Don't Go Solo : Part 18 - New Old Feeling
Title: New Old Feeling
Series: Don't Go Solo
Pairing: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Setting: post-He's No Jack Sparrow and post-Introspect
Word Count: 3,257 words
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. All characters, places, and events are the property of the aforementioned and Twentieth Century Fox.
Summary: They're a long way from where they started. They're a longer way from where they're going. Buffy decides enough is enough, and Willow doesn't know what to think.
Willow remembered feeling this way.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
She remembered feeling this way in an objective manner. The whole part about not having the magic of the cosmos coursing through her on a regular basis. The part where she didn’t feel like she could look at a book across the room and blink and have it open in front of her on the page she needed with her eye immediately finding the passage she had been looking for.
That. She remembered a time when she didn’t feel like that. When her magic was the technological kind, when her fingertips moved, not to make the world flow around her, but to make information flow in front of her. On that front, she knew herself to be well behind the times. Her focus had so long been on making sure she could stand up and fight when she needed to, whether it be diplomatically or magically, that she had fallen so far behind on beating computer systems that she barely knew if she was even a casual user anymore.
Hmm. Might be a better way to say that.
Either way, she remembered feeling this way. She didn’t remember it making her feel this empty before.
Even when she had been trying to kick the magic several years ago, it hadn’t been like this. Back then, the magic had still been there. Calling to her, giving her headaches when she didn’t succumb, making her so thirsty that she drank enough water to spend half the day peeing it back out. Now it was just-
It was gone. It was more than gone. It was gone, and it had torn everything out that it had ever touched.
And it wasn’t like it had never been there. No, that would’ve been too easy for Witchy Willow. Willow, who had once tried to turn the Earth into a big, black ball, floating in a big, black space.
No. Willow was well aware that it had been there. So maybe she didn’t know this feeling-maybe it hadn’t been like this before. Now, it just felt like everything the magic had been connected to had been half-ripped away along with it. Like pulling out a hair and taking a chunk of skin with it.
She could have been bleeding, for all she knew.
Faith trotted behind her wherever she went. Buffy was pouring over the unmoving girls in the field, trying to take stock of who was hurt and who was-
Kennedy was somewhere. Still alive and well, because Willow had spotted her while trying to get back over to Buffy, as Amy escaped on the back of the semi. Probably helping Buffy now, in the middle of the ruined courtyard. The fountain was a mess, little craters adorned the field wherever Amy had taken a shot at one of Willow’s girls. A few Watchers carefully made their way across the area, feeling for any lingering magic that may have been lain down, to be triggered and start an entirely new round of chaos.
Willow didn’t feel anything, herself, but considering her condition, she wasn’t going to be putting much stock in that.
Amy. Amy Madison. Just thinking about her, now more than ever, gave Willow the kinds of thoughts that she had only experienced on a few occasions in her life. First, when Glory had hurt Tara. Again, when Warren had killed Tara. Always, before, she had been able to chalk it up to something vile hurting something pure.
Willow was the one that had been hurt this time. And she was far from pure.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that Amy was the one that had done this to her. And it was Amy that had hit Buffy with some of the most powerful, painful spells a witch her level could reasonably cast.
A witch her level, huh? Whatever level she was now, at least. Amy definitely wasn’t a pushover, and with Willow’s reserves at her command, if not her understanding of magical theory and repertoire of spells, trying to assign any level of danger to her was an exercise in having no idea where to swing it. For the fence was the safest bet, but if that was the case, then Willow had no idea what they were going to do.
Amy had done something to Michelle’s body, and she had created an army of-whatever those things had been. Both of those spoke, not just of dark magic, but of old magic. And Amy may have been talented, but she had never had the resources or the know-how to come across spells of that magnitude. Even Rack would have been hard-pressed to know much about them beyond the act that they were, in fact, spells that had existed at one point.
