Repost: Prisms Blue

["mad-hamlet <Mad-Hamlet@xxxxxxx>" <Mad-Hamlet@xxxxxxx>]

Drain Brameged Inc. Proudly presents,
A Mad-Hamlet Production 
Prisms - Blue

I can't quite recall? I think it was Roosevelt who said 'This is a 
day that will live in infamy.' Or something. But he was talking about 
Pearl Harbour, not this particular Tuesday. 

Up to a point, it was a typical Tuesday. School, homework, a brief 
patrol, though a complete lack of spider-sense anywhere convinced me 
to call it in early, and then back to the dorm for a well deserved 
cup of cocoa...or coffee, anything but tea, maybe watch a few movies 
and then hit the sack. 

While most collage students take such activities for granted I, for 
one, was looking forward to them and practically drooling at the 
prospect. A nice, normal evening for me, The Slayer. Who woulda' 
thunk? 

It was after the movies and the cocoa that she came back home. I 
still wasn't feeling particularly tired at the time, so I was just 
leafing through a magazine that I had picked up from?somewhere. 
Looking at the various models and their newest outfits, reading 
the 'love help letters', laughing at their problems, wishing I had it 
so tough and she just came launching through the door. She'd gone out 
for some Wiccan meeting, I'm still not too clear on the exact goings 
on therein, but I'm pretty sure full moons are important for 
something or other, that night being a full moon one, she'd gone out. 
No...wait, I said that already, didn't I?

I didn't take a look at her when she came, it's not like I was all 
google eyes over her or anything?at the time. So I didn't really look 
up when she came in, just a quick glance in her direction before 
dipping back to some idiot's letter about how his girlfriend didn't 
like to swallow. 

"Heya girlfriend." I said. "How was all the bubble, bubble, cauldron 
toil stuff?"

She shook out her red hair, "That's toil, boil, cauldron bubble, 
Buffy. And we don't use cauldrons as they're very expensive and 
somewhat tacky." 

"So no broomsticks either?" I replied, flipping a page. 

"No, no broomsticks either." By now she was stripping out of her 
clothing and while I did not obviously want to stare at her I was 
watching out of the corner of my eyes. Willow is? was?is?soothing. 
She always had been, even when scared or hurt or?anything. When I was 
in trouble she was there, and when we talked and, I mean when we 
really needed to talk, while it didn't always answer the problems at 
hand or even make any steps in the right direction at times, I always 
felt better for it. 

She carried such possibilities in everything she did. Be it 
appearance, personality or?anything. I loved her for that. I needed 
her for that! It's not like anything in a Slayer's life is incredibly 
stable so I need what I could get, and Willow was one of my rocks. No?
that's not quite it. 

It's like she took after her namesake. A willow tree. With long 
drooping branches that would hang down to the ground creating this 
small area of calm. You could gently push aside the leaves, sit on 
the ground and relax in the shade. 

Cool?I really ought to write that down. 

I should have seen it, I really should have, but she was being 
careful. Her back was turned to me and she already had her favorite 
terrycloth robe in hand and she slipped it on quickly. 

"Gonna take a quick shower, Buff, be right back."

"Sure thing, Wills." I glanced at her face again. The black rings 
under her eyes were really sticking out, even with the lights on she 
looked really gloomy. I entertained, for a minute, the possibility 
that this was really her vampiric dopplge..dopplgeng?copy. 

"Wow." I said. "You do look exhausted." 

Shooting me a quick glance that looked almost panicked, she 
said. "Yeah, well...that's me. Exhausted. I mean really exhausted. 
Wiped out, drained, exhaustion used my face for a boogie board on a 
gravel street." 

And she darted out the door. 

I arched my left eyebrow and clucked my tongue once or twice. "My," I 
said to the empty room. "That was a tad graphic." And went back to 
reading the fascinating letter about a woman who couldn't get her man 
to go down. 

"Honey," I said aloud again, "There's a man on the previous page who 
you have just got to talk too." 

