Disclaimer: I don't any BTVS characters, Joss and associates are the owners. If I owned them then I would be writing for the show and not here.
Feedback: Please review! It is what keeps me writing more!
A/N: This chapter is long. Sorry about that if you don't like long chapters. I was almost going to continue adding to it but I decided to leave it at that. I realized that maybe I shouldn't have done it this long, but oh well. I will update tomorrow, because right now I don't have time. The quotes from the show are from the Hellmouth Central site, which is a really good site for quotes.
Dawn walked in through the open door of Willow's room, where she found the red head placing some books on a nightstand. Willow turned and smiled at the teen. Dawn hadn't really talked much to Willow, ever since her return, a week ago. Mainly because she had been too busy hanging out with her friends
"Hey, Dawnie," Willow greeted.
"Uh, hi. Whatcha doing?" Dawn asked.
"Oh, I'm just getting my stuff together for tomorrow. First day back, to college that is," Willow explained, as she sat down on her bed.
"Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about that. Nervous?"
Willow looked thoughtful for a moment then said, "Kinda."
"Don't worry I'm sure everything will be fine. My advice to you is do exactly what everyone else says, all the time."
"Got it."
"Do what everyone else does, wear what everyone else wears, say what everyone else says," Dawn added.
"Uh, thanks Dawn. I'll keep that in mind. I've been to college before so I think I can manage."
"So do you need any help with anything?" Dawn asked.
"With socks." Willow held up some socks that were on her bed. "I need to finish folding my clothes and I still have the socks to do." She pointed to a basket on the floor, beside her bed.
Dawn looked at the basket, as if she would rather not help but then said, "I'll help."
She walked over to the bed, grabbed some socks from the basket, and sat beside Willow. Dawn finished one pair then reached for another.
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Willow said. "You probably have something better to do than helping me with my socks."
"No, I-It's okay. Really," Dawn replied, finishing another pair of socks.
They worked silently for a couple of minutes, until the basket was cleared of socks. Then they placed the neatly folded socks, which were arranged by color into an empty drawer.
"Thanks," Willow told Dawn, after they were done.
"No problemo," The teen smiled.
Seconds passed before Willow spoke. "Um, Dawnie, I have something to say. I'm s-sorry about what I said when you know…what I almost tried to do. I didn't mean it, I was.."
Dawn stopped staring at the bed and looked at Willow. "It's okay, Wills. I get that you were all Evil Willow when you said that, 'cause you had gotten too much magic in you or whatever. A-at first I was mad a-and sad but now I'm not that much. I j-just hope you don't go all Evil Willow again."
"I hope so too. I really don't want to go there again either. I'm starting to get better at controlling my powers, but I still need more practice." Willow was glad that Dawn wasn't really mad at her anymore. It really meant a lot to her.
"Um, Willow, I was um, sort of glad when you uh…did that to Warren. I know it was wrong, but he k-killed her," Dawn confessed. She couldn't go on explaining anymore, but Willow understood.
"It was wrong… I s-s-houldn't have done that. I understand why you felt that way."
"Are you mad at me?" Dawn asked, afraid that Willow was mad at her.
"No, I, of course not." Willow shook her head.
"So we're still friends?"
Willow nodded. Dawn scooted closer to her, and enveloped her in a hug, which Willow returned.
"Can I get a hug too?" Buffy appeared at the doorway.
Buffy entered the school basement, and heard a familiar British voice talking. She paused as she heard his conversation. She didn't see anybody other than Spike in the room.
"I could never ask," she heard him say to himself, apparently it was a conversation with himself.
Unable to stand him talking to himself any longer she made her presence known, stepping into view where he could see her. "Spike. This basement is killing you. This is the Hellmouth. There is something bad down here. Possibly everything bad."
Spike looked at her as if barely noticing her, and then began to laugh like a lunatic. " Can't hear you, can't hear you."
Buffy glared at him. She was really starting to get annoyed with his insanity. "You have a soul? Fine show me."
"Scream montresor all you want, pet," was all Spike said.
"Get up and go out of this basement," she ordered.
"I don't have nowhere else to," he mumbled.
Buffy stared at him for a moment, then left him alone.