Michelle was the major worry. Or the not-Michelle that had attacked Willow and floored every slayer that had come near her, Faith and Buffy included. She was-Willow couldn’t help but think of when Dawn had tried to raise Joyce. Whatever it had been that came out of that grave, whatever it was that Dawn had managed to create, would have been incomplete. Maybe Joyce’s body, moving like a marionette, but not Joyce.
Not-Michelle may not have quite been Michelle, but the difference was little more than a soul. Almost like she was a vampire, minus the blood thirst and weaknesses and aversion to sunlight. Research was necessary, but Willow would easily guess that Amy had managed the complete, successful version of the spell Dawn had attempted.
Not a mother, but a slayer who had died angry and scared and regretful.
Awesome.
“Ms. Rosenberg!”
A Watcher. It was bad enough she didn’t know all the slayers’ names, but she had personally interviewed every single Watcher that operated in Rio de Janeiro. When the older man waddled toward her-she remembered that he had a bad leg, at least-she cast about for a name.
“Jeremy?” she tried.
“Walter,” he wheezed, and she bit back the sigh. “We’ve finished checking the casualties inside.”
Willow stared at him a moment longer. Long enough to hate being the leader, because she knew he was hesitating. She knew he wasn’t going to tell her how many until she told him to tell her. Not the kind of information you volunteer, maybe, but the kind you acquiesce.
“Well?” she asked a little more sharply than she’d intended. Honestly, she was too young to be able to snap like that, to demand information from a man almost triple her age.
Jeremy-Walter-looked pensive for a few seconds before speaking.
“Three dead,” he said. “Eleven injured.”
Three dead, and that said nothing of the girls that had been hurt all over the courtyard. Save for those on patrol right now-a total of maybe a dozen girls in all-every girl that had been in the complex would have responded to the alarm. That meant everyone who hadn’t been inside would have been outside, fighting.
Three dead, and that said nothing of the girls that had been hurt all over the courtyard.
“All right,” she said, even though it very wasn’t, “catch up with Buffy and try to get an accurate-” It bothered her that her voice didn’t even waver. “-count of the injured and dead out here. We have to assume Xander was the target. It looks like we’re dealing with two competing organizations in this operation.” Walter nodded, still panting, and she gave him a few seconds before hurrying him along with an exasperated “Now!”
Faith cleared her throat behind her, one of those rare moments of tact she displayed when she wanted to say something and didn’t outright say it. Most of the time, it wasn’t something you got with Faith. You’d get the full lowdown on what she thought, complete with colorful language and any lurid mental imagery she felt like including.
And right now? Willow was in no mood for hesitance.
“Faith, do you have something to say?”
Faith looked surprised. Willow had no idea how much Buffy and Faith knew or suspected as regarded the lack of magic she was using to get things done, but it seemed as though Faith hadn’t been expecting mind-reading. Which made sense. Faith so often spoke her mind that, when she didn’t, she probably thought she was safe enough in her thoughts that others couldn’t pick up on what she was thinking.
“I-yeah, I guess I do,” Faith managed. It was odd, because she so often supplied a hearty dose of sass into whatever she said, whether it was her natural attitude or the artificial bite she portrayed even around the people she probably labeled under her friends column. “It’s Xander. You know he was taken, yeah?”
It took every fiber of Willow’s willpower not to be sarcastic.
“I noticed, Faith. Thank you.”
“Are you planning on doing anything about that?” Faith had enough worry to let Willow know that it wasn’t an apathetic question. Faith was worried, just like Buffy was worried, just like Willow would be worried if she let her brain stop for more than half a second. Even now, there was a slowly building crescendo of panic welling up in her stomach, cold and empty and raw, because her oldest and bestest of friends had been targeted by people that had sucked Willow dry and had actually been taken by another group they had next to no information about.
Faith was asking her to cast a spell. To do what she always did and clip off a tiny little piece of herself to take the quick and easy way out. If this had been a few years ago, when she had been trying to stop the magic cold turkey, Willow would have been furious. If this had been more recent, Willow would have weighed the pros and cons of the decision and probably gone along with it, since expediency was important during a kidnapping. If this had been yesterday, Willow have cast the spell and had Xander back before anyone could blink.