Willow is one of those ?well, not quite a neat freak but definitely 
everything has a place in her mind and she goes to worthwhile effort 
to make sure those things go back in there allotted spots. I eyed her 
fallen clothing and tried to bite down on the impulse to put them 
away for her. 

I was sooo comfortable. Just lying here on the bed, legs kicking in 
the air flipping through the pages of my 'reading material' and 
occasionally stopping to take sniff at this latest perfume or cologne 
on the sample pages. Didn't want to get up. 

But you know how friendship is, sometimes you just get this urge do 
something nice and it doesn't go away and it doesn't go away and so 
on and so forth until you really have no choice but to do it. 

I stood up on the bed, gave a bounce or two and hopped off, not 
giving a hoot if the thump of my landing bothered the folks living 
below us. They never seemed to care if their stereo was too loud so? 

Grumbling slightly at how Willow better pay for the bagels tomorrow I 
crossed the room and picked up her dress. I think it was then, just 
as I had it in my hands that something began bugging me, not my 
spider tingle thingie. Just?an instinctual warning began keening 
behind my eyes. Then I used them. 

Holding the dress out at arms length, I turned it around slowly, 
getting a good look at the material. It was one of Willow's long 
gowns, a deep red in color, that simply hung over her body from the 
straps on the shoulders, not a body hugging bit of clothing, but it 
looked good on her. With her short red hair and green eyes it added 
to the ethereal quality of her appearance. 

Now it would never do that again. The tears began at the hem a long 
one going all the way to where her thigh would have been. There were 
others, one along the 'V' line that ran along down to where, 
originally, it had stopped just above the swell of her breasts. Now 
the cut...or tear...went down all the way to the center of the dress. 
Had Willow been still wearing it and let her hands loose I would have 
been able to see her navel. 

The keening was becoming a full-blown wailing and then that smell hit 
me. Right between the eyes 'AWACK!' It was awful?and I've smelled 
some really bad things. But this was?worse. 

Alright, it was only cigarette smoke and beer, and I remembered those 
smells from the few 'parties' I went too. 

That got my attention right there 'cause I know Willow had been to a 
Wiccan gathering and I had it on pretty good authority that Wiccans 
did not sit down small bars, smokin' Luckies, drinking each other 
under the table and making rude comments about passing men. 

But there was more, something else and I wasn't sure I wanted to know 
what it was. I slowly, I was almost frightened, buried my nose in the 
material and took a tentative sniff. Something stale? 
rotten...something bad. Something really bad. 

At this point it was simple arithmetic.

Willow's Kinda Odd Behavior--Plus--Torn Clothing--Plus--Bad Smells? 

I'll never forget that moment. I know, cliché as hell, but that's the 
way it was. I will never forget it, not in a billion years. Every 
nuance of that time is permanently on 'Freeze Frame' in my mind even 
to this day. 

It was like jumping in freezing water and getting kicked in the 
stomach at the same time. You want to throw up but can't move because 
you can't breathe either. Wanting to scramble out of the water but 
paralyzed by the screaming of your mind. 

In that split second a...a?well?a hell of lot of things tore through 
my mind. I am The Slayer and I take that responsibility very 
seriously. But I take my friends even more so, and I had sworn to 
myself to protect them over and over. Sometimes I slipped up?a few 
occasions it was really close but...but I had always come through in 
the end. Yes, they got hurt but?not like this. Never before like 
this. 

A great? The numbness was swept away by a deep stabbing feeling in my 
gut?for the first time I think I had a certain affinity for all those 
vamps I'd staked. I felt like someone had staked me. 

FAILURE 

I shook my head? "No." I think, looking back on it that was probably 
the loudest whisper in history. 

FAILURE

FAILURE

FAILURE

And then I was running down the halls, screaming her name. 

