"Doing?" Buffy cocked her head slightly, "Why, I'm courting you, of course. I have to admit, I kinda like it. I've never had to do it before. I've always sort of fallen into relationships."

"C..c..courting me?!" Willow wondered where Buffy had learned such an old fashioned word, much less what it meant.

"Bet ya' didn't know I knew what it meant, did ya'?" Buffy looked so happy with herself Willow had to smile.

"No! Well…a…no," Willow tried to look for a way not to insult her friend and ended up just hanging her head.

Buffy stood up and began pacing back and forth on the carpet, her steps hurried and jerky. Every few seconds she would look over at Willow as if she were trying to figure out how to start the conversation.

"Are you okay, Buffy?"

"Hmmm, oh yeah, just a little twitchy. Thanks for asking."

"No problem," Willow replied, "Wanna talk about it?"

Buffy was silent for a moment, making Willow think she wasn't going to answer, and then she said, "You know that question Faith asked me back when we first met?" Willow just stared at her friend, confused. "The one I answered with yogurt."

"Yogurt?" Willow furrowed her brow, mumbling under her breath, "Yogurt...yogurt…yogurt…oh YEAH, YOGURT. That was when she asked you about whether you got hungry or horny…after…Slaying…oh dear." She peered over at Buffy. "Really?"

Buffy looked over at her and grinned, "Well, when I said that everything was ten times more intense, I meant everything. Somehow though, these sorts of things never end up in any of the Watcher's journals. So until Faith came along, I thought it was just me. Silly stuffy guys in tweed," Buffy crinkled her nose, "They never give any of the really good advice, like how to get ichor out of silk. Course, I guess I can understand it, it's not like Giles is the type of person I would talk about that sort of thing with."

Willow's eyes went wide at the image of Buffy sitting Giles down to tell him that she felt extremely…amorous…after dusting some vamp. He would just blink and clean his glasses and probably go into some lecture about how one must endure the trials of being a Slayer. She began giggling out loud at this picture. Poor Giles would be traumatized for life.

"What?" Buffy asked.

"I'm sorry. I just had this vision of what Giles would do if you actually had this conversation with him!"

Buffy laughed, "He'd so totally freak!" She got an evil look on her face, "Maybe I should discuss it with him later…"

"Buffy!" Willow looked at her friend in horror, even though she'd been thinking the same thing. "That would be horrible!"

"Fun though," Buffy wiggled her eyebrows, then sighed, "Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about this right now…"

"Well…you could…you know," Willow's face got all red and flustered, "go find s.someone…"

"Willow, are you trying to be my pimp?"

"Pimp?! Oh no, I.I.I just meant that you could…I'm just gonna shut up now," Willow mumbled as Buffy laughed hysterically, clutching her sides.

"Oh Wills," Buffy reached out and hugged her, "I love you, you know that?"

Willow just whimpered inside her head, all the while enjoying the closeness of her friend in ways she knew she shouldn't be. Just enjoy it while you can Rosenburg, she told herself and settled against her friend, enjoying her warmth.

Oh crap, Buffy thought to herself, I've done a bad thing now. She knew better than to do something this stupid. She had pulled Willow to her out of instinct born of years of friendship and now she had to deal with the consequences. She had been restraining herself in extremely hard ever since her arrival in Cleveland, especially around Willow. She knew her friend wasn't yet ready for what had to come. She herself had had two years to prepare for it and still she'd been hit harder than she'd thought when she'd seen the redhead. That one time when she'd unleashed her power in the cafeteria had almost caused her to loose control completely. Now, here she was, holding the person that had been on her mind the most in the past two years tightly against her and she was in an extreme state of randiness.

Her arms tightened around the redhead and she buried her nose into Willow's hair, inhaling deeply. Bad, bad idea a part of her yelled, while a bigger part of her reveled in it. She wanted to wallow in the scent, to rub herself up and down the witch in an effort to imprint the scent all over herself and in turn spread her own all over Willow.

"Are you sure you're okay, Buffy?" Willow asked, concerned.

Buffy stiffened and drew away a bit, still keeping the other girl close, but not laid up against her. There was no way she was going to be able to keep this up until the rest of the Scoobies got to Cleveland. "I'm okay, Willow. But you asked for an explanation and you deserve one."

"I told you how I traveled to Master Shin's, getting training on how to control my physical strength and that was true, but I also had to learn to control my other powers," Buffy's voice was low and introspective. "Slayers don't just get the super healing and the strength and speed, you know that. There's other stuff that comes with the package and it got beefed up, too."

"You're dreams?" Willow asked.

"Yeah, my demon sensors got an upgrade as well, but that was just like dealing with my strength. Practice, practice, practice, you know. The dreams though, those were much different." Buffy got a haunted look on her face. "When I got hit by that stuff, on the edge of the crater, and it first knocked me out, I got a lot of flashes."

"Why didn't you tell us?" There was no judgment in Willow's voice, but it was tough.

"It was like…," Buffy tried to figure out a ways to explain it that Willow would understand, "It was like I got this massive download of information into my brain. I got flashes of information when I needed it, but nothing overall really useful. I was so focused on trying to get my strength and stuff under control that I sort of pushed it to the side, but eventually it came out to play. I had to figure out what it was and it took me about two years just to sort through it all."

"So what happened?"

"Well you see, those flashes in the beginning, they were Slayers lives. All those that had come before me, all the way back to the Original. I lived each one of their lives. The things that they loved, I loved. The things that they hated, I hated. The things that they knew, I knew," she drew in a breath, "and then I lived their deaths. It was horrible, I died, over and over and over again, in some really…I mean really nasty ways."

"Goddess, Buffy," Willow gasped and, giving in to impulse, pulled her to her side.