But this was today. And today, Willow couldn’t levitate a mote of dust if she wanted to.
“Faith, I-”
“Willow!”
Buffy. Buffy looked bad. Buffy looked like Warren had, right before Willow had killed him. Tired, hurting, more than a little desperate.
Willow managed a calm smile, which wasn’t as hard as she had been expecting, given the circumstances.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you all right?” She glanced toward the field. “Did you-”
“Four,” Buffy said quickly, like taking of a band-aid or jumping into frigid water. “A lot more hurt.” Buffy did that thing she did with her eyes. The tiny moment where they lost focus, like she was looking at a painting right in front of you while her eyes shimmered for a moment.
And then she did that thing where she remembered that she was the Slayer and wasn’t allowed to take a break. She nodded to no one in particular, looked Willow in the eye, and smiled that smile that wasn’t so much a smile as it was front.
“Anyway,” she went on, “the Watchers and the uninjured girls are taking care of the wounded. I’m thinking we’ve got other things to do right now?”
Willow kind of loved her for not saying “better things to do,” because that’s what she, herself, would have said. And then she would have had to do the thing with her eyes, too, and then she would have had to remember that she was Willow, and she wasn’t allowed to take a break.
“Right,” Willow said. “We need to figure out who was running the attack, who slipped in and took Xander-”
“Where they took him,” Faith supplied, and Willow nodded.
“They may not have had enough time to get him anywhere yet,” she said. “They’re probably still in transit. I’ll go to his room, get some of his belongings for a location s-” She paused, shook her head. “I’ll get my mystics on it. We need to get someone on the road, ready to go wherever they find him.”
“I’m on that,” Buffy said quickly, but Willow raised her hand.
“No,” she said. “We’re vulnerable right now, we just got attacked, these girls lost friends, and now we’re going to have to ask them to be ready for another attack without warning. We don’t know what the original attack was about, outside them taking Xander, and we don’t know if there’s anything else they want. Plus, there were two groups involved, and I’m doubting they were on the same side. We’re in the dark, and we’re not alone.” She took a breath, rubbed her forehead, and met Buffy’s eyes. “So I need you here. The girls look up to you. And if we find out who Amy’s working with, we may need to be able to move out and launch a counter-offensive.”
Buffy stared at her blankly, taking in the Riley-speak from a mouth that she probably didn’t think could spout it like that. Faith mouthed a silent day-um, but said nothing.
“So who’re you gonna send, then?” Buffy went on, looking a little angrier and a little less patient. “One of those girls that lost a friend? Your baby mystics? Jeremy?”
“You mean Walter?” Faith muttered quietly. “The Watcher?”
“The cafeteria cook!” Buffy fumed, not even looking at her. Willow felt like she was wilting under her friend’s gaze, but Buffy didn’t let up. “You wanna cut me out of this? Fine. I get it. Then I get to pick who’s going.”
“I know these girls better than you do,” Willow said as calmly as she could, ignoring the way her throat felt like it was trying to close up and the way her eyes felt like they were trying to burn themselves alive.
“Like hell you do!” Buffy shouted. Screamed, really. Loud enough that the girls that could still move around unassisted glanced in their direction. Loud enough that the small din of pained groans subsided, and the sound of stifled crying died altogether. The hotness in Willow’s cheeks rose, though whether it was from embarrassment or anger, she couldn’t say.
“Buffy, listen, I-”
“No, you listen,” Buffy said almost venomously. “I get that you’ve been on your own here for a long time. I get it. Got it. You put it down, I picked it up. And I know, I haven’t exactly been giddy at the thought of having to lead anyone again. But, you know, who’s gonna win if I do? If I do the leader thing and do what I have to do to save the world, then you and Xander feel like I’m cutting you out on purpose. If I try to stay human so we can all be happy and shiny together, then you end up turning into this scary leader bitca and Xander goes to Africa and has to kill people.”
