FIC: Per Omnia Saecula Saeculorum (part 7)

["cdreramius" <mike_mcd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Per Omnia Saecula Saeculorum
Author: Tony McD
Rating: M (15+ for language and adult themes)
Summary: The events and consequences immediately after `Grave'.
Distribution: Anywhere, just keep my name on it. As long as I am
remembered, I will never truly die.
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer nor do I own any
other characters. This is a work of fiction written for your enjoyment.

*-*-*-*-*

Xander was awake before he even knew why. The why became clear an
instant later as Willow's screams echoed in the darkness. Both Xander
and Buffy started hugging and reassuring their friend but it took
Buffy and Xander a few moments to calm Willow enough to stop screaming.

"Ssshhh... It's OK Willow. We're here."

The door to their room burst open to reveal a panicked Dawn and
moments later a shirtless Giles welding a small axe.

"It's just bad dream, that's all. It's just a bad dream." Xander told
them. But it wasn't just a bad dream and everyone knew it. The events
of the past week were real and the damage it had done to them all was
just as real.

Dawn and Giles quietly closed the door, leaving Buffy and Xander to
comfort Willow who muttered horrified whisperings of blood and fire.

There would be little sleep for the three Scoobies that night.

*-*-*-*-*

Cumque venisset ad quendam locum et vellet in eo requiescere post
solis occubitum, tulit de lapidibus, qui iacebant, et supponens capiti
suo dormivit in eodem loco.

(And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night,
because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and
put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.)

*-*-*-*-*

Willow lay wedged between Buffy and Xander, her eyes unfocused while
her mind was focused on one thing only.

Tara.

Willow wanted nothing more than to have Tara back. To see her, to hold
her even just for an instant.

But she knew that she would never see Tara again. Not in this world
and, according to her half-forgotten Jewish upbringing, not in the
next either. The blood of Warren and Rack and nearly the entire world
on her hands meant that Willow would spend the afterlife in a much
darker place than Tara would.

Without Tara, life and the afterlife would be empty, hollow, meaningless.

When Willow looked, she didn't see light, or hope, or comfort.

All she saw was a Tara-less void stretching out into eternity.

*-*-*-*-*

Palpitavit cor meum, dereliquit me virtus mea, et lumen oculorum
meorum, et ipsum non est mecum.

(My heart is troubled, my strength hath left me, and the light of my
eyes themselves is not with me.)

*-*-*-*-*

She was disturbingly passive.

Dawn watched as Willow sat at the kitchen table, slowly and
mechanically eating her meal.

Dawn could see that Xander and Buffy were trying their best to coax
Willow out from where ever she had gone mentally, but Willow remained
in her own little world. Neither of them was pushing the issue to any
great extent at the moment, unsure of what the right course of action
should be.

Or how they should act around her.

Dawn wasn't sure either, a situation made worse by ambivalent feelings
towards Willow. Dawn had counted Willow as one of her closest friends
ever since she had moved to Sunnydale and Dawn mourned Tara's murder
as much as anyone else. But there had been things said and done during
Willow's rampage that Dawn could not forgive easily, if they could be
forgiven at all.

Dawn's perception of those around her and her relationships with them
had undergone a massive change. No longer did she put Willow up on a
pedestal as her role model. Gone were the days when Dawn passively
expected someone, be it Buffy, or Tara, or Willow, to fill the role
left by her mother's death.

And Spike was number one on her `to dust' list for what he did, or at
least tried to do, to Buffy.

Earlier, Giles had attempted to sort out what was happening with
Tara's body. The authorities were trying to get in contact with Tara's
family and refused to speak to him, let alone hand over the slain
Wicca's body. Dawn had a few choice words for her opinion of the
authorities.

The phone rang and Dawn answered it.

"Xander, it's for you." Dawn informed him, waving the phone at him.

"Who is it?"

"Doctor something. I didn't quite catch their last name."

Xander went over and took the phone.

"Hello... speaking... um, I don't know. Is it important?... Alright...
What time?" Xander checked his watch "yeah, I can make it... OK... see
you then... bye." Xander hung up the phone.

"What's up?" Dawn asked.

"The doc wants me to come in."

"Why?"

"Don't know. Probably follow up on my X-rays or something. Hopefully I
can get some more of that stuff they gave me at the hospital `cause
that was some of the good stuff, if you know what I mean."

"How are your ribs this morning?" Giles inquired, entering the kitchen.

"Not too bad. Still hurt like hell, but not as bad as they could have
been, thanks to Buffy's tender loving care." Xander sat down beside
Buffy who blushed a little.

"Gotta look after my friends." Buffy said. Willow had finished her
lunch and was staring down at her hands in her lap. As Buffy took
Willow's plate to the sink, Dawn thought that Willow wouldn't react
even if Giles pulled out an axe and proceeded to cut Willow's head off.

Maybe punishment is what Willow wanted.

"Just let me know when you want me to take you there." Offered Giles.

"Thanks." Xander accepted then looked at his watch. "I better go have
a shower before I go."

Buffy sat back down beside Willow and took the Wicca's hand in her
own, a silent gesture telling Willow that she wasn't alone, forgotten,
or unloved. Watching them, Xander was doubly glad. Glad for Buffy's
help in supporting their best friend, and glad that Buffy was no
longer isolating herself from her fellow Scoobies.