I've seen movies, y'know, with women recovering from a rape, and in 
the name of drama or some such they're always either curled up on the 
floor sobbing their eyes out or...or maybe scrubbing away at their 
skin under scalding water until they start bleeding. The mental 
picture of Willow doing either lent me strength enough that, if I had 
been facing him again, I would have twisted the Mayor Demon's head 
off like the cap on a tube of toothpaste. 

I literally tore the shower stall door off its hinges. She was 
standing with her back to the water, letting it run through her hair, 
rinsing out the soap. Almost, but not quite, facing me. She opened 
one eye, still keeping her head tilted back. 

"Figured it out, Buffy? Thought you might." 

I could see her?she was naked?right in front of me, naked, not just 
as in without clothing but without soul. I? I always thought 
that...when you're with someone, that you, y'know, love and you lower 
all your defenses and accept that person inside?that's when you're 
most vulnerable...most naked, but it's an openness you want, that you 
crave. 

I never thought what it would be like if someone just?forced you open 
like that. 

The bruises were centered around her breasts and pelvis. Big, ugly 
splotches that marked clearly where heavy hands had mauled her and 
strong fingers buried themselves in her flesh. They must have 
hurt...in this stinging hot water they must have hurt a lot. 

"W...Willow?" 

"It's not really such a big deal, Buffy, I mean?compared to when that 
bookshelf got dropped on me, that hurt a lot more...really it did.... 
I mean...it did when I woke up.... I don't really remember much about 
the bookcase falling and hitting me part, but, y'know that was 
probably 'cause it was hitting me at the time, but when I woke up in 
the hospital, hoo-boy, yeah?little red fire trucks racing across my 
vision. Ouch. Big time." She cracked this awful parody of a half 
smile. 

I took a slow step forward. 

"Willow?" I said again. 

"And it wasn't that scary either. Oh, heck yeah I was scared anybody 
would be?but´...it wasn't scary, scary like when Angelus grabbed me. 
Remember that? He came up behind me and grabbed me and was, y'know, 
full vamp mode, teeth, yellow eyes...the full works, and was 
whispering all those terrible things he liked to do to people 
involving blood and screaming...yeah, that was really scary." 

I took another step forward. She was just facing me now...hands at 
her side, her right hand still holding a bar of soap, and she was 
slowly turning it over and over making lots of suds that were just 
getting rinsed away and down the drain. 

"Willow." I stepped under the water, now she was only a few inches 
away. "Willow, you're babbling." I said very quietly. 

"No, really it wasn't so bad. I mean, those demons you told me about 
when you were working in that café, the ones that took teenagers to 
their dimension and turned `em into slaves? I mean, they made you a 
slave for your entire life and when you were old and no good any more 
they'd bring you back and you'd only have been missing for one day! 
That would have been really bad?I mean...wow...enslaved for a 
lifetime and not being missed...no, that's really bad stuff compared 
to what...to what...to what these...guys..." 

And she collapsed. I grabbed her and eased her down to the tiled 
floor. Her babbling had always been a...defense thing, I guess, but 
it couldn't defend her against this?I couldn't defend her from this 
and it was back. 

FAILURE 

She was crying?sobbing?screaming?she grabbed me, grabbed me and 
pulled me in and I held her, cradled her in my arms while she just 
curled up tighter and tighter. I held her and rocked back and forth. 
Just...being there...because I couldn't be anywhere else and I hadn't 
when she? 

FAILURE 

I ? I started crying myself. For her?for me?for everything. 

"I'll find them, Willow. I'll find them, I promise, and I'll kill 
them. They'll die...you'll be okay, I'll be here for you. We'll find 
them together and you can watch what I do to them...you can offer me 
suggestions." 

She didn't say anything, just kept crying. I couldn't see the tears, 
I couldn't see anything. I was soaked, I was crying, I was tired?the 
Cocoa which had tasted so warm and sweet going down now sat inside me 
like lead. 

"Good...day." Willow croaked. 

"What?" 

"It was ?" She hiccuped. "...it was supposed to be...such a good 
day..." and she broke off into more jagged sobs. 