She didn’t have the air of a woman who had been wanting to get something off her chest for a long time. She, instead, had the air of a woman that hadn’t realized how much pent up fury she had been bottling up.
“So I’m done,” Buffy said. “I’m done just doing whatever you say is best, and I’m done wondering when Xander’s going to talk to us again. I’m done with your bending over backwards for contacts that probably had something to do with this attack! No more bad guys on our Christmas card list, no more slutting it up nightclubs to get the information we need. And no more Ms. Rosenberg. You wanna be part of the solution? That’s cool. You don’t want me to be all General Buffy again? That’s cool, too.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Willow said, just barely managing not to glare. “So what are we gonna be, then? Are you just gonna quit?”
“No,” Buffy answered, actually smiling. It wasn’t a very nice smile. It was the kind of smile she had given during some of her longer motivational speeches, when she was aware that they actually had a fighting chance.
Huh. Kind of like old times, then.
“You,” Buffy said, pointing, “and me,” she went on, tapping herself, “and Xander. And Faith, too, I guess. You don’t call the shots, we all do. It started with us, and we made this world. So we’re gonna be the ones to take care of it.” She nodded to herself, glanced at Faith. Willow followed her gaze and found her somewhat dumbstruck.
Willow, herself, felt more than a little speechless.
“So, no, Willow,” Buffy said. “I’m not just gonna stay here and play house with all the other slayers. You know your people here, so you get someone on morale duty if you have to. Me? I’m gonna go get Xander back.” She turned stiffly again, and Faith actually jumped in surprise when a full-on Slayer Stare was aimed in her direction. “Faith? What’re you gonna do?”
“Hell, you’re asking me?” she asked. “I kinda liked just being pointed at the bad guys.” She cracked a grin, but Buffy didn’t look amused. “Fine, God. I’ll see if I can’t find some girls still on their feet that’ll be able to help. What do you think? Group of four?” She glanced at Willow. “Or five?”
“I have to stay here,” Willow said, her voice showing more regret than she had intended. “Everyone’s going to be looking for someone to tell them what to do, and-” Part of her hated that Buffy was doing this. Part of her was so used to being in the lead that she didn’t trust anyone else’s ability to do it. And when Buffy had come to Brazil, it had almost been like coming back to life. When she had spent a couple of weeks just letting Willow tell her what to do.
And then some semblance of life had returned, and she had been the Slayer again.
Now? It was actually kind of nice.
“Fine,” Buffy said. “Do what you have to here. As soon as your mystics find out where Xander is, point us in the right direction. We’ll see if we can find a trail to follow while we’re waiting. Faith? Make sure you get someone that can drive.”
And then she was gone, with her ponytail bouncing like she was going out on a patrol run. Stooping over to pick up a discarded stake before shoving it in her pocket, arms swinging afterward like she was already warming up. Faith moved quickly, too, eyes scanning the crowd. Probably for Callie. Maybe for a Watcher that she trusted.
Willow stood alone after they left. She surveyed the courtyard, too, sliding away from Buffy’s back to where Faith was already moving for a prospect.
Where Kennedy stood off to the side, just a little, arms folded awkwardly in front of her after watching the scene.
She offered a small smile. A tiny one. More of a twitch, really, before heading off to continue assisting with the wounded.
Willow sighed heavily, but she felt a little light. The corners of her lips twitched without her meaning to as she slipped a hand in her pocket, pulling her cell free. Her reflection in the screen was smiling a little as she dialed her head mystic’s number.
“Hello?”
“Norman?” she tried.
“Thiago,” came the annoyed reply.
“Right. That.”
Deep breath.
“Get your things. We have work to do.”
Aha, we have a development with the personal issues. Always feels good to get something done in that department.
The title works out in a few ways, but it mostly references the way the various characters have described Willow in my assorted series.
Hope you liked it.
All the best.
When we trust ourselves, ascents become descents, difficulties turn into easinesses, rocks transform into sands and swords into melting candles!
