FIC: The Island (4a/?) B/W PG

Title: The Island (AKA Buffy and Willow Vs. The Hurricane)

Author: Ivy Gort

Spoilers: Seventh Season

Email: Ivygort@verizon.net

Rating:PG

Feedback: Yes, Please! I live on it!

Archive: Please Ask.

Pairing: Buffy and Willow

Previous Parts: http://www.fanfiction.net/~ivygort

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I'm just torturing them for you.

BETA: Ann Marie is the Great Goddess. She has to be a Goddess there is no other answer. I feel like you guys should send the feedback to her. Also a big thanks to BHV for prereading this part so many times.

Summary: Eight years after Chosen Willow needs Buffy help.

Note: Only a month between this update and the last ... I am getting better. Actually, school has let up so I am going to try to update more often. No promises because I have to get things preread and beta read and then rewrite them. <grins> This part just took three drafts.

Thanks goes out to Dutch, Ida, Charlene, Mad Hamlet, James, Bob, Tony, and Mike.

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Chapter Four -- Pamilco Sound aboard the Research Vessel -- The Belle Star

"Here, Willow always likes to be alone before she takes a boat out onto the water." Clare told Buffy, picking up the forgotten bags and stepping back into the boat. "I'll show you where to stow your gear and give you the five cent tour."

Willow watched as Clare guided Buffy down the small set of stairs that led into the cabin. She had to stop herself from following them because she wanted to see Buffy?s reactions to being on a small boat for the first time. ?Then again I?ve missed nine years of her life so she might have been on a boat before ... I don?t know.?

"This is where the lifejackets are stored. There are actually three other places?." The Wiccan smiled at the exasperation in her mentor's voice for her insistence on having three sets of life vests for each person aboard the craft.

"It's a training vessel, Clare?." She said, knowing that the Director of the School couldn't hear her but needing to say the words of their familiar argument to ground herself in the moment. She shook her head trying to bring herself out of what felt like a dream. Finding out that the school?s missing Research Vessel had been attacked by Vampires was nothing less than a nightmare.

?A nightmare that I thought I had left behind me.?

Vampires.

?How? Boats are open to the sun, the wind, the rain, how can they sail a boat?? Even as she thought it, at least 50 different ways the Vampires could avoid the sun popped into her mind. She fiddled with the string on the safari hat that was covering her long hair.

'This is too much for me. I have to gain some control, I have to push things back down!.'

She turned and walked to the stern of the familiar 32-foot sailboat and sat down on the low bench. The boat had been a luxury vessel before the Coast Guard had seized it running drugs. It wasn?t the typical craft that drug runners used and it had no value to the Coast Guard so they donated it to the school. Willow considered it her little baby since this was the very first boat she had ever been on. When she received her degree Clare put her in charge of the Belle Star.

Breathing deeply she tried to find her center so that she could perform the complex spell. True Wiccan magic was so much harder to do than the black sorcery she did in Sunnydale. True Wiccan magic drew on the loving, living, energy the area, and not the death force that she used while living on the Hellmouth.

'Don't think about Sunnydale because then you will think about ?Buffy.' With a frustrated sigh of defeat the scientist stood up and began pacing. 'Buffy is here. Buffy is on The Belle Star. Buffy is here and we are going to go out?' With each thought she became more agitated. 'What have I done? Why did I run to back to them for help? I can handle this, I can ?.' The images of the crime scene photos flashed into her mind. Filling it up, causing the tears to leak out of the corners of her eyes. 'I can't help them find justice, not alone, not anymore, I just can't go back to that dark magic place. Only a Slayer has the power to help. I've known that all along, and I knew it would be her, despite Giles' telling me he would assign Faith. I knew that fate would intervene. That Faith would be called away or something ?. else. I guess I should be happy that Faith was just needed out of town instead of something more dire.'

The Witch stood and looked out across the filthy waters of the Sound trying to breathe with the pain. Trying to stop the tears from falling as the memories pounded against her resolve to stay detached, to keep the shield of anger up between them.

Eight years ago the Vampire had known Buffy's weakness, it had known she was still recovering from the latest round of surgery, and it knew that she would want to lead Kennedy's rescue party. It had known her ... them, so well ?.

'Eight years. It's taken me eight years to learn to live, to learn how to put the grief, the anger, the pain, in a nice neat little box. Eight years ? to lock it all away. To lock my heart away. To build a life away from her. And still the dreams of Kennedy wake me up every night that I'm not sailing.' Willow lovingly ran her hand down the polished railing of the boat. 'Since the first time I was on this boat, the water has been safe. With nothing but the sky, the wind, the pure life of the ocean, Buffy, Kennedy, vampires and demons could never reach me.'

With a frustrated sigh she took off her hat, hanging it on a cleat. She jerked the rubber band holding her hair out and ran her fingers through it combing out the knots, as her mind raced on.