"Yeah?" I whispered more to myself than her. "It was." 

"N-no..." she gasped out. She grabbed my hand tight. It was like 
everything just stopped right then. 

She was looking at me, looking into me! She wasn't the only naked one 
at that split second. 

"A really good day," she squeaked. "I was?I was going? The ritual. It 
showed me, they showed...my sisters?they showed me...gave me..." 

Sisters? I was confused. The Wiccans...oh...right. 

"What Willow...what did they share with you?" 

"The Truth." She finally sighed. 

"The Truth?" 

"Uh-huh." She nodded. "And...they gave me the strength to...say it. 
Say it to who it belonged to." 

"Shhh? That's not important now, now?now...now I take care of 
you...we...we find those..." 

"No!" She insisted tightening her grip on my hand. "It is 
important...it was important, it was the most important thing in the 
world. My sisters showed me how to say it, what to say? showed me 
that everything I was scared of didn't matter and that...and 
that...no matter what; it would be better. That everything would be 
better." 

Her composure cracked once more and she started to cry again.

"Ooohh, God, Buffy? they killed it?they killed me...oh God oh God oh 
God?." She buried her face in my shoulder and I couldn't do a damn 
thing. Not one?damn?thing. 

I have never hated anyone like I did at that moment. The Master? 
Angelus? The Mayor? Oh, I had hated them...I had to hate them because 
of what they were. Evil. Evil in nature, by their very design they 
were this way. And that, at the very least, gave them something of an 
excuse. 

But this? This was done by people. People I was supposed to protect, 
but they had chosen this way. They had actually had a choice and had 
made it. It wasn't built in, it wasn't part of their 'role' in the 
Universe. They were no more hell born or hell spawned than the girl 
in my arms. There was nothing 'Hellmouthy' about this whatsoever and 
yet they had done something evil. And for that, for that I figured 
all these neat Slayer powers would work wonderfully well. 

"No?no..." I held her tight, trying to ignore the swell of hate in my 
gut. "You're not dead, they didn't kill you...you have your 
truth...always. I won't let them take it away. You'll be fine...I 
swear ...and...and..." It was getting hard to talk, I was crying so 
hard. 

"And when you're ready you can give that Truth to...to...whoever and 
everything will be better."

I didn't know if I was lying or not. I mean, I felt like it was true, 
I believed it. I had to believe it because the idea of losing who and 
what my Willow was?was? 

I could have killed Angel a hundred, hundred times with a smile on my 
face rather than face that. 

"Not that simple." Willow blurted. "It's not...you...you don't 
understand and it's not that...not that...easy...and?" 

"Yes it is!" I sat up and grabbed her face between my hands. She was 
kneeling now on the tiles and I was kneeling in front of her, 
towering over her eye to eye. The hot water was still pouring down on 
us. Anyone could have walked in at that second and gotten a real 
eyeful but I would have laid them out on the spot. 

"Look at me." I insisted. 

"Look at me!" I gave her an eensy tiny shake, till her eyes locked 
with mine. 

"It is that easy." I hissed out between clenched teeth. "It is that 
easy and I'll tango with Spike before I let you go. You're alive, 
hurting, but alive and I will be with you until the hurting stops. I 
will never leave you, you stupid wiccan, I will never, ever leave 
you!" I was really crying now, getting the words out between 
sobs. "You mean too much to me, Willow, and I will never let you go." 

Her eyes were really wide and almost...almost like they used to be, 
though how I could have realized the difference in such a short time 
I'll never know. 

"Promise?" 

I nodded. "Promise." 

She paused and I let her face go and sat back down. She pushed her 
body against mine, seeking another hug which I gave her, wrapping my 
arms around her. We sat like that for a while, in the bathroom, under 
the hot water. Not saying much, not saying anything at all actually; 
for awhile. 

"It hurts, Buffy."

I pulled her closer. 

"I know, Willow," I whispered. "I know."