-Mehmet Ildan
Series: Don't Go Solo
Pairing: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence and language
Setting: post-He's No Jack Sparrow and post-Introspect
Word Count: 3,257 words
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer was created by Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. All characters, places, and events are the property of the aforementioned and Twentieth Century Fox.
Summary: They're a long way from where they started. They're a longer way from where they're going. Buffy decides enough is enough, and Willow doesn't know what to think.
Willow remembered feeling this way.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
She remembered feeling this way in an objective manner. The whole part about not having the magic of the cosmos coursing through her on a regular basis. The part where she didn’t feel like she could look at a book across the room and blink and have it open in front of her on the page she needed with her eye immediately finding the passage she had been looking for.
That. She remembered a time when she didn’t feel like that. When her magic was the technological kind, when her fingertips moved, not to make the world flow around her, but to make information flow in front of her. On that front, she knew herself to be well behind the times. Her focus had so long been on making sure she could stand up and fight when she needed to, whether it be diplomatically or magically, that she had fallen so far behind on beating computer systems that she barely knew if she was even a casual user anymore.
Hmm. Might be a better way to say that.
Either way, she remembered feeling this way. She didn’t remember it making her feel this empty before.
Even when she had been trying to kick the magic several years ago, it hadn’t been like this. Back then, the magic had still been there. Calling to her, giving her headaches when she didn’t succumb, making her so thirsty that she drank enough water to spend half the day peeing it back out. Now it was just-
It was gone. It was more than gone. It was gone, and it had torn everything out that it had ever touched.
And it wasn’t like it had never been there. No, that would’ve been too easy for Witchy Willow. Willow, who had once tried to turn the Earth into a big, black ball, floating in a big, black space.
No. Willow was well aware that it had been there. So maybe she didn’t know this feeling-maybe it hadn’t been like this before. Now, it just felt like everything the magic had been connected to had been half-ripped away along with it. Like pulling out a hair and taking a chunk of skin with it.
She could have been bleeding, for all she knew.
Faith trotted behind her wherever she went. Buffy was pouring over the unmoving girls in the field, trying to take stock of who was hurt and who was-
Kennedy was somewhere. Still alive and well, because Willow had spotted her while trying to get back over to Buffy, as Amy escaped on the back of the semi. Probably helping Buffy now, in the middle of the ruined courtyard. The fountain was a mess, little craters adorned the field wherever Amy had taken a shot at one of Willow’s girls. A few Watchers carefully made their way across the area, feeling for any lingering magic that may have been lain down, to be triggered and start an entirely new round of chaos.
Willow didn’t feel anything, herself, but considering her condition, she wasn’t going to be putting much stock in that.
Amy. Amy Madison. Just thinking about her, now more than ever, gave Willow the kinds of thoughts that she had only experienced on a few occasions in her life. First, when Glory had hurt Tara. Again, when Warren had killed Tara. Always, before, she had been able to chalk it up to something vile hurting something pure.
Willow was the one that had been hurt this time. And she was far from pure.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that Amy was the one that had done this to her. And it was Amy that had hit Buffy with some of the most powerful, painful spells a witch her level could reasonably cast.
A witch her level, huh? Whatever level she was now, at least. Amy definitely wasn’t a pushover, and with Willow’s reserves at her command, if not her understanding of magical theory and repertoire of spells, trying to assign any level of danger to her was an exercise in having no idea where to swing it. For the fence was the safest bet, but if that was the case, then Willow had no idea what they were going to do.
Amy had done something to Michelle’s body, and she had created an army of-whatever those things had been. Both of those spoke, not just of dark magic, but of old magic. And Amy may have been talented, but she had never had the resources or the know-how to come across spells of that magnitude. Even Rack would have been hard-pressed to know much about them beyond the act that they were, in fact, spells that had existed at one point.
