Wonderful, as always dear!
Silverna <silvernawolfe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Resolutions Evolution
by Silverna
(silvernawolfe@xxxxxxxxx)
This is a New Years themed drama fic for the Wiffy
board. It is the sequel to the Christmas themed
romantic fic ‘Totally Snowed’. Read that first.
DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own Buffy and
Co. Grizzle, Argh!
RATING: PG13
SPOILERS: Set partway through Season 7. Willow’s back
from England. Spike is souled. The Potentials are on
the scene. Buffy and Willow kissed each other for the
first time at Christmas (in ‘Totally Snowed’) and it
is now New Years Eve. Canon events of Season 7 are
happening simultaneously but differently from on the
show. The Scoobys have already encountered uber-vamp.
B/W
* * *
Willow was trying to make a very important decision.
She pouted at herself in the mirror and leaned in
really close, trying
to see
if there was any
appreciable difference between the Cherry lipstick
adorning her top lip and the Raspberry along the
bottom. Which flavor did Buffy like better? She racked
her brains trying to remember Buffy eating berries of
any kind but all she came up with was a possible
strawberry incident. She pouted again.
"Looking hot!" giggled Dawn from the bathroom doorway.
Willow spun around and mock-glared at her before
anxiously re-scanning her reflection.
"You think?" she asked.
"Ho boy, yes," teased the teenager. "Except that your
lipstick is two different shades, you're definitely
one bitchin' witch."
"Don't swear," said Willow. "You know Buffy goes
ballistic over that."
"Yeah, she's a hypocrite, I know," airily proclaimed
the teen. "Ooh, I like those pants. Are they leather?"
"I wish," sighed Willow. "They're imitation and it's
like being stuck to the couch in summer."
"But Buffy thought
vamp
Willow was way hot, I know,"
laughed Dawn and Willow froze with sudden shock,
staring at the tall brunette in the mirror. Dawn stood
stroking the velvety material of Willow's violet shirt
sleeve, oblivious. "New look," she commented. "Where'd
you get this?"
"I...uh...I..." Willow was at a loss. Finally she
spluttered out, "Y...you know?"
"About you and my darling older tyrant? Sure!" said
Dawn. "I overheard you guys on the phone the other
day. I don't know why you were being all kissy on the
phone when you like, live in the same house. Where
were you calling from anyway?"
"The mall," said Willow absently, staring at the
younger girl in what was still mounting horror. "I
wanted to know if she liked velvet."
"Uhuh," giggled Dawn. "Oh Buffy," she mimicked in a
high voice that was actually nothing like Willow's.
"It's so soft and touchable." Now she made her voice
deep and gravelly, highly unlike the
Buffy-imitation
it was evidently supposed to be. "Just how I like you,
babe."
"We did not say that!" hissed Willow.
"Same dif," said Dawn. "And before you tell me off for
eavesdropping, this is like, the most boring time of
year, and I'm stuck in a house full of girls who are
thinner than me and who won't stop bemoaning their
stupid fates. If you knew how many times I've had to
hear," she mimicked the English girl's accent. "'Oh
Dawn. Come New Years, I pray I shall live to see
another Dawn.' Hardy har har. That isn't even clever.
And now it's New Years Eve and my lameo sister won't
even have a party like normal people. Not even when
we're all gonna die. No fun for us, nope, instead
she's gonna patrol. She's a patrol-freak! And you're
like, Louising her Thelma. And how come patrol is like
a date and not dinner? This is your first official
date, right?"
"Um," said Willow. "Um, yes. Um...you're okay
with
that?"
"You guys getting together?" guessed Dawn. "Of course,
silly. Just not the mean, stingy, lack of a party.
Between you and me, we're breaking out the uh, root
beer, the mome you guys blow this joint. But you two
dating? Sheesh. I mean, you're like my favorite
'friend of my sister' and I..." She risked a shy
glance up at Willow who had turned to face her and was
now looking all tender-eyed. "I think of you as my
friend, y'know. I mean, we hang out WAY more than
Buffy and you do and you're supposedly best friends,
so that makes us, I don't know, bosom buddies or
something."
Willow was grinning now, filled with happiness. This
was Dawnie completely forgiving her for the mad 'let
me taste your green power' display she'd put on months
ago in a fit of grief and rage. They were A-Okay. They
were friends again, fully.
"Yep," she said, offering her thumb for a 'thumb hug'.
"Bosom buddies
forever."
"Yay!" cheered Dawn, returning the thumb hug. "Now
tell me EVERYTHING."
"There isn't anything to tell," hedged Willow, looking
back in the mirror. Really the cherry said 'bite me'
more than the raspberry...
"Yes there is," disagreed Dawn, swinging herself up to
sit on the counter. "Like how did you decide to get it
on? Was there sparkage? Why didn't you get together
before? What about Kennedy? And...and Spike? Is Buffy
gay now? Did you turn her gay? How did you do that?"
