Author: Lucinda

pairing: Willow/Spike

sixteenth in Second Best story-line.

y-14, for emotional content; nothing higher than the series.

Disclaimer: I do not own anyone from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Distribution: any lists that I send this to, WLS, Bite Me, Cat, Feen, Soulmates, WWW - anyone else please ask

note: set in AU season 6. Many thanks to Gabrielle for her encouragement and for the beta-reading.

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Willow had a great many things going through her mind that night, preventing her from slipping peacefully into slumber. There were the usual ugly memories and concerns about classes – did she get the fourth question right on her Philosophy quiz? Had they been supposed to read the fourteenth chapter, or the fourteenth and fifteenth? The new biology teacher couldn't really turn her head around like that guy with the green streaked hair had said, could she? Like Ms. French back in Sunnydale? There was the tangle of emotions that came up each time she thought about Spike, love, hope, pain, lust, worry…

Now she had a few more things to consider. Vampire sex habits, when they weren't trying to play mind games with someone else. Fragments of her conversations with her vampire alternate, and the things she'd said about whips, chains, and blood. Wisps of imagining of her and Spike doing some of those things. Would they be fun? Interesting but not something to do all the time? Horribly painful? Another way for him to break her heart?

"I have too many thoughts," she whispered into the darkness of her room. "The only reason to go back to these thoughts is to sort out what to do about them. Not to give myself a headache."

It didn't help.

The quiz was over, either she got the question right or she hadn't, and no amount of worrying would change her answers now. Just to be sure, she decided to read chapters fourteen and fifteen. She couldn't do anything about the biology teacher tonight, but tomorrow she could try to get or make a tape of bat sonar, which would reveal if there was another giant bug impersonating a teacher. Which left only the questions concerning Spike…

She knew that she would give him a chance, a chance to win her back, to make her trust him again. What ifs and regrets would drive her mad otherwise. No matter how horrible it had been to see him and Buffy, she hadn't been able to stop caring, stop remembering how happy she'd been. Willow doubted that it was a wise choice, but love wasn't about wisdom, it was about feelings and passion and need. Spike was passion.

Willow tried not to think about what might happen if he broke her heart again. She didn't know how, but she was sure that she'd kill him. Even if it killed her to do it… or maybe especially if it killed her.

Trying to think happier thoughts, she opened her textbook, curling up in the chair with the little toy cat that Spike had sent her. As she read, her treacherous mind brought up images of researching at Giles' apartment, leaning against Spike as they searched for demons or to identify strange talismans and symbols. Walking in the moonlight along the beach.

Eventually, Willow put the book back on the table and slipped into bed. She'd need to reread the chapters, other than a vague feeling that she'd looked over the words, none of it had stuck. Slumber pulled her down, and she dreamed of beaches, vampires and demons dancing around a bonfire. There had also been demons with German beer steins toasting someone called Dru'ach and the First Slayer had been lurking, down the beach when Willow had been walking, at the shadows just beyond the demons' bonfire, at the end of the bar where demons toasted. Most oddly, she had looked right at Willow and spoke in Giles' voice, saying 'the Slayer is fallen, long fight the Slayer.' Her night was nowhere near restful.

In the morning, she sent off an email to Wesley in Los Angeles. They hadn't exactly been friends, but they'd started emailing occasionally when the former Watcher had joined up with Angel and Cordelia in LA. She didn't give details, but after her general hello's and how is everyone's, she'd mentioned seeing the First Slayer in a dream, and that she'd said something odd. Willow had followed that with asking if they had any idea how Faith was, and if she was in good health. She sent a similar email to Xander, though it was a bit more detailed. She mentioned the First Slayer following her through a rather strange and disjointed dream, and something about 'the Slayer is fallen, long fight the Slayer.'

She wasn't certain what response she was hoping for. Faith or Buffy dead would call a new Slayer, maybe… did Buffy's death in the spring call a Slayer? Would the line only go though Faith now? She didn't have good memories of Faith. The good memories she'd had of Buffy had been tainted by what had happened right before she'd left. The whole thing being her own overwrought imagination wasn't comforting either.