'I should have been with my students. They were my responsibility. The police say that the kids put up a fight; John had broken hands and torn knuckles. If I had been there, I could have told them how to fight a vampire, if I had been there I could have done something--even if it was only die with them--like I should have died with Kennedy.'

"So Solar panels supply the power to that Global Posit ?position ?do dah, and all those computers?" Buffy's voice floated up from the cabin below. "And Willow knows how to use all that ? stuff?"

The Wiccan couldn't help her smile. After all these years Buffy, the mighty Slayer Prime no less, still had trouble with names, that was so like her. Willow dashed the tears from her eyes and took one final deep breath. 'Justice. That's what I want. I want justice for Kennedy, but since I can never have that, I want it for John and the rest of my students. And I want it for me too. May the Goddess Bless me, after eight years I just want all the dreams and guilt to end.'

Buffy's expressive voice drifted up to her ears once again, this time with a high pitched squeak. "What do you mean no showers?"

Willow took a deep breath trying to lock her emotions away?lock them down?protect her heart. She slowly pulled her hair back and remade her ponytail. ?Its time to get down to business.? She sat down, centering her thoughts and calling the directions, preparing to cast a circle. ?I?m cutting it thin here; I want to leave with the tide so that we are going out with the water and the debris instead of against it.?

?I ask the spirit of the Wind to come to my circle.? She called out to the Element of the Wind and waited until she felt the warm gentle breeze on her face and the fuzziness that always accompanied the Spirit. As the Sylph settled around her, she called the next spirit?

_______________________________________________________________

Buffy stood on the "bow" of the gently swaying sailboat with the long pole Willow gave her. Her sunglasses hanging around her neck from a string. Despite the brightness of the rising sun she didn?t the need the glasses, yet. Although Clare had assured her that she would need them once they hit the open water of the ocean. Buffy looked back at the dock they had left over an hour ago and then ahead at the inlet they were going to use to skirt around the island ahead of them. It seemed to her that they had barely traveled a mile.

'I'm totally useless. Just window dressing for Willow's magic--a--mojo.' The Slayer thought as she listened to the whine of the boat?s motors. 'Engines on a sailboat? Now doesn't that seem a little bit like cheating? I was expecting a full set of sails just like in the movies. But Clare had said that it?s safer to use the engines to get out of the Sound; that we would probably use the engines today and then start fresh with the sails tomorrow.'

The Slayer watched as the boat slowly made its way through the dirty water. 'Well, considering how slow we are going, maybe it isn't cheating. I can't wait to put this yucky, muck-filled Sound behind us.'

Willow handled the craft as if she was born to the sea, steering them effortlessly through the debris.

"Dead piggy, at twelve o'clock." The Slayer mumbled under her breath, trying not to disturb Willow's concentration. 'I always wanted to say that. Not the dead piggy part, just the twelve o'clock part.? The Slayer reached over the railing with the pole and shoved the carcass out of the boat?s path. ?Oh! Tingling on my arms, with a warm Willow feel to it. There is no mistaking the difference in her magic here and on the Hellmouth ?sss. I guess that would be Hellmouths, plural ? now that is just gross!? The Slayer thought as she watched the body of the hog, now unbalanced, roll over exposing its bloated belly to the sun. 'And speaking of mojo I am so happy about that anti-smell spell she put on me. I don't understand how the local people can deal with it. Hey, anti-smell spell, say that three times fast!?

Buffy knew her job wasn't necessary, that as soon as they were out sight of the students on the dock then she could stop the charade.

'Yep, Willow's shield is up and ready to go!' Buffy watched as it nudged a log away from the boat before she could use her long stick. 'That?s me, always using wooden sticks. Am I sure that was just a log? With all the talk about gators and snakes I'll never look at a tree branch the same way again! And speaking of mucky water, you can forget eating shellfish, like crabs and shrimp.'

The sun was climbing higher in the sky and the early morning chill was giving way to the heat of mid-morning. They finally coasted around the island and the Slayer could see the sparking blue water of the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. 'I'm bored. I'm bored and with the sun beating down on me I'm hot too.? She picked up the safari hat that Clare had given her and put it on. ?I like the little string so if the wind blows it off I won?t lose it.? Now I know why Willow said to pack long sleeve T?s, I would be burnt to a crisp in an hour.

She watched another dead ? something ? pass by the boat. This time she had no idea what the body was and she really didn?t want to know.

?OK, no more thinking about what's in the water, let's review what Clare said about the boat.' The Slayer looked around at the small craft, still amazed what they could fit into it. 'The black panel things stuck on the roof of the cabin are solar, da dum, panels! And the dish type thing on the mast, that looks like a satellite dish is a Doppler radar while the weird antenna that looks like a radar thing from the old war movies is actually the satellite dish. Ok, that one makes sense ? as in not! Let?s not forget the arm on the mast is a boom.... at least it's high enough that I don?t have to worry about bumping my head on it. Rah, rah, for short people! There are some advantages.'

