Round Robin: Chapter 5 - TheBear

["amberbensonfan" <AmberBensonFan@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

All diclaimers in chapter 1

Chapter 5

By: TheBear!

Willow got off the bus at the LA station. She was weary; her fatigue 
went bone deep. "Deeper than that," she thought. "Maybe soul 
deep." She wondered if it were possible for someone's soul to get 
tired. She gripped her two suitcases and walked over to one of the 
benches, plopping down the moment she got to it.  

Willow's body language screamed defeat. No one could look at the 
girl and not see the pain radiating off of her in waves. She was 
taking mental stock on her life, and realized that it was gone. Her 
life, or at least the benchmarks she used to define who and what she 
was, were all obliterated by her recent behavior.  

The Willow Rosenberg she considered herself to be was no more.  
Tara's lover was gone; destroyed twice over by a betrayal of trust.  
Buffy's best friend was dead; killed by selfish hedonism- sacrificed 
on an altar of smashed and twisted metal and buried by the near-death 
of a teenage girl. The powerful Wiccan was lost; drowned in a sea of 
black magic.

She had no idea how long she sat in that spot, her mind lost in her 
inner darkness, when she noticed someone had sat down next to her; 
close, but not quite touching.

Angel had been waiting at the bus station when the coach from 
Sunnydale arrived. He hardly recognized the girl who got off of the 
bus as being Willow. If he hadn't known in advance that she was on 
that bus, he wouldn't have recognized her

He waited to see where she would go before letting her see him. He 
wanted to know if she had already made arrangements on where to go or 
what to do in LA. He was surprised to see her stumble to the first 
bench available and just sit there unmoving for over thirty minutes.  
She just sat there, staring into space. He became concerned- Buffy 
had just said that she was coming to LA, she hadn't said why.  
Obviously, something terrible must have happened. The Willow he 
remembered had always been full of life, full of passion and 
innocence. Even when things were at their worst, even when she was 
frightened, she had seemed to have faith that things would be ok- 
somehow they'd work it out.

This girl looked? empty. She looked like someone had sucked the 
life, the spirit, from her- leaving a somnambulant shell.

Angel suddenly noticed one of the predators that tended to frequent 
places like this- looking for the lost and alone to feed on- was 
moving in on Willow. It wasn't even a vampire- just a human man who 
probably wanted to take and sell her on the street, or even just use 
her and discard her himself. Angel quickly walked over and sat next 
to Willow, making eye contact with the little man to let him know the 
redhead was under his protection.

The man hesitated, and for a moment Angel thought he might actually 
challenge him, but he backed down, apparently deciding to look for an 
easier target.

Angel was starting to get really worried when Willow noticed him but 
made no reaction- didn't even look up to see who he was- for over ten 
minutes. Finally he spoke, "Willow? Come on, Willow, talk to me."

Willow turned her head to look at the person speaking to her. She 
saw a worried face looking at her with obvious concern. It took a 
moment for her to recognize that it was Angel. She hadn't seen him 
in many months. Not since she went to his hotel to tell him that 
Buffy was dead. She grunted in false humor, this time she was here 
to tell him that Willow was dead.

Angel resolved to find out what had happened to turn the once 
vivacious Willow into this hollow shell. His eyes opened wide in 
shock when she finally responded to him by grunting and 
saying, "Willow's dead."  

He tentatively put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward 
him. "Willow, what happened?" he asked softly. For the first time 
since watching her get off of the bus he saw some emotion cross her 
face. A single tear trailed down her dirty face, and he saw a sense 
of horror in her eyes before she broke down completely. He wrapped 
her in his arms and rocked her as she sobbed and wailed into his coat 
for over an hour.

***

Willow had been so exhausted that she fell asleep in Angel's 
embrace. When she woke up in bed, she figured that he had taken her 
to the hotel. When she pulled back the covers and saw that she was 
only wearing a t-shirt and panties, she got pissed off. How dare 
he? Just because a girl cries in your arms doesn't mean you get to 
take her clothes off! For some reason she was infuriated by this and 
stormed out of the room to give him a piece of her mind.