The day dragged on with tedium. She had two hours of math, leaving her once again relieved that this was something simple enough that she didn't need to be at her best to handle. What bothered her the most was that she kept thinking that she saw demons out of the corners of her eyes. Part of her wondered if some of the other students might really be demons seeking higher education – she'd seen stranger things, after all. Another part wondered if it was just last night's strange dreams and the emotional stress working against her. There was nobody that she could talk to about it either – of the whole city, who besides Spike wouldn't decide she was crazy at 'I think I'm seeing demons…'?

She sat on one of the stone benches, watching other students moving past, on their way to and from classes, talking with friends, teasing, flirting… everything that normal people did. For a moment, the tall guy in the yellow hoodie looked like he had green scales and spines along his back. For a moment, the tanned girl in the little blue dress looked like a Cyclops with red skin. "Too much stress… that has to be it."

Willow looked over the people, not really focusing on any specific individual or place. She'd come to New Haven to start over, to make a new life. One away from Sunnydale, away from Slaying and demons and heartbreak. Away from Buffy. Before the cold Slayer injured her more severely, before the pain of what she'd seen had killed her inside. Before the pain had caused her to lose control over her magic… Had she really thought she could move away and never need to worry about demons and vampires again? Had she completely forgotten that they were all over, not just in Sunnydale?

Maybe she had. But those flickers… the moments where someone looked like a demon instead of human. Was it some sort of stress induced hallucination? Some aspiring bad trying something to bring about fear, hysteria and mayhem that couldn't be directly traced back to them? Her sanity failing her? For a moment, she wondered if maybe they really were demons, that her magic was strong enough for her to see through their disguises. Except that such thoughts were absurd – why would she be strong enough to do that? And even if she was, why would it only be from the corners of her eyes and not when she looked right at them? Why would it come and go? No, that wasn't a good enough explanation, it didn't fit all the pieces. Maybe she was just stressing far too much about Spike...

She was definitely stressing too much about Spike.

Frustrated and still questioning her sanity, Willow returned to her little apartment. Maybe she could find something to distract her, or at least she'd be a bit safer in her unfocused state. A blinking light announced that there were messages on her answering machine. Listening, she quickly deleted a sales pitch for life insurance, a wrong number looking for Jenny, a hang-up, another wrong number for Jenny, and an automated voice that had wanted her to please hold for a survey.

The phone rang, and Willow jumped. Trying to steady herself, she answered it, hoping not to sound flustered with her "Hello?"

:Hello, luv. I was wondering if you had any plans for this evening?: Spike's voice purred at her through the telephone.

"Not really," Willow admitted. "Did you have something in mind?"

:I remember there was that preview you were all excited about in the spring. Harry Potter and the next movie to cash in on Americans bloody well not wanting to read the book… The one with the great big snake. If you'd like, we could go see that movie.:

Willow could picture him smirking as he described the movie. She couldn't forget the way he mocked the laziness of people today, insulting the vast numbers of people who took advice on their reading lists from Bestseller lists and 'Oprah' sobbin' Winfrey' who doesn't think it's a real book unless you cry or someone famous wrote it. How he never wanted anyone to know that half of the fantasy books she owned – including all of the Harry Potter books –were books that he'd bought and read as much and sometimes more than she read them herself.

"I'd like that," she admitted. "Do you want to pick me up at the apartment, and we can go… umm, I can look up the show times, maybe get the tickets online?"

:Fair enough, you order them, I'll pay for them, and I promise not to run over anyone who doesn't deserve it. I can pick you up in an hour,: the laughter was in his voice.

"See you then," Willow whispered.

Wesley's email was unsurprising, they were all doing well enough out there, and nobody had heard anything about Faith. Xander hadn't replied yet. Various spam emails for things she didn't need, cheep meds from Canada, porn, all natural male enhancements, more porn, and the absurd claim that Microsoft would give her money if she forwarded this email to a zillion people. "If Microsoft were going to give me money, it would be because I took a job with them, like they offered a few years ago. I didn't, so they won't…"

She had a movie to arrange tickets for. Willow just hoped that this wouldn't turn out to be a mistake.

End SB16: Love Makes You Crazy.