"I did not turn her gay," protested Willow, rifling
through the drawer for a third lipstick option. "I
don't think you can even do that."
"But she wasn't gay before," said Dawn. At that,
Willow turned and looked at her. Dawn looked innocent,
her tongue held between her teeth just so. She also
looked sly.
"No," squeaked Willow, really unable to say anything
else.
"Unless she was in denial," suggested the
teen,
swinging her booted heels against the cabinet in a way
that was extremely annoying. "That could explain the
beefcakes and the bad-asses."
"You," said Willow, poking Dawn in the chest now with
some ire, "have been hanging around Faith a little too
long. I hope you haven't been..." she paled. "Oh
Goddess. You haven't, have you? You wouldn't do that
to me? You can NOT have been gossiping about this."
Her hands clutched at Dawn's t-shirt.
"Nope! No way!" Dawn held up her hands and tried to
squirm away from witch-approaching-hysteria. "I
wouldn't do that. I mean, I wouldn't do that with just
anyone. You know me. We teenagers have to talk, it's
healthy. But no way in this world would I..."
"What?" asked Buffy. She was lounging in the bathroom
doorway with her hair all crimped and re-blonded. She
wore a tight-fitting lacy white shirt and equally
tight-fitting soft brown pants. The look was completed
by stra
ppy shoes
and one arched and irate eyebrow.
"Ah!" cried Dawn and escaping past a shell-shocked
Willow, she ducked past her elder sister, who merely
watched her go.
"She um," Willow swallowed. Could she see Buffy's bra
through that shirt? Was it...soft brown material too?
"She um, knows, y'know. About erm, us. Wow, you look,
wow."
"You like?" Buffy smoothed french-manicured hands down
her thighs and looked up at her best friend through
long lashes. "It was on sale. Well, after I smiled all
pretty at the clerk."
"I like," purred Willow, hurriedly settling on cherry
lipstick and fixing her lips. Her eyes kept darting
over to admire Buffy's reflection. "Wait...uh, you're
not mad?"
"That Dawn thinks she knows something?" Buffy rolled
her eyes. "C'mon, Will, what is there to know?"
"Um," Willow looked at reflection-Buffy doubtfully.
"Quite a lot, actually."
"Yeah?" Buffy's arms were folded across
that
distracting chest. "Like what?"
"Um," Willow turned around and tried to read Buffy's
somewhat closed _expression_. Where was the slayer going
with this? "Well, y'know," she began weakly, "The
snow. Christmas! Snow for all! And...and mochas. And
the kiss. And mochas. And..."
"I kiss a lot of people," interrupted Buffy, and her
eyes were hooded.
Willow stared back at her, feeling as though she'd
just been punched in the sternum, hard. The
generalized area of her chest hurt like crazy, and she
couldn't think what to say. "Oh," she finally said.
"Y...you do?"
Buffy looked enigmatic. "Don't you?"
Something harder than the original nerdy Willow had
formed inside the witch over the years and now she
snapped that Willow into place. Much to her relief she
was able to come back with, "Not like that." She took
a step closer to this strange (or maybe not so
strange) version of Buffy and glared at her.
This
was
not fair! She'd put on cherry lipstick for this girl.
"Look, Buffy," she said, and her voice was serious and
thankfully, steady. "That kiss was big. Important. You
already aired all you excuses like three times over
and the thing is," she leaned even closer. "You went
ahead and kissed me anyway."
"I know, Will, believe me, I know." Buffy was
backpedaling, and moving backward into Willow's
lamp-lit room. She moved over to the bed, sat on it,
and crossed her ankles. Looked like she was admiring
her toe-polish. Looked up. "It was a great kiss," she
began. Willow waited weakly from the bathroom doorway.
"But," said Buffy, "It was just a kiss. Like any other
kiss. And although you're my best friend and I love
you..." She trailed off, eyed the ceiling and began
again. "What I mean is, I was making my resolutions
today."
"You do resolutions?" Willow's voice echoed in her own
ears and one hand was behind her, clut
ching
the
doorway to hold herself up. Vaguely she wondered why
she'd never had this conversation about resolutions
with Buffy before. Surely they had...surely they had.
"I realized," said Buffy, now peering earnestly over
at her, perhaps to try and see her better in the dim
light, "that as my current resolution is to save the
world one last time, I, ah, shouldn't be involved with
anyone. Least of all, you."
"One last time?" echoed Willow. The other hand went
behind her to help hold her up. She no longer cared if
Buffy saw that was what she was doing.
"I don't expect to survive," said Buffy, and her voice
was dark. So were her glittering eyes. Slowly,
sinuously, she got to her feet and stalked to the
center of the room, where she held her hands out to
Willow in a silent 'come here and be held' gesture.