"Angel! How could you?" her rant dwindled off as she realized she 
wasn't in the hotel- she was in an apartment, apparently. "Hello! 
She called out."

No response.

She wandered a bit, finding the kitchen, where there was a note on 
the table. She picked it up and read;

"Hi Willow,

I had to go in to work and try to identify this icky demon thing for 
the guys.  

I'll be back in about an hour, two max.

Make yourself at home.

Cordelia.

Oh, p.s. - There's a ghost, Dennis. He's harmless."

"Ok, so this is Cordelia's apartment," Willow mumbled to 
herself. "And, apparently, there's a ghost?"

The lights in the kitchen switched on and off one time, and Willow 
jumped in alarm. "Jeez! Don't *do* that!" she shouted.  

Nothing happened for a moment, and Willow sheepishly said, "Uh, sorry 
about that. You, uh, startled me," she paused, not really knowing 
what to say. "So, uh? you're Dennis, I take it?"

The lights once again flashed on and off.

"Oh, uh?" Willow was kind of at a loss as to what to say. "Hi. I'm, 
uh, Willow, I guess. I mean I don't guess I'm Willow, I know I'm 
Willow. I mean, I guess I don't really know what to say, and I tend 
to babble when I?" she shut her mouth when the pad of paper 
Cordelia's note was written on lifted up into the air, along with a 
pen, and the words "It's ok. Nice to meet you Willow." were written 
on it.

Willow was thinking of what she should say next when she heard the 
door to the apartment rattle and then open.

***

Cordelia trudged into her apartment. She had picked the Visigarth 
demon, out of one of Wesley's books, as the creature from her 
vision. "And, may I say, what a lovely way to wake up in the 
morning!" she thought. She'd been woken up at three in the morning 
by her boss, who was carrying a passed-out Willow Rosenberg and 
asking her to put the wasted Wiccan up for the night. Cordelia had 
asked why he didn't just take her to the hotel. He'd explained that 
she was apparently having some kind of trouble and had run away from 
Sunnydale, and might not appreciate waking up to a bunch of guys in a 
big empty hotel.

Cordelia had been amazed that Angel had managed to be that 
thoughtful, but didn't let on. She dramatically sighed, and said she 
would, but that she'd obviously not be able to come in in the morning 
if she was going to take care of Willow. Of course, just after she 
had managed to get back to sleep, she woke up to another lovely 
Vision- leaving her nearly debilitated with pain. She'd been barely 
able to pick up the phone and let Wesley know what she'd seen.

4 little yellow Dilaudid pills allowed her to get back to sleep for a 
whole 3 hours before Wesley had called and woken her up. He had the 
choice of baddies narrowed down to 4, but needed her to positively 
identify the culprit, as the four had drastically different methods 
of dispatch. So it was that Cordelia had dragged herself out of bed- 
once again- and made herself relatively presentable before going in 
to the office. She left a note for Willow, just in case. She didn't 
think the little hacker would wake up, as out of it as she'd been 
when Angel brought her in, but you never knew. Willow had never been 
to Cordelia's apartment before, and Cordelia didn't want her freaking 
out and casting some spell that would damage her apartment? or Dennis.

She called out softly, "Dennis, did Willow wake up yet?"

The lights in the kitchen flickered on and off at the same time she 
heard the redhead's voice coming from the same room.

"Yeah Cordelia, I'm up," Willow said in an unexcited voice.

Cordelia walked into the room and took in the vision that was 
Willow. "Damn, Willow. You look like hell."

Willow's eyes bugged out momentarily at the brunette's bluntness 
before she gave a rueful chuckle. She imagined that she did look 
pretty awful. "Tactful as always, Cordy; it's nice to see that some 
things never change."

Cordelia had the grace to look at least slightly 
embarrassed. "Sorry, it's just? you look?"

"Like a homeless person?" Willow supplied. "Don't worry about it.  
It's a fair description. I *am* a homeless person," Willow said 
resignedly. "No home equals homeless."

Cordelia raised her eyebrows, waiting for Willow to explain. When 
nothing was forthcoming, she suggested, "If you're up, why don't you 
take a shower. I'll go out and get some breakfast. You look like 
you haven't eaten in about as long as you haven't showered." She 
turned and headed back to the front door. "You can tell me what's 
wrong after that."