She turned around and looked at Willow. The redhead was clutching the wheel as sweat beaded on her pale face. 'Ok so maybe everything she does is not as effortlessly as I thought, I know it's hot but Willow doesn't look well. I wonder if all this magic stuff is taking it out of her? And I know she didn't get much sleep last night ? ugh!'

'Stop it Buffy. Stop worrying about Willow, stop feeling guilty, and get back to pushing dead and rotting piggies out of the way before someone notices that none of the debris is actually hitting the boat.'

Buffy stretched, trying to get some of the knots in her shoulders to release. Somewhere between Clare's explanation about how the Solar panels worked and the GPS locator being military issue instead of "On Star" Buffy lost her. But the part about no showers while on the trip she did remember.

'So no showers. With only a little water it was either no showers or drink dead piggy water ? I can deal with the no showers ? I think.'

The bright images she saw this morning of the pristine water and beautiful dunes made a rage build up inside her at how greedy and dumb people could be?. 'I can't believe that this happens in every hurricane.'

"Buffy, you can come down here now." Willow's quiet voice reached the Slayer.

"Whew, finally." The Slayer sighed, relieved as she put the pole in its container next to the mast and unhooked her safety line from the ... toe rail.

Buffy turned and made her way carefully. There was a small path, or was it gangway, deck way, walkway? Whatever, the narrow edge of deck that lead from the forward, no the bow, of the boat to the ? stem, stern, ah, ? to Hell with it, the back.

The Slayer remembered that Clare had called it a "Bluewater" sailboat. Which meant that it was made to go sailing in the open ocean, it had a bilge pump and everything, Buffy had seen it. Clare had demonstrated how to turn it, how it worked, where the hand pump was if it didn't work ?

'Yep, I know everything I didn't want to know about a bilge pump!' The blonde forced a smile when she realized that she was frowning as she carefully made her way to the stern ? back? whatever. With her Slayer balance she knew she could move faster, the shifting boat beneath her feet wasn't an issue, yet. She just didn't want to move fast at the moment....

'I'm alone with Willow. I am alone on a boat with Willow ? and as of right now I have nothing to slay. What do I do? What do I say?' The Slayer thought as she held onto the railing and stepped over one of the black solar panels bolted to the roof of the cabin. She noticed how the clear Plexiglas protecting it reflected the sun.

'Let?s see, what can I say? I could say: sorry about the last time we saw each other ? I didn't mean to have blood streaming out of my mouth as I staked your?.' Acid stirred in her stomach as forming tears burned the inside of her eyelids. The memory of that night blazed its way through her mind causing her to pause in mid-step. She could almost feel the sleet hitting her overheated face as she smelled the vampire's putrid breath when it bragged about what it was going to do to her and with her once she was turned.

"Buffy!" Willow's voice. "Buffy! Snap out of it!"

She could see the redhead's face drain of all color as she ran into the alley ?.

The boat suddenly shifted under her feet and she leaned heavily against the railing. She saw Willow's face and knew that she had been busted. Willow had caught her.

The Slayer knew what she looked like as she jumped down to the lower deck. She felt her shoulders slump and a single tear burn its way down her cheek. She turned away from the Hacker/ Professor/ Witch, just what was Willow now?

'She?s the reason you fight, the reason you get up every morning, if you never saw her again, as long as you knew she was safe?.' The too honest inner voice supplied. 'Oh, shut-up.´ She told it as she tried to sleathily wipe the tear away.

Buffy walked the few feet over to the side of the boat and looked out at the water. ?I just can?t be close to her right now, I have to regain ?. I don?t know ? I thought I had stopped loving her. Well that?s a big lie. I thought I?d stopped hoping.?

The water was beginning to clear up. Buffy was amazed at how low the cockpit area of the sailboat road in the water. ?I wish ?things could become clearer like the water. I know that even if Willow felt the same way about me as I did about her all those years ago, it wouldn?t matter now. Too much water under the bridge or in the ocean of our past. I wish I could touch her, just once, I wish I could just reach out to her like I can touch the water on the other side of the railing.? She heard Willow shuffle her feet and the whine of the engines lower as the speed of the craft was cut in half.

"Memories?" Willow asked softly, the kindness in that one word nearly did in Buffy's control. She couldn't turn around, it would shatter her if she saw compassion in Willow's eyes, instead of the cool professionalism she had gotten used to since first seeing her in Cleveland. So Buffy nodded and hoped that the Wiccan saw her.

After a few seconds she heard the pained whisper, "Me too."

TBC in Four B

Bright Blessings,

Ivy

Loyalty to the country always, loyalty to the government when

it deserves it.

Mark Twain

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