Michelle was the major worry. Or the not-Michelle that had attacked Willow and floored every slayer that had come near her, Faith and Buffy included. She was-Willow couldn’t help but think of when Dawn had tried to raise Joyce. Whatever it had been that came out of that grave, whatever it was that Dawn had managed to create, would have been incomplete. Maybe Joyce’s body, moving like a marionette, but not Joyce.
Not-Michelle may not have quite been Michelle, but the difference was little more than a soul. Almost like she was a vampire, minus the blood thirst and weaknesses and aversion to sunlight. Research was necessary, but Willow would easily guess that Amy had managed the complete, successful version of the spell Dawn had attempted.
Not a mother, but a slayer who had died angry and scared and regretful.
Awesome.
“Ms. Rosenberg!”
A Watcher. It was bad enough she didn’t know all the slayers’ names, but she had personally interviewed every single Watcher that operated in Rio de Janeiro. When the older man waddled toward her-she remembered that he had a bad leg, at least-she cast about for a name.
“Jeremy?” she tried.
“Walter,” he wheezed, and she bit back the sigh. “We’ve finished checking the casualties inside.”
Willow stared at him a moment longer. Long enough to hate being the leader, because she knew he was hesitating. She knew he wasn’t going to tell her how many until she told him to tell her. Not the kind of information you volunteer, maybe, but the kind you acquiesce.
“Well?” she asked a little more sharply than she’d intended. Honestly, she was too young to be able to snap like that, to demand information from a man almost triple her age.
Jeremy-Walter-looked pensive for a few seconds before speaking.
“Three dead,” he said. “Eleven injured.”
Three dead, and that said nothing of the girls that had been hurt all over the courtyard. Save for those on patrol right now-a total of maybe a dozen girls in all-every girl that had been in the complex would have responded to the alarm. That meant everyone who hadn’t been inside would have been outside, fighting.
Three dead, and that said nothing of the girls that had been hurt all over the courtyard.
“All right,” she said, even though it very wasn’t, “catch up with Buffy and try to get an accurate-” It bothered her that her voice didn’t even waver. “-count of the injured and dead out here. We have to assume Xander was the target. It looks like we’re dealing with two competing organizations in this operation.” Walter nodded, still panting, and she gave him a few seconds before hurrying him along with an exasperated “Now!”
Faith cleared her throat behind her, one of those rare moments of tact she displayed when she wanted to say something and didn’t outright say it. Most of the time, it wasn’t something you got with Faith. You’d get the full lowdown on what she thought, complete with colorful language and any lurid mental imagery she felt like including.
And right now? Willow was in no mood for hesitance.
“Faith, do you have something to say?”
Faith looked surprised. Willow had no idea how much Buffy and Faith knew or suspected as regarded the lack of magic she was using to get things done, but it seemed as though Faith hadn’t been expecting mind-reading. Which made sense. Faith so often spoke her mind that, when she didn’t, she probably thought she was safe enough in her thoughts that others couldn’t pick up on what she was thinking.
“I-yeah, I guess I do,” Faith managed. It was odd, because she so often supplied a hearty dose of sass into whatever she said, whether it was her natural attitude or the artificial bite she portrayed even around the people she probably labeled under her friends column. “It’s Xander. You know he was taken, yeah?”
It took every fiber of Willow’s willpower not to be sarcastic.
“I noticed, Faith. Thank you.”
“Are you planning on doing anything about that?” Faith had enough worry to let Willow know that it wasn’t an apathetic question. Faith was worried, just like Buffy was worried, just like Willow would be worried if she let her brain stop for more than half a second. Even now, there was a slowly building crescendo of panic welling up in her stomach, cold and empty and raw, because her oldest and bestest of friends had been targeted by people that had sucked Willow dry and had actually been taken by another group they had next to no information about.
Faith was asking her to cast a spell. To do what she always did and clip off a tiny little piece of herself to take the quick and easy way out. If this had been a few years ago, when she had been trying to stop the magic cold turkey, Willow would have been furious. If this had been more recent, Willow would have weighed the pros and cons of the decision and probably gone along with it, since expediency was important during a kidnapping. If this had been yesterday, Willow have cast the spell and had Xander back before anyone could blink.