Willow wanted to be offended by that, but for one thing it was true, 
and for another, there was no condescension in Cordelia's voice, just 
a tired resignation. If she'd thought about it, Cordelia sounded a 
little like she did herself.

***

Willow felt better, physically at least, once she got out of the 
shower. She didn't realize just how much she stank, until she caught 
a whiff of the clothes she'd been wearing, now that she was clean.  
She'd found yesterday's outfit in a garbage bag in the room she woke 
up in. Upon opening it she recoiled from the stench. Thinking back, 
she'd gone three days since she'd showered, and almost that long 
since she'd eaten. She'd been so depressed that she hadn't even 
noticed.

Well, she still felt depressed, but Willow Rosenberg wasn't one to 
wallow in self pity for too long. She needed to pull her head out 
and see if she could salvage anything of herself.  

As she walked slowly into the kitchen, she didn't hold out much 
hope. She'd made a royal mess of her life. She didn't know if she 
could fix it. She needed to re-evaluate who she was and what that 
meant. Was she really dead like she'd told Angel, or just severely 
wounded with a slim chance at recovery yet?

As she was dwelling on her pain and failure, she noticed Cordelia 
sitting at the kitchen table, her face in her hands, head down on the 
table. Her body was quivering slightly, and as Willow silently 
approached, she could hear quiet sobs from the statuesque brunette 
that she'd never really considered a friend. Even so, nothing was 
more likely to pull Willow Rosenberg out of a self-pity party faster 
than seeing someone else in pain. It was as though the urge- the 
absolute need- to help others was coded directly into Willow's DNA.

"Hey Cordy, what's wrong?" she asked quietly as she sat down next to 
her.

Cordelia sniffled back her tears and scrubbed at her eyes- trying to 
wipe away the evidence of her crying- before uncovering them. She 
put on her smiling mask and said, "Oh, just tired, Willow. That and 
a little headache," she lied smoothly as she stood up and walked over 
to the counter to recover the bagels, a couple of plates and a knife 
to spread the cream cheese. She'd had lots of practice with this 
particular lie and it came out very convincingly.

Willow, however, was an old hand at covering up and denying misery.  
She'd spent most of her teenage life doing it and recognized it right 
away. "Angel and Wesley buy that act?" she asked archly.

Cordelia spun around, nearly losing all the stuff in her hands, a 
denial poised on the tip of her tongue. She saw the clear knowledge 
and understanding on Willow's face and decided not to bother. "Yeah, 
well? they're men. What do you expect?"

Willow waited for an explanation while Cordelia set out breakfast- a 
half dozen bagels and a tub of strawberry cream cheese. She didn't 
say anything as she began to prepare herself a bagel, only now 
realizing just how hungry she was.

Cordelia sat down and watched the redhead spreading the cream cheese 
and asked, "Why'd you run away from Sunnydale?" She began her own 
preparation as she waited to see if Willow would answer.

Willow froze for a moment. Did she really want to share this with 
Cordelia? Did she really care why Cordelia was sobbing only moments 
ago? Resignedly she realized the answer to the latter at least was 
yes. She also knew Cordy wouldn't share without a little quid pro 
quo- even if the former cheerleader probably didn't know what the 
words themselves meant.

"I screwed up. I hurt Dawnie? and Tara left me," Willow 
said. "Goddess, it still hurts just to say that," she whispered.

"So what, Buffy kicked you out?" Cordelia asked, surprised. She 
never imagined Buffy and Willow could end up like that. She couldn't 
believe Buffy could be that much of a bitch. Cordelia knew Willow 
had sacrificed pretty much her whole life to stay in Sunnydale with 
Buffy. Unfortunately, Buffy was too clueless to see that 
sometimes. "How did you hurt Dawn? Why did Tara leave?"

Willow answered with a question of her own, "Uh uh, your turn. Why 
were you crying?"

Cordelia just stared at Willow for several moments. There was a part 
of her that wanted to share this, to commiserate, just to frickin' 
unburden herself of this beast, even if only for a little while. As 
frightened as she was, and as much as she wanted the comfort of 
sharing her pain, she was afraid too of Angel finding out, of him 
trying to somehow take the visions away or something.  

