Re: Anne-Lise's Snippets (Edition 5)

[buffythebushkangaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx]

> As Always, you leave me wanting more

Different pace...

--

I've lived most of my life in and around California. Thunderstorms 
were pretty rare but they happened. Now it's hard to tell which 
flashes are lightning, and which are the energy discharges of magic 
or advanced military weapons.
The ragged undersurface of a passing cloud ripples slightly as 
though some invisible force has disturbed its silent passage. Light 
refracts from its amorphous form, revealing through the rain the 
destruction all around us. I hold on tighter to my Willow as we 
embrace in the shell of a barren building; its interior scooped away 
by some earlier cataclysm. Electricity pylons discharge into the 
earth a scant few metres away from the building, and the sparks add 
an ethereal glow to the surroundings. 
There's a crater in the floor half filled with brackish, filthy 
water that spews forth from shattered service pipes. I break away 
from Willow to wash my face. I have to stay awake, and I hope the 
chill of the water will help. And then, as I'm leaning forward to 
stare into the wounded eyes of my reflection, light flares up all 
around and a crump throws me from my feet.

*

The clock ticks far too loudly as it slices time with merciless 
diligence from past to future. Every movement of its pendulum drives 
Willow further away from a time when Buffy lived. From a time when 
she had happiness, of a sort.
"A...are you okay?" Tara's enquiry breaks Willow's morbid 
fascination with the clock. She looks up and offers a bleak smile.
"I'm good," she says. They both know it's a lie but at least Willow 
is talking once more.
"Is there anything I can do?" Tara's hands wring together 
helplessly. Willow has seemed like a ghost the last few months. She'd 
walked and talked, attended the funeral, visited Angel... But the 
spark of vitality that was the woman she loved was gone, and Tara 
mourned for her.
"No... I'm fine, thank you." Willow's eyes remain untouched by her 
smile, dead as her heart.
The silence stretches into an infinity of unsaid thoughts, the 
atmosphere charged with grief unshared. And then there's the knock at 
the door.
"I...I'll go," Tara says, but Willow shakes her head. She feels 
something, an awareness impinging on her thoughts. Precognition? 
Maybe. She answers the door.
Her scream brings Tara running.

*

Willow's hysterics lasted quite awhile before Tara and Buffy 
managed to calm her down.
"I'm the bad penny," Buffy joked. "You can't get rid of me that 
easily."
Willow surprised them both by roughly embracing Buffy and kissing 
her in a manner far beyond friendship.
"Never leave me again," she entreated. "I can't lose you again."
Buffy held her tightly but refused to make a promise she knew she'd 
never be able to keep.
"I guess you missed me?" Buffy asked with wry humour. She giggled as 
she had to fend off Willow's shocked gaze. Tara silently left to the 
kitchen to prepare coffee, lost in her own thoughts, happiness and 
sorrow, love and jealousy warring in her heart.
"How... How?" Willow demanded as she sat beside Buffy on the couch.
Buffy composed her thoughts. "The Powers That Be," she said. "They 
brought back Angel once before. They need warriors... I was chosen."
"Chosen?" Willow frowned. "Chosen for what? You were already the 
Slayer..."
"When I... died... I was the only Slayer fully committed to doing 
what they needed, doing what *will* be needed."
"And that is?"
Buffy's face turned grim. "Going to war."