"I…I…died so many times, Wills," Buffy broke down and sobbed into Willow's shoulder. She finally had a safe place to lay down her burdens. "I was stabbed and shot and bit and torn apart…I was even burned up a few times, it was horrible." She made an effort to recover.

"I mean, there were a few time I actually lived a few years. There was this one girl in China that almost lived as long as I did and the only reason she actually went down was because her Watcher betrayed her, asshole. But usually I didn't last so long. There was one poor girl that didn't even last 24 hours before a vamp got her. She had no idea what was going on when she died." Buffy drew away from Willow and wiped her eyes, sniffing, then continued. "But that wasn't the crazy part. Wills, I didn't just live the lives of the past Slayers, I did the same thing with the new ones as well."

Willow's eyes went wide with shock. "You mean all the new ones…like the ones that I Called when I did the whole…woooo spell thingy with the Scythe?"

"Yep," Buffy confirmed, "every single one of them."

Willow's thoughts were moving a mile a minute. "I can kind of do the same thing. I can figure out where they are and when one dies or is Called, I know. I figured it was just a result of the spell that I had cast, like a side effect or something. But if you can do it too, only more, well that's just…just…I have no idea!" Willow threw her arms up in the air and wailed in frustration.

Buffy chuckled. Willow always did like to be able to figure things out first. "I didn't either. The only thing I could guess was that it was an aftereffect of the spell, like you said. Then I started having these visions. It was the First Slayer, the Original, she kept coming to me."

"You mean the one that came after all of us after Adam's spell, the one with all the crazy face paint and the…the cheese man that followed us around and tried to kill us, that Original?" Willow tried not to get seriously wigged out. "She wasn't after you cause of the spell, was she? Because technically I was the one that cast it and if she's gonna get mad at somebody and like, kill them, it should be me, shouldn't it? You didn't really have anything to do with it, aside from the whole, you know, idea and all…"

"Breathe, Wills." Buffy set her finger across Willows mouth, making her stop. "Good, now to answer you, no, she wasn't upset about the spell and she wasn't trying to kill me. In fact, it was almost like she'd known it was coming and I think she was rather happy about it, as happy as a woman in body paint and a loincloth can be anyway." Buffy frowned again, "She sort of danced around for a bit, grunting something. So she was either really happy or very constipated. I'm gonna go with happy, it's less ewww."

"Fair enough."

"Yeah, so then she kinda explained what was going on and that sorta freaked me out even more."

… (flashback)

Buffy watched the Original prance about the desert, shaking her stake at the sky in what could only be victory, in complete bemusement. I thought she'd be all crazy with the "you are alone" crap again, she thought to herself. Maybe she's learning? Abruptly the Slayer spun about and shuffled back to her. I think if we could get her to the right salon she could probably turn out very pretty under all that mud, she mused to herself. Maybe get her nails done and definitely a pedicure is in need. Her thoughts were cut off as the Slayer took the stake she was always carrying around and shoved it into Buffy's hand.

"What?" Buffy looked at it in confusion, "I already have one of my own, thank you. His name is Mr. Pointy." The Slayer frowned at her and Buffy pouted, "Oh please, like you never named your stake. Besides, why would I want this thing?"

"Yours," the Slayer grunted, "Mine before, now yours."

"Well it's lovely and all but," Buffy gasped as the Slayer put her finger in the middle of Buffy's forehead and pushed.

Mine before, the Slayer's voice echoed in her head, yours now, all yours. All those lives went rushing through her mind again and the knowledge that went with them. My time is over. They are yours to guide now, yours to watch over, yours to guard. And then her real headache began. Screaming she was thrust out of her body and into the cosmos. For a moment she saw everything as it really was. Everything from the Powers That Be and the reasons behind their decisions down to the lowliest flea and it's struggle to survive. It went on and on and yet it seemed to last but a moment and when she snapped to the Slayer was standing over her with a sympathetic gaze.

"Mine before, all yours now," she said and began to walk back into the desert from whence she had come, her burden gone.

"Hey," Buffy jumped up and went after her. When the Original turned, Buffy shoved the stake into her hand.

"Yours now," the Slayer grunted, trying to put it back.

Buffy held up her hands, "I get the whole burden thing and I'll take it on, but that's yours. You've had it for a long time and I know I always hate to be without mine," the Slayer looked down at the well worn piece of wood in her hand, conflicted. Buffy put her hands over the other woman's, securing the stake in her grasp. "Besides, you never know when you could use a good stake."

The Slayer looked up at Buffy and for the first time in all their meeting together, smiled. Her grin was cheerful and she turned and began to bound off, in search of ghost vampires or God knows what. Right before she disappeared around a boulder, however, she turned and regarded Buffy with a hard look.

"Not alone this time," she said cryptically and vanished around the rock.

………………………

Author's Note:

Soooooooo, here ya' go. Sorry it took so long to come out, hopefully it's what you were looking for. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback along with some requests for what you guy's want to read. I like that. Just because I think I have the story plotted doesn't mean I'm not open to suggestions. That's why I post this stuff in the first place. To share my work and to grow as a writer (and did that sound pretentious or what?!).

Next chapter is gonna' be real fun, so stay tuned. Also, don't think that Buffy's revealed all her secret's yet, she's gotta lot of telling still to do!

OMAKE:

Original Slayer- grunt- here!

Buffy- I don't want it!

O.S.- here!

Buffy- That thing is nasty, get it away from me!

O.S.- here!

Buffy- Oh for God's sake, FINE!- takes the nasty demon's head – Is this a part of some ritual or something?!

O.S.- ha! ha! ha! Silly girl take head! –points and laughs, runs off

Buffy- drops head fast- Stupid Slayer humor! Get back here you dreadlocked thing from Hell!