Willow watched as her professor went to take care of some things she had to do. She was glad everything was settled about her classes at UC Sunnydale. Sighing, she spotted a familiar face coming from one of the frat houses on campus. It was Anya dressed in a long tan coat that covered most of her body.
"Hey, Anya," Willow called her over.
Anya walked over and stopped in front of her. "Um, hi Willow," she said, pulling the jacket closer to her body.
"I was just uh, talking to one of my professors. Trying to get back into my old classes, you know. It's been tiring going from professor to professor, but I'm done. Whew, boy I'm glad. The hard part is going to be the studying and…" Willow babbled.
Anya nodded in agreement. She really wanted to leave, but she couldn't. How much longer was Willow going to talk? If she talked too much, she was going to explode. She needed to be as far away as possible from here. She wanted to go home now.
"So what are you doing here?" Willow questioned.
"Me? Oh, uh I just came from seeing my new boyfriend. He lives here," Anya nodded towards the frat house. "We just finished having lots and lots of sex."
Willow gave her a smile. "Um, that's good that you moved on. I'm happy for you."
Anya nodded again, and pulled a strand of hair away from her face. Willow stared at Anya's fingers and noticed some blood smeared on them. Anya quickly brushed away the hair away from her face.
"So uh,.." Willow began nervously. Something was obviously wrong here, but she couldn't put her on finger on it yet, so to speak.
"I have to go now. I have many time consuming errands to run today. I'll see you another day," Anya left without another word after Willow gave a little wave.
Willow watched as Anya left the school grounds. After she was sure the brunette had left, she made her way to the frat house. She opened the door and walked into the room.
"Hello? Anybody home?" She called out but received no answer.
Looking down on the floor, she noticed blood splattered on the ground which lead to a door. Walking past the furniture, which was also covered in blood, she opened the large double doors and stepped into the room. She left the room quickly disgusted with the sight she had found there. There had been several corpses of college boys whose hearts had been ripped out of their rib cage literally. Oh, God who did this? She wondered. She had a sinking feeling about this.
Suddenly Willow heard whimpering noises. Willow walked in the direction of the noises, until she came in front of a closet in the main room. She opened the door to find a girl sitting on the closet floor, sobbing over and over, "I take it back."
Willow knelt down so that she was at the girl's level. The girl's cheeks were streaked with tears and her eyes were red from all the crying she had done. The girl wouldn't look at Willow, her gaze remained fixated on what was behind the red head.
"What happened?" Willow asked.
The girl managed to explain what had occurred last night. She told her about what happened between her and her boyfriend, the way he had announced their break up in front of everyone. It had been a trick to get her to come to the party, so that he could break up with her in front of his fraternity brothers so that they could get a laugh. She had felt so bad that she wished aloud that they could feel what if felt like to have their hearts ripped out.
"Oh," It dawned on Willow what had happened. "What did this?"
"A s-spider," The girl sputtered.
Just then a large demonic spider jumped from the ceiling towards Willow. Quickly, she mumbled something creating a shield, protecting her from the spider. Angered the spider tried to bite through the shield but it found that it couldn't. The girl started to whimper again.
"God, would you shut your whimpering mouth?" Willow snapped at the girl. The girl shrunk back into the closet noticing the Witch's normally green eyes turn into a dark black.
Ignoring the girl's cries, Willow turned to the spider and threw it out a nearby window using magick. She blinked as her eyes returned to their normal green color.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, I just…" Willow apologized to the girl. What had happened? She hadn't meant to say that, so what had caused her to react like that? Shaking away her thoughts, she gave the girl a hand to help her stand.
Once she was done helping the girl, she went to a nearby telephone booth. She slipped the money into the slot and dialed the number of Buffy's office at Sunnydale High. In only one ring, she heard her friend pick up.
"Hi, Buffy." Willow said and continued to explain what she had seen.
After taking care of the spider demon with Willow's tip on where to find it, Buffy and Xander returned to the Summers' residence.
"We have to do some research to find out where that thing came from," Buffy said as she closed the door behind her.
"Okay," Xander agreed.
"I know where it came from," announced Willow from her place on the sofa. Her expression was serious none of her usual cheeriness was there.
Xander and Buffy noticed for the first time that Willow was there. Xander walked over and asked, "You do?'