"Neither," she said, turning those dark, despairing
eyes onto the witch, "should you."
Willow felt cold all
over.
Buffy was reminding her of
how she had acted right after the slayer had come back
from the grave, and she couldn't believe that Buffy
was actually looking for some kind of make-up hug.
There could be no glossing this over.
"You're not going to die," she lied. Her voice came
out high and desperate. Buffy lowered her arms and
they hung at her sides, looking out of place. The
slayer's voice came out at her soft, mocking.
"No I won't," she agreed. "Because I'm strong.
Invulnerable. And most of all, good. I deserve to win.
It's fair. I always win."
Willow choked in response. Why was Buffy doing this?
To her? Now?
"You on the other hand," Buffy's head titled to one
side, considering. "You're not ah, definitely good.
You're sorta just hanging onto the side of the angels.
With your wings all droopy and clipped."
Willow felt herself sliding down the wall. She
couldn't even try to stop her reaction.
"Y'know,
Will," said Buffy, in her softest voice,
kneeling down to hold the witch in her regard, but not
scooting closer. "If you wanted to...join up with the
bad guys...do a switcharoo at the last minute, or
whatever? Or even now? I wouldn't hold it against you.
Hell, I wouldn't even be that surprised." Her eyes
were simultaneously sad and bitter. "You'd probably
have a better chance."
"I'd never!" gasped Willow, and that was all she could
get out before she dissolved in sobs, keeling over and
bringing her hands up over her head to hide herself
from Buffy. Hide herself from that probing, accusing
gaze.
"Never," said Buffy, "is such a strong word." And
Willow heard the slayer crossing the short distance to
her, and settling down beside her to run her hand
comfortingly up and down her back in soothing motions.
Only it wasn't comforting. To Willow it was
patronizing and burning and she wanted to get away
from Buffy, and
possibly
never have to see her again,
but she didn't want Buffy's questions coming at her as
she escaped. So she stayed still and tried to choke
back the sobs.
"I could come with you," Buffy offered in almost a
whisper, and if it was possible, Willow went still
like a rock. "We could switch sides together," Buffy
clarified, still in the near whisper. Her hand stilled
on Willow's spine. "We could live through it," she
finished. Long minutes passed while they stayed in
this pose, one waiting, one's mind reeling. Finally,
Willow sat up. Her knuckles wiped furiously at her red
eyes and she sniffled. Her voice, when she spoke, was
scratchy and tense with some undefined emotion.
"Since when were you so fired up about living?"
If she'd meant to hurt Buffy, she got the pleasure of
seeing the slayer...smile? Buffy, smiling, kneeling
across from her, was now reaching up to cup her face
in that tender gesture that Willow loved.
Only
now
Willow was hating it, and not far away from hating the
slayer. She flinched away, and Buffy's eyes went all
wide and wounded.
"I thought," said the slayer, "that you'd be happy
I've changed my tune."
"At the expense of everybody else?" almost screamed
Willow. She couldn't help it. This was insane! Buffy
had gone insane!
"What if I go?" asked the slayer in her best
reasonable voice. "What if I switch to survive this
time? What if I said to you that I love you, and need
you, and need you to come over with me? What if that's
what this is all about?"
Willow closed her eyes and wrinkled her brow. When she
opened them again she stared straight into Buffy's
pleading gaze and said, "Then my New Year's resolution
is to get non-lunatic Buffy back and sane."
Buffy grinned at her. "What if I went right now?"
"I'd stop you," said Willow, and as if to prove it,
her right hand shot out and settled snug
ly
around
Buffy's bicep. Her green eyes, red with crying, now
had disturbing black fringes convalescing at the
edges.
"I'm amazed," said Buffy, looking down at the arm in
wonder, "that you can touch me. You're the only one
who can."
"Say what?" said Willow, still clutching, but the
black sparks fading in her confusion.
"It must be because you're such a powerful witch and
possibly there's some sort of mind link between us as
well," went on the slayer. She clarified when Willow
just gaped at her. "Y'know, like that time you entered
my head and kicked me out of my Dawn-killing fantasy.
Also, there is the small factor of me being alive
again, again-oh."
Willow dropped the slayer's arm. She had a bad
feeling. The feeling only got worse as Buffy's face
and form gracefully morphed into that of her dead
girlfriend, Tara McClay. Willow felt all the blood
leave her face and shakes starting throughout
her
body.
"Sweetie?" Tara reached for her but her incorporeal
hand passed right through Willow's chest. "What's
wrong?"
Willow was scooting backwards, putting all her energy
into the effort, and finding wall against her back,
was using it, desperately, to leverage herself up and
into a standing position. "Get away from me," she
cried out, and a translucent blue shield flickered up
briefly between them.