Finally she looked away, mumbling, "The visions. They? hurt." While 
not untrue, that statement didn't nearly cover the enormity of the 
situation. In essence she'd chickened out.

Willow could tell that there was more to it, the pain must be pretty 
awful if it made her cry like that- not tears of physical pain. No, 
those sobs were ones of hopelessness. She knew it because she'd been 
weeping like that herself recently; a lot. She didn't comment on it 
directly, but answered part of Cordelia's question instead. "I cast 
a spell. I made Tara forget an argument we were having."

"Oh," Cordelia said. She thought about it for a moment.

Willow was remembering the events; Tara thought she was doing too 
much magic, that she was using it for everything and anything, that 
Willow was out of control. Then Willow basically told her to shut up 
and let her do what she wanted. She'd been so sure of herself, that 
she could do whatever she wanted without any consequences. So, she'd 
cast a little spell, what's one more? Just a little spell and 
everything was ok again, Tara forgot all about their fight, and 
everything was right with the world.

Cordelia was still mulling it over and asked, "What were you fighting 
about?"

Willow laughed bitterly, "She thought I was using too much magic."

Cordelia was a little stunned by that, "And your response was to snap 
your fingers and make her forget?" She shook her head, "No wonder 
she left."

Willow was shaking her head now, deep in self-recrimination. "Oh no, 
it's much worse than that. Tara somehow figured out what I'd done.  
She called me on it when I was suggesting we cast a forget spell on 
Buffy. She threatened to leave me and I promised to go a week 
without using magic to prove to her that she was more important than 
the magic."

Cordelia could see where this was going. She decided to ask about 
the forget spell on Buffy later, she said, "I'm guessing you didn't 
make it a week."

Willow loathed herself for what she'd done. Not only that she'd done 
it, but that she'd been so convinced of her rightness- she never even 
considered how wrong it was. She imposed her will on others just 
like one of the big-bads they'd fought against for years. She was no 
better than the Master, or the Mayor, or any of them. At least they 
acknowledged that they were evil.

"Not even a day. I cast another forget spell; this time on Buffy and 
Tara. But, of course, something went wrong. All of us lost our 
memories and almost got killed until Xander smashed the crystal I 
used and all of us got our memories back."

"That's when Tara left?" Cordelia asked.

Willow just nodded her head. She had never really sat back and 
strung it all together, but now that she was, she realized how 
amazingly out of control she had been, even before ever going to Rack.

"Is that why Buffy kicked you out?" Cordelia asked.

Willow shook herself and focused back on Cordy. "No, Buffy didn't 
kick me out, I left, but that wasn't why- that was a while ago. I 
got even worse after that."

Cordelia was shocked. This wasn't the same Willow she had grown up 
with.

Willow saw Cordelia's shock, "Yeah, I guess you could say I've 
changed. I pretty much fall on the evil side of the fence now."

Cordelia couldn't conceive of Willow Rosenberg as evil. Her head was 
shaking back and forth involuntarily, "No way? *No way* Willow! You, 
evil? Impossible."

Willow just looked at her with empty eyes. "You don't know, 
Cordelia. I did far worse than that. You know I raised Buffy from 
the dead," she started.

Cordelia interrupted, "How could that be evil?"

"She was in heaven Cordy. I dragged my best friend out of heaven and 
back to hell on earth."

Cordelia tried to interject, "But?"

"Oh, I told myself I was saving her, but that's a lie." Willow kept 
speaking over Cordelia's protests. "It was purely selfish. I wanted 
her back- no matter what it cost. So, I dragged her out of the 
absolute peace of heaven- a reward for her hard life of fighting evil 
at the cost of everything she loved- an then, I left her in her 
coffin."

Cordelia was shaking her head "no" but Willow pressed on, "She had to 
dig herself out. I snatched her out of paradise and stuck her in a 
box under six feet of dirt. Then I had the gall to be upset that she 
didn't thank me for it. You'd think that would have taught me to be 
more careful, to think before I acted, but no. I did all that other 
stuff and drove away my lover, hurt my best friend some more; and 
then I really lost it."