Willow nodded and took a deep breath. Uneasily, she began her explanation of who had ordered the Crimslaw demon to kill all those frat boys. She briefly mentioned her little visit to Anya's apartment.
Xander stared at the red head after she finished her explanation. "When were you planning on telling us?" He demanded angrily.
"I'm telling you now," Willow said defensively.
Before he could say anything else, Buffy interrupted. "She didn't tell us because she knows what I have to do. I have to kill Anya."
Xander stared disbelievingly at the Slayer, who was also one of his best friends. He touched his ears, as if to make sure they were still intact and was hearing her right. "W-What?"
"She's not the Anya you knew, Xander. She's a demon," Buffy went along ignoring his question.
"That doesn't mean you have to kill her!" He cried out indignant.
"Don't act like this is easy for me. You know it's not."
"There are other options," he said.
"I've considered them," her voice was serious.
"When, just now? Took you all of ten seconds to decide to kill one of your best friends?" Xander shouted.
"The thought that it might come to this has occurred to me before. It's occurred to you too," She explained calmly.
Xander shook his head and suggested. "But we can change what she did, fix it. These are mystical deaths, right? There has to be something."
He turned to his attention to Willow. She could to do something, she had to. He couldn't believe this was happening. This had to be a nightmare, it just had to be.
Willow gave him an apologetic look. "I don't have anywhere near that kind of power. I didn't have that kind of power when...and I don't think I trust the power I do have."
"It's okay. Xander, I know this is hard for you to hear, but it's what I have to do." Buffy stated.
"Hard for me to hear? Buffy, you want to kill Anya!" He cried out.
"I don't want to!" Buffy shouted, exasperated.
"Then don't! This isn't new ground for us. When our friends go all crazy and start killing people, we help them." Xander reminded her.
"Sitting right here." Willow spoke.
"I'm sorry, but it's true." Xander apologized, glancing at her for a moment.
"It's different," The Slayer told him.
"Because you don't care about her the same way I do. Buffy, I still love her."
"I know, and that's why you can't see this for what it really is. Willow was different. She's a human, Anya's a demon."
"And you're the Slayer. I see now how it's all very simple." Xander said sarcastically.
"It's never simple," she said.
"No, of course not. You know, if there's a mass murdering demon that you're...oh, say..boning...and now pregnant with his baby…then it's all grey area," Xander said, his voice filled with anger mixed in with sarcasm.
"Spike was harmless. He was helping," Buffy reminded him.
Ignoring her remark he continued, "Have you ever thought about what if the baby has some demon in it? What if it turns out that it's going to become a mass murderer like it's father. Are you willing to kill it, to save people's lives?"
Buffy stared at her friend. That was low and truth be told she had thought about it a little. How could she not? She was the Slayer these sort of questions seemed to pop in now and then in her mind.
"Xander, how could you even say that? If I had to then I would. I've done the whole sacrifice thing in the past and I'll do it again. If it was the only option, but this is different. We're talking about Anya, who has had the choice to become demon… twice, not my unborn child who is not even close to being born."
"You have no idea what she's going through…" Xander said.
"I don't care what she's going through…"
"Oh, of course not. You think we haven't all seen this before? The part where you just cut us all out? Just step away from everything human and act like you're the law? If you knew what I felt…"
Buffy shouted. "I killed Angel! Do you even remember that? I would've given up everything I had to be with... I loved him more than I will ever love anything in this life, and I put a sword through his heart because I had to."
"And that worked out… Okay," Willow stepped in.
"Do you remember cheering me on, both of you? Do you remember giving me Willow's
message? 'Kick his ass'?"
"I never said that!" Willow cried out.
"This is different," Xander defended.
"It is always different! It's always complicated, and at some point someone has to draw the line and that is always going to be me. You, you get down on me for cutting myself off, but in the end the Slayer is always cut off. There's no mystical guide book, no all-knowing council. Human rules don't apply. There's only me. I am the law."
"There has to be another way," Xander said trying to convince himself as much as his friends.
"Then please find it," Buffy told him.
He stared at his friends, then took off, shaking with anger as well as fear. Buffy stared at Willow for a moment, pleading. "Are you sure you can't do anything?" she asked.
The red head shook her head. "I'm really sorry but I don't think I…"
Buffy understood and walked over to the weapon's chest. She opened it, took out a sword, and left the house without another word.