He got up, gently kissed the top of Willow's head, and headed off to
the shower.

*-*-*-*-*

Viditque in somnio scalam stantem super terram et cacumen illius
tangens caelum, angelos quoque Dei ascendentes et descendentes per eam.

(And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top
of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and
descending on it.)

*-*-*-*-*

Laying beside Willow, Buffy had trouble sleeping. When Giles had
returned without Xander he explained that Xander had gone back to his
apartment, ostensibly to attend to some matters there. Both Buffy and
Giles knew that it was Xander seeking some time alone to himself.

Buffy couldn't blame Xander for wanting to be alone for a while; the
last few weeks had been the purest form of hell for everybody.

But as evening became night and midnight came and went, Xander still
hadn't returned and Buffy grew worried. Not so much for his safety
(although she always worried about the safety of her friends) rather
her fear that he wouldn't come back.

Oh, he'd be back tonight or in the morning, of that Buffy was sure.
But what about later? Would, at some point in the not too distant
future, Xander leave her?

The very idea of Xander leaving gave Buffy in a mild panic attack.
Buffy knew she had abandonment issues, especially when it came to the
men in her life. Xander, alone among all the men, had never left her.
Along with Willow, he formed the very bedrock of her life.

And yet she still feared Xander leaving.

In a moment painful clarity, Buffy asked herself why shouldn't he
leave? For his friends? One of which was currently a basket case while
the other...

Being perfectly honest with herself, Buffy had to admit that they;
Willow, Xander, and herself, hadn't exactly been friends for a long
time. The point when they had stopped being friends was hard to pin
down exactly, but somewhere down the line friendship had given way to
routine masked by a thinning veneer of memory, patched up only when
the rusty, broken insides started showing.

One of their biggest problems was that they never truly fixed their
problems.

Buffy wanted to change that. Buffy wanted it to be like it was before...

Before what?

What had happened that so altered their friendship?

When she had first arrived in Sunnydale things were great. Willow and
Xander made her laugh a lot. They did things together; not just Slayer
related stuff, but normal friendship stuff. The three of them were
inseparable.

Until they became separated.

It all started making sense to Buffy now.

Angel had been the first strain on the friendship. Xander's issue with
Angel had been manageable up until Angel had lost his soul. Buffy and
Xander's friendship had taken further hits after Angel's return from
Hell and Buffy heading off to college until it finally crashed and
burned after Spike.

Buffy and Willow's friendship had remained good (although it too had
suffered somewhat with the Scooby Gang's general drift away from each
other) right up until the arrival of Tara on the scene. It wasn't
because Willow had come out as gay (though it did add a slight element
of awkwardness that hadn't previously existed), rather it was the fact
that Buffy was no longer Willow's number one, closest female friend
whom she could relate to. Added to the lingering resentment she felt
towards Willow for pulling her out of heaven, it was little wonder
that their friendship had flat lined.

Then there was the tragedy that was Willow and Xander's friendship.

Ironically it was Buffy's arrival that started the breakdown of their
friendship. Buffy had displaced Xander as Willow's closest confidant
and Willow as the centre of Xander's daily attention. Cordelia, Oz,
and the Fluke saw the friendship put one foot in the grave, only to
have Xander sleeping with Faith put the final nail in the coffin.

And last (and certainly not least) there was Buffy herself. In the
beginning she had tried so hard to be as normal as possible. She
didn't want the Slayer to be the sum total of her life, that she would
be more than just the Slayer. And initially she was pretty successful
in her aim, thanks largely to her bond with her mom and her friends.

But her bond with her friends had weakened and the Scoobies had
drifted apart. When this had started was hard to pin point but it had
progressed so much by the first year of college that Spike had been
able to exploit it with devastating effect.

Then her mom died.

By the time Buffy leapt off the tower, she welcomed death with open arms.

When she crawled out of her grave and into the darkness, Buffy Summers
embraced the darkness that surrounds a Slayer. She had found life in
the light too hard to cope with, too demanding, too lonely. She had
forgotten, indeed had come to resent her greatest asset in living in
the light.

Her friends.

They; Buffy, Willow, and Xander; had only themselves to blame for what
had happened to their friendship.

But there was hope.

Before Warren arrived, she and Xander had taken the first tentative
steps at reconciliation. Had the firestorm caused by Warren not
occurred, it would have been likely that that step would have only
been yet another patch up job. A band aid on a wound that needed major
surgery.

Not now.

Things between her and Willow would probably improve once she and
Willow came to grips with what happened. Helping Willow cope with the
aftermath of what happened would pull the Scoobies together again. No
longer would Buffy isolate herself from her friends. She needed them
and they needed her.

And the greatest potential hope was Willow and Xander.

Something powerful happened between them up there on that hill. How
Xander was able to stop Willow and save the world, Buffy wasn't too
clear on. But the tenderness and love Xander had shown towards Willow
since then boded well for not just for Willow and Xander, but for all
of them.

Buffy closed her eyes as her worry eased a little. There was real hope
in their future.

She was asleep in less than a minute of closing her eyes.

*-*-*-*-*

Et ecce, ego tecum sum et custodiam te, quocumque perrexeris, et
reducam te in terram hanc; nec dimittam te, nisi complevero quae dixi
tibi.

(And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither
thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not
leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.)

*-*-*-*-*






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Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

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