Cordelia couldn't have been more shocked if Willow's head started 
spinning around on her neck. He mouth just gaped open and shut like 
a fish out of water as Willow continued her terrible confession.

"After Tara left, I got lonely, so I figures out how to turn Amy back 
into a person. And, it was easy. I could have done it months, maybe 
even a year ago if I had wanted to- if I had thought about it. But 
no, it wasn't until I was lonely for another witch, someone to 
replace Tara. So I changed her back and we went out partying at the 
bronze. Oh, just for fun we started changing people. We turned 
people into animals, stuck them in cages to dance naked? basically 
had our way with a club full of innocent people just for kicks."  

Willow's self loathing was reaching a peak. "But, that wasn't 
enough, no. Amy knows this warlock- he's like a dealer in black 
magic. We started going to him, casting spells for pure pleasure- 
swimming in black magic like it was a drug- getting high on the power 
and pleasure. I took Dawn with me one night. And, when I was 
swimming in it I accidentally conjured a demon. Or, it followed me 
back or whatever. In any case it chased us down, and I magicked this 
car so that we got away. But then, I wasn't watching where we were 
going, I was too busy laughing at how scared Dawn was, and how cool I 
was for getting away from the demon, that I drove us right into a 
bridge abutment.  

Dawnie broke her arm and cut her head in the crash, and then she got 
attacked by the demon while I was passed out from hitting my head.  
If Buffy hadn't shown up looking for us, it would have killed Dawn.  

By now tears of rage, pain and emotional anguish were pouring down 
Willow's face. "A- and t- then? Buffy still didn't hate me, she just 
said she was mad, and t- that I had to pull myself t- t- together!" 

Cordelia couldn't do anything but watch as Willow broke down, the 
words barely making it out past the sobs.

"So? instead of being g-grateful that she didn't k- kill me right 
there? or at least t- throw me out of her life f- forever?"

"It's like a train wreck" was the thought Cordelia had running 
through her mind. She was horrified by what Willow had gone through- 
much of it her own fault, but nonetheless? She wanted to turn away, 
but couldn't stop herself from asking, "Instead you... you what?"

Willow's sobs tapered off- only because she had cried so much lately 
that she didn't have much left in her. Clearing her throat she 
said, "I screamed at her, accused her of wallowing in self-pity and a 
bunch of other horrible things. Then I slapped her in the face and 
left."

"So now you're, what- wallowing in self-pity yourself instead?" 
Cordelia asked, hoping to get a rise from the devastated witch.

Willow didn't even raise a brow. "I just had to get away. I have no 
idea what I'm going to do now."

Neither woman said anything for a moment.

She didn't really feel any better having revealed everything to 
Cordelia. In fact she felt worse. It was the first time she had 
laid it all out like that. Usually she fixated on either yanking 
Buffy out of heaven, or driving Tara away. Both of those had felt 
like terrible mistakes. Now, looking at her behavior since Buffy's 
death, it felt a lot more like she was an evil person, than a good 
person who had screwed up a few times. Everything she'd done for the 
last year almost had been nothing but selfish. So now, she figured 
the least Cordelia could do was be honest with her. "So what's the 
real deal with your visions?" Willow asked finally. Right after she 
said it, she realized that was selfish too.

Cordelia couldn't bring herself to hold back, not after Willow had 
essentially just gutted herself- emotionally, at least- for 
her. "Uh, well? could you promise me you won't tell Angel?"

Willow frowned, "I'm not sure my promise is worth much these days 
Cordy."

Cordelia begged with her eyes.

Willow shook her head resignedly. "Ok, I promise I won't tell 
Angel." She leaned forward to hear Cordelia's whispered reply.

"Well, I guess human brains aren't strong enough to handle the 
visions," she said evasively.

Willow might be evil, but she wasn't stupid. "How long?" she asked.

"They're not sure. Maybe as much as a year." Cordelia said- fear and 
resolve warring in her voice. She was surprised when Willow started 
laughing.

"I never could compete with you, Cordelia." Willow said when she 
could catch a breath.

Cordelia joined Willow in her laughter.  

Neither mistook the sound as a joyful one.

***