Tara eyed where the magic manifestation had been
uncertainly. "There's no need for that," she said
quietly, her hands out in a placating gesture that
Willow had often seen on her in life. "I'm not going
to hurt you, Willow. I could never hurt you. And
besides, don’t you feel it?"
“Feel what?” gasped Willow, even as she started to
feel what this apparition must be talking about.
Something deep down, deep in the earth where she’d
drawn the shield’s power from was rousing and reaching
up for her as sh
e
expended her magical energy. It was
raw, and rabid, and oh so, so very hungry. And the
power signature radiating off it…she’d never sensed
anything quite so voracious. As it lapped with eager
teeth along her nerves she pulled her own magic back
inside and stuffed it down as hurriedly as she could.
She didn’t want to attract any more attention from
that…thing. “Wh…what is that?” she sobbed out,
wrapping her arms around herself defensively. She felt
violated.
Tara winked. “Me. Your beloved girlfriend.”
"You're not her," hissed Willow, tears running down
her face in a smudge of ruined makeup. "And Buffy
wasn’t B...Buffy. What do you want?"
Tara smiled sweetly. She was glowingly beautiful in
the ethereal lamp-light. "To add you to my
collection," she husked. "Buffy's my favorite of
course, but I'm willing to offer you equal airtime
until I get sick of tormenting your nearest and
dearest into an early grave. Yo
u've been
evil too and
now that you're 'good'," Tara's voice was thick with
mock-concern, "your conscience must plague you." She
continued earnestly, "I can help you with that,
Sweetie. You don't have to hurt anymore. And after
all, it's only the natural way of the earth and the
balance. If you take something out...you need to put
something back."
"Buffy!" cried Willow, as it came to her suddenly that
if Buffy wasn't here with this monstrous thing, she
was somewhere else. And why wasn't she here? "What
have you done to her?" she spat at fake-Tara. She knew
it now to pretty obviously be the First Evil they'd
figured out was coming.
"Not me," said Tara, prettily, easily. "It was Angel.
He called and asked for help."
"Where?" asked Willow, wild-eyed and eyeing the door.
"Nearest graveyard," Tara told her, apparently not
reluctant to part with valuable information. "It
always struck me, dearest, that the cemeteries
of
this
place see more action than the night clubs. Oh sorry.
Night club."
Willow wasn't listening. She was edging towards the
bedroom door, then making a run for it. Much to her
surprise the First didn't follow her, though she
guessed (correctly) that it could flash into being
before her to block her at any given moment. She was
half-falling down the stairs in her haste when she
noticed that the Potentials plus Dawn were huddled in
a big group in the lounge, peering at something in
between them excitedly. One of them (she forgot their
names) was crying noisily, another was comforting and
Faith had her hand on Dawn's shoulder in an almost
proprietary gesture.
"Red!" That was Faith, sensing something big was up
and already on her feet as Willow clattered down the
last of the steps. "Uh, I mean, Willow. What's up?"
And Willow didn't have time for any of them, to answer
their questions, or to help them or be hel
ped.
Instead
she gasped out, "Buffy," and ran past, out the front
door. She heard a commotion behind her but ignored it
as she ran down the street, her longish red hair
whipping at her cheeks as she narrowed her eyes in
concentration and tried for a spell. Without
gut-wrenching grief and dark arts to fuel her magic
she couldn't travel on the air currents as she'd once
achieved, but she could surely speed herself up on the
force of her tenure as a witch and her mind-expanding
concern for Buffy. Little orange flecks of light
licked along her extremities as she muttered and
panted and ran and then her limbs were blurring, at
least to the eyes of a non-supernatural observer, as
her speed increased exponentially. The air felt
different now, solid, warm, and soft like melting
butter. She was cutting through it easily as she ran
with renewed determination. The cemetery wasn't that
far away. And she would make it. She had to.
She
rounded a corner and saw it. The sparks skittered
out as she ducked through a gap made by missing bars
in the fence. She ran, normally now, looking around
desperately, looking to see Buffy and crashed into
someone much taller and seemingly more dense. She
rebounded off and looked up, murder in her eyes, and
then paused. Angel.
"Willow," he gasped, a pained look on his angular face
as he rubbed his stomach where she'd inadvertently
head-butted him. "Quick," he said. "She's over there."
And he offered her one large hand.
Willow stared up at him and it occurred to her that
she should be suspicious. She'd already seen her dead
girlfriend tonight, and Buffy had been dead after all,
twice, and now Angel...he'd died too. A couple of
times. Maybe the First could only appear as something
dead. It was a workable theory. "Show me the scar,"
she said and Angel's familiar stoic _expression_ slipped
a little into familiar
slightly-less-stoic bemusement.
"What?" he asked. "Willow, Buffy needs our help."
"The scar," she insisted.
"Which scar?" he asked, looking at her now like she
was crazy. "I've got a few." He blinked his dark eyes
=== message truncated ===