But this was today. And today, Willow couldn’t levitate a mote of dust if she wanted to.
“Faith, I-”
“Willow!”
Buffy. Buffy looked bad. Buffy looked like Warren had, right before Willow had killed him. Tired, hurting, more than a little desperate.
Willow managed a calm smile, which wasn’t as hard as she had been expecting, given the circumstances.
“Hey,” she said. “Are you all right?” She glanced toward the field. “Did you-”
“Four,” Buffy said quickly, like taking of a band-aid or jumping into frigid water. “A lot more hurt.” Buffy did that thing she did with her eyes. The tiny moment where they lost focus, like she was looking at a painting right in front of you while her eyes shimmered for a moment.
And then she did that thing where she remembered that she was the Slayer and wasn’t allowed to take a break. She nodded to no one in particular, looked Willow in the eye, and smiled that smile that wasn’t so much a smile as it was front.
“Anyway,” she went on, “the Watchers and the uninjured girls are taking care of the wounded. I’m thinking we’ve got other things to do right now?”
Willow kind of loved her for not saying “better things to do,” because that’s what she, herself, would have said. And then she would have had to do the thing with her eyes, too, and then she would have had to remember that she was Willow, and she wasn’t allowed to take a break.
“Right,” Willow said. “We need to figure out who was running the attack, who slipped in and took Xander-”
“Where they took him,” Faith supplied, and Willow nodded.
“They may not have had enough time to get him anywhere yet,” she said. “They’re probably still in transit. I’ll go to his room, get some of his belongings for a location s-” She paused, shook her head. “I’ll get my mystics on it. We need to get someone on the road, ready to go wherever they find him.”
“I’m on that,” Buffy said quickly, but Willow raised her hand.
“No,” she said. “We’re vulnerable right now, we just got attacked, these girls lost friends, and now we’re going to have to ask them to be ready for another attack without warning. We don’t know what the original attack was about, outside them taking Xander, and we don’t know if there’s anything else they want. Plus, there were two groups involved, and I’m doubting they were on the same side. We’re in the dark, and we’re not alone.” She took a breath, rubbed her forehead, and met Buffy’s eyes. “So I need you here. The girls look up to you. And if we find out who Amy’s working with, we may need to be able to move out and launch a counter-offensive.”
Buffy stared at her blankly, taking in the Riley-speak from a mouth that she probably didn’t think could spout it like that. Faith mouthed a silent day-um, but said nothing.
“So who’re you gonna send, then?” Buffy went on, looking a little angrier and a little less patient. “One of those girls that lost a friend? Your baby mystics? Jeremy?”
“You mean Walter?” Faith muttered quietly. “The Watcher?”
“The cafeteria cook!” Buffy fumed, not even looking at her. Willow felt like she was wilting under her friend’s gaze, but Buffy didn’t let up. “You wanna cut me out of this? Fine. I get it. Then I get to pick who’s going.”
“I know these girls better than you do,” Willow said as calmly as she could, ignoring the way her throat felt like it was trying to close up and the way her eyes felt like they were trying to burn themselves alive.
“Like hell you do!” Buffy shouted. Screamed, really. Loud enough that the girls that could still move around unassisted glanced in their direction. Loud enough that the small din of pained groans subsided, and the sound of stifled crying died altogether. The hotness in Willow’s cheeks rose, though whether it was from embarrassment or anger, she couldn’t say.
“Buffy, listen, I-”
“No, you listen,” Buffy said almost venomously. “I get that you’ve been on your own here for a long time. I get it. Got it. You put it down, I picked it up. And I know, I haven’t exactly been giddy at the thought of having to lead anyone again. But, you know, who’s gonna win if I do? If I do the leader thing and do what I have to do to save the world, then you and Xander feel like I’m cutting you out on purpose. If I try to stay human so we can all be happy and shiny together, then you end up turning into this scary leader bitca and Xander goes to Africa and has to kill people.”
