FIC: Afterlife Happens (8a/8) B/W PG

["ivygort" <ivygort@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Afterlife Happens 
Author: Ivy Gort
Spoilers: Up to Afterlife
Email: Ivygort@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Rating:PG
Feedback: Yes, Please! I live on it!
Archive: Please Ask.
Pairing: Buffy and Willow
Previous Parts: http://www.fanfiction.net/profile.php?userid=30044
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I'm just torturing them for you.
Summary: Willow has to deal with the consequences of her actions.
BETA: Ann Marie is the Great Goddess, without her this part would be in shambles. 
Note: I took "liberties" with the Myth of Oirsis, Seth, and Isis.
Lastly, I am no Mad Hamlet. He is my hero.
 
 

 

Afterlife Happens Part Eight

 

 

Without my body holding me together, I feel myself drifting off into the ether-the true definition of damned-in a few minutes I will cease to exist. And it's right, it's justified that I should die a true death, a soul death. I hate myself, I deserve this for pulling Buffy out of heaven, for lyingto my friends, for putting a stain on their souls. 

 

I'm vaguely aware of Osiris as he stands there in front of my friends; he, she? I don't know.. It doesn't matter, nothing will matter to me in just afew moments. I watch as he looks down at his new body. He lifts his hands, wondering at them, the flesh that he had been denied for so long . everything he has wanted for thousands of years made manifest and real. 

 

I feel my soul begin to lose its form, I'm falling apart. My friends are still embraced, unaware of my fate, until Buffy's Slayer sense goes off. I always know when she senses something because she gets really still, like she is now, and she cocks her head to one side as if she's listening.

 

When she sees him, his black hair shining in the late morning light as it comes through the window, she pushes the others out of the way and steps forward ready to meet the challenge. Or so I thought..   

 

"Willow?" She questions slowly, her tear stained face a mask of confusion."No, you aren't Will; I can't feel her in you." Then her eyes desperately search the room . I'm falling apart. I'm leaving; something is pulling on the bits and pieces of my soul, I'm being pulled away from Buffy, away from my family. I'm being swallowed into the cold darkness; my hearing goes, my sight..

 

"Don't leave me alone!" The guttural scream reaches into the empty night that's absorbing me. I can't hear the words so much as see them as sparklingstreaks of white light. They reach out to me; they encompass me in their terrible beauty. She's terrified, beyond words, and as always, I must answer her command, comfort her fears, I must go to the one that I love.  

 

But I don't want to, I don't want to go back, I don't want to fight, I don't want to have to deal with the pain I caused. The cold, the vacuum of nothingness is better than facing the crime of what I did to her. Anything isbetter than facing that, than standing before her and asking for forgiveness. 

 

"God Will, come back to me!" The light from her anguish pierces the night and I know I must try to return, I have to go back and accept whatever punishment awaits.

 

I focus all that I am, all that I could ever be into one tiny point. Some of the emptiness surrounding me retreats and I am back in the bedroom. WhatI see horrifies me; my friends are huddled into a corner, far away from Osiris. My love, though, is oblivious to the threat, she's on her knees before him, her face is stretched in a grotesque mask of insanity. My Athame clutched in both hands before her as her wild eyes stare unseeingly towardsme. The real me, not Osiris.

 

I can see with overlaying patterns, her tears are bright blue lines of light drifting up, trapping me in their net of grief, and then she feeds me strength, with the red of her anger. I am growing stronger with each passing moment . and I can tell that the Dead God knows this . he has yet to reach his full power, so he can't just strike her dead with a thought, he has do it physically. He lifts his arms to kill her.  

 

She is unknowing, unseeing, so caught up in her agony that she is completely unaware of the danger she's in at the moment. 

 

In a desperate bid to stop the God's killing blow I reach out my insubstantial hand to grab his arm . and I am slammed back into my body. I see through my eyes, I hear Buffy's wailing through my ears . I stop the killing blow from descending.

 

Osiris tries to shove me out again, but now that I am aware of his tactic Ihang on with all my might and his attempt fails. I don't understand what has just happened or how disaster was averted. Suddenly I flash on the vague memory from last night, and Giles' words echo in my mind: "He can't control you, it's your vessel, your body, he can't control you without your permission." 

 

Osiris has been the strongest when I have been at my weakest. It's not themagic that's the trigger, it's the pain. He has no claim over me except for what I gave him in the ritual, and what I give him now, through my need to escape, to hide from . myself.  

 

He can only win if I give up.

 

He shoves again, he pushes at me with claws made of words-she doesn't love you-you are damned . and they are . just words. They no longer can wound me, I no longer believe them. I'm not absolutely sure of what the truth is,but one thing I am sure of, is that my love is not only for Buffy, it's for my entire family and it's for me. 

 

I slam the lid viciously down on Osiris. I have no more patience for his games or for close calls; I'll go to England and learn what I must from the Witches that Giles knows, and then he will be gone. 

 

I will be strong. I am strong, and soon Buffy will be strong, too. 

 

The self revelation is all well and good but I have a best friend kneeling before me on the verge of complete collapse, and speaking of collapse . 'was my body always this clumsy and heavy?' I think--folding to my knees in front of Buffy. 

 

I reach out to touch her cold, rigid arm. Sometime during the battle with Osiris she had closed her eyes. I slowly run my hand down her arm to whereshe has the Athame clutched-it's like her hands have been frozen to it-I have pry her fingers off of the knife. I do it carefully, it would be bad if she suddenly thought I was a threat and plunged the 10 inches of steel into my belly.  

 

After I have the knife I feel the others come around us, I put the knife onthe floor and see someone, I don't know who, pick it up. My attention is focused on Buffy; her hands are still so cold that I sandwich them between mine to rub some warmth into them. Her face is so pale it looks like all the blood has drained from her body.  

 

The word shock comes into my fogged mind. My own thoughts are beginning toslow down and I recognize the now familiar feeling of total exhaustion. Iknow I don't have long before I pass out, so I drop her cold hands and reach out to take her thin shoulders in my grasp.

 

"Buffy, I'm here!" I tell her strongly while shaking her. "Come back to me!" I muster the energy to shout and I'm rewarded with her beautiful hazel eyes blinking open. It takes just a second for her to recognize me and thenI'm tackled to floor. I can feel the love pouring out of her, as the color returns to her cheeks, along with her tears.

 

"Don't leave me again!" She's mumbling over and over into my chest. Normally, I would love to be holding her; but the exhaustion is overwhelming me.

 

I try to stroke her hair, I can't lift my arm and it falls to the floor. "I love you." I tell her right before the darkness takes me . again.


TBC in 8b


Bright Blessings,

Ivy


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