“So where’s Willow now?”
A sense of defeat came over Xander. He had wasted so much time before he had realised that she could come here and now he had been wrong. Like always. He looked up at the vampire, dreading between his eyes. Expecting recriminations and that seemingly ever-present sneer there. Instead, there was a strange expression on Spike’s face. Something that looked almost like concern, almost worry, along with something else that Xander couldn’t quite identify – was it admiration? How could this cool and in control demon ever admire him? Everything he touched got broken, he had never felt in control of anything and yet here was Spike looking to him to take charge of this situation.
“I don’t know where she is. I thought she’d come here, but I guess I was wrong…”
“You know her best mate, if you can’t find her then no one else will!"
“Do I though? Know her?” The anger was rising up in Xander again, “The Will I know would never do this – she couldn’t!”
Spike stood and took Xander’s now cold and untouched mug of tea to the sink
“So maybe she isn’t quite the Willow you know,” he kept his back to Harris while he spoke, “I sure never thought Red would go this far but the potential’s always been there. Anyone could’ve seen it. If they’d looked”
It was true, Xander realised, Willow had always been the quiet one, the reliable one, but… how was it she’d put it? ‘Occasionally I’m callous and strange’? There were times when Will showed a vindictiveness that had made Xander glad he’d never really gotten on her bad side.
“She won’t stop ‘till it’s done, I know that much” Spike turned back to face him, scarred eyebrow raised questioningly
“So what is it she wants done then?”
“The ritual,” the words were out of his mouth almost before Xander thought them. “That has to be it. She wants Buffy back and she’s not gonna stop until she is. Will’s always managed to somehow get whatever it was she wanted and damn the consequences.” Xander began to rack his brains, how would she try to finish the ritual? This was never his strong point, he’d always been more interested in the action than the thinking.
“So, she wants the Slayer back? We can’t let her, not like this” there was a catch in Spikes voice that made Xander look at him with new eyes. Spike had been increasingly obsessed with Buffy towards the end of her life and Xander now realised that that obsession had been love, in Spike’s eyes at least. It looked as if maybe they had more in common than he’d originally thought…
“The thought that Buffy could come back, be here, is the only thing that got me through this summer. I didn’t think it could happen, I didn’t want to believe it. But Willow did, and like I said Willow always managed to get what she wanted. I didn’t let myself see that bringing Buffy back would be the wrong thing to do, she died because she saw it as her last option. As much as I want her back, want her here with us now, I don’t want to be the one to tell her she was wrong. To be the one to rob her of that sacrifice. She sacrificed herself to save us, so we could go on – and now look at us! We’ve barely kept it together but we managed, somehow. And now? To bring her back we’ve destroyed what she died for. I don’t want to bring her back to this – the cost is too high. She wouldn’t want that. It hurts me everyday when I remember that she’s gone… but I wouldn’t want her back… not like this.”
There was a manic laugh from behind him and he saw Spike lunge across the kitchen only to be thrown back, clearly unconscious. He spun round – it was Willow!
“You never really got it did you Xander? It was never about Buffy, it was about the Slayer. The world can’t go on without her. Her ‘sacrifice’? It was nothing! The world needs the Slayer – it needs the balance and I’m the one to bring it back” It was definitely Willow, and yet it wasn’t her. Her eyes had gone completely black and there was a curious rasp in her voice, almost as if there were two voices there, like someone else was speaking in tandem with her. He tried to move, to speak, but he couldn’t control his body. It was as if he was in some kind of stasis field. He could only watch in horror as this girl he’d known all his life stalked around the kitchen towards the unconscious Spike.
A pang of fear rushed through Xander’s system, he couldn’t lose someone else to Willow – he just couldn’t! But Willow just glanced at the prone vampire and kept walking. Xander followed her with his eyes as she came towards him again.
”Destiny’s a funny thing you see, there are some people in this world who don’t have a destiny, the wild cards. They are the lucky ones. They have control over their lives and can do whatever they want. Then there are the people who are completely controlled by Destiny. The Slayer is like that. Each Chosen One has their own fate, but that is always part of the destiny of the Slayer. That power is the most important thing. “ A smirk came across Willow’s face, “Buffy was a mistake, she really was destiny free, she should have been able to do whatever she wanted and then she was Chosen. It was unprecedented – a wild card handed the most powerful destiny in this world? The Slayer was destined to die defeating the Master, and this wild card subverted that destiny. When she came back, when *you* brought her back Xander, no one knew what would happen next. Every step of the way the Slayer’s destiny tried to gain the upper hand, but always there she was, subverting it. Doing things her own way. We adjusted, we made sure Destiny would play out. And at the end? She throws the balance of the world off because she chose too? We couldn’t allow that!”
A growing sense of horror came over Xander, his mind was racing as he remembered the times he and Buffy had spoken privately about her doubts and her fears for the future. She had always harboured a resentment that her life was given over to this thing that she had no control over, and now to find out that it had all been a mistake? That her being the Chosen One had never been meant to happen? If it hadn’t been so tragic it would have been funny and for a moment Xander was lost in the delicious irony of it… and then he remembered the blood, the price. The image of Buffy lying as if sleeping on a pile of rubble at the bottom of that impossibly high tower, the knowledge that she was gone; and then he saw again Anya being forced onto the gravesite while he lay helpless nearby… saw Willow raise the stake over her head and plunge it down into the soft body of his fiancé… The humour of the situation was gone now.
He felt as if someone was trying to attract his attention, glancing wildly around he couldn’t see anyone but Willow and the still comatose Spike – the vampire looked dead as there was no tell-tale breathing coming from him, after all he was just a re-animated corpse who didn’t need to breathe… There couldn’t be anyone else there. He tried to listen to Willow as she continued talking about Destiny as if it was the most important thing, never mind the innocent lives lost in the name of ensuring the Slayer goes on… and again he heard it. It was like a voice just below his hearing. Despite the danger of the situation he zoned out and tried desperately to listen to that elusive voice. It came, almost as a whisper
“Xander? Can you hear me?” the voice was achingly familiar but he still couldn’t see anyone. The feeling was similar to the way Willow had used her thoughts to control everyone’s actions during their ill-advised patrols. He concentrated on that voice, trying to place it desperately.
“Who’s there?” he thought the question rather than speak it, something made him realise it’d be a good idea if Willow didn’t know what he was up to. He could almost feel a sigh of relief coming from his unseen counsellor.
“You can hear me… thank the goddess!” He scrunched his eyes down and peered out at the room around him, it seemed to fade into a bright white light and he began to see the last person he thought he would see here… Tara!
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