She didn’t have the air of a woman who had been wanting to get something off her chest for a long time. She, instead, had the air of a woman that hadn’t realized how much pent up fury she had been bottling up.
“So I’m done,” Buffy said. “I’m done just doing whatever you say is best, and I’m done wondering when Xander’s going to talk to us again. I’m done with your bending over backwards for contacts that probably had something to do with this attack! No more bad guys on our Christmas card list, no more slutting it up nightclubs to get the information we need. And no more Ms. Rosenberg. You wanna be part of the solution? That’s cool. You don’t want me to be all General Buffy again? That’s cool, too.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Willow said, just barely managing not to glare. “So what are we gonna be, then? Are you just gonna quit?”
“No,” Buffy answered, actually smiling. It wasn’t a very nice smile. It was the kind of smile she had given during some of her longer motivational speeches, when she was aware that they actually had a fighting chance.
Huh. Kind of like old times, then.
“You,” Buffy said, pointing, “and me,” she went on, tapping herself, “and Xander. And Faith, too, I guess. You don’t call the shots, we all do. It started with us, and we made this world. So we’re gonna be the ones to take care of it.” She nodded to herself, glanced at Faith. Willow followed her gaze and found her somewhat dumbstruck.
Willow, herself, felt more than a little speechless.
“So, no, Willow,” Buffy said. “I’m not just gonna stay here and play house with all the other slayers. You know your people here, so you get someone on morale duty if you have to. Me? I’m gonna go get Xander back.” She turned stiffly again, and Faith actually jumped in surprise when a full-on Slayer Stare was aimed in her direction. “Faith? What’re you gonna do?”
“Hell, you’re asking me?” she asked. “I kinda liked just being pointed at the bad guys.” She cracked a grin, but Buffy didn’t look amused. “Fine, God. I’ll see if I can’t find some girls still on their feet that’ll be able to help. What do you think? Group of four?” She glanced at Willow. “Or five?”
“I have to stay here,” Willow said, her voice showing more regret than she had intended. “Everyone’s going to be looking for someone to tell them what to do, and-” Part of her hated that Buffy was doing this. Part of her was so used to being in the lead that she didn’t trust anyone else’s ability to do it. And when Buffy had come to Brazil, it had almost been like coming back to life. When she had spent a couple of weeks just letting Willow tell her what to do.
And then some semblance of life had returned, and she had been the Slayer again.
Now? It was actually kind of nice.
“Fine,” Buffy said. “Do what you have to here. As soon as your mystics find out where Xander is, point us in the right direction. We’ll see if we can find a trail to follow while we’re waiting. Faith? Make sure you get someone that can drive.”
And then she was gone, with her ponytail bouncing like she was going out on a patrol run. Stooping over to pick up a discarded stake before shoving it in her pocket, arms swinging afterward like she was already warming up. Faith moved quickly, too, eyes scanning the crowd. Probably for Callie. Maybe for a Watcher that she trusted.
Willow stood alone after they left. She surveyed the courtyard, too, sliding away from Buffy’s back to where Faith was already moving for a prospect.
Where Kennedy stood off to the side, just a little, arms folded awkwardly in front of her after watching the scene.
She offered a small smile. A tiny one. More of a twitch, really, before heading off to continue assisting with the wounded.
Willow sighed heavily, but she felt a little light. The corners of her lips twitched without her meaning to as she slipped a hand in her pocket, pulling her cell free. Her reflection in the screen was smiling a little as she dialed her head mystic’s number.
“Hello?”
“Norman?” she tried.
“Thiago,” came the annoyed reply.
“Right. That.”
Deep breath.
“Get your things. We have work to do.”
Aha, we have a development with the personal issues. Always feels good to get something done in that department.
The title works out in a few ways, but it mostly references the way the various characters have described Willow in my assorted series.
Hope you liked it.
All the best.
When we trust ourselves, ascents become descents, difficulties turn into easinesses, rocks transform into sands and swords into melting candles!
-Mehmet Ildan