I decided it was time to give back to the wonderful writers of W/T fanfic. This is my first story and I'm just gonna jump right in. I don't have a beta, so you can blame me if I push one of your bad-grammar pet peeves.
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Title: First Touch
Author: theblew
Email: the_blew@yahoo.com
Ratings: Will fluctuate. There will be violence of the killing vampires/demons nature, adult language, and perhaps some steaminess if you're good. So be prepared for a default of the fic being rated R. I'll warn you when it's NC-17.
Pairing: W/T
Distribution: It's all yours. Just tell me where it's goin'.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon.
Spoilers: Up through season 4.
Summary: The aftermath of what would happen if a certain episode ended a little differently.
Angst: Yes. You know you love it.
Note: Thoughts and flashbacks in italics. This will be mainly Willow-centric in the beginning, but don't worry, Tara will be coming in a few chapters.
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First Touch
Chapter One: Shadows
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It was a windy night but the red, strategically placed strands of loose hair framing Willow's face didn't stir. She never used to take meandering night-time walks alone in Sunnydale, but after what happened years earlier, she was no longer scared of what lurked in the shadows.
I wonder what Buffy's up to these days. I should give her a visit tomorrow at the campus.
She crossed her arms and tucked her hands into the folds of her bent elbows. The trees rustled above her as she soundlessly clomped further down the sidewalk of Main Street and easily avoided bumping into anyone. Other than the angry chatter of the leaves, the town was quiet.
Maybe we can watch a movie... or check out...
Her thoughts were interrupted when the sound of coins pinging onto the pavement made her pause. Oh great. On the ground, mixed with the darkened blurbs of old chewing gum, lay pennies and dimes and quarters... and Rolaids? An elderly woman started to hunch over the fallen treasure beside a waiting bus. It hissed and let out an impatient sigh through its sweating tailpipe. Just when the woman felt her back muscles strain she caught the sight of a street-walker. Willow froze. It was too late. The woman had already spotted her. There was no easy way for Willow to disappear and pretend she had never existed.
If it was two years ago, Willow would never have just stopped and stared as an old woman struggled to pick up fallen change from her coin purse - especially one wearing a home-made 'I heart Gamma' sweatshirt obviously made by the small child with a heavy hand for the purple puffy paint.
If it was two years ago, Willow would have been the first to help the little ol' blue-haired lady out. She'd probably even help pay for her bus fare and prescriptions, to boot! But now...
But now...
"Sorry, I'm really running late," she glanced at her bare wrist, "Sorry!" and hurriedly walked away.
"Harlot!" the old woman rasped.
Willow's mouth dropped open a little, but she kept walking.
One would think she'd get used to the names by then, but it shocked her just the same.
"Slut."
"Hooker."
"Whore."
"Hussy."
"Easy."
Willow started mumbling to herself as the breeze picked up along with the heavy beat of a fast approaching club. "When I get to kill Buffy, I am so gonna kill Buffy."
As she neared the brightly lit sign, "The Bronze" she uncurled her fists, changed her whole tense stature, and transformed into a totally relaxed girl without a care in the world. She walked right past the door, past a suspicious group of guys, and headed to the dead end of a dark alley.
"Oh, shoot!" she exclaimed with a stubborn stomp of a foot when she reached the end of the alley. A loud sigh and a shrug of her shoulders was let out just before she turned around. "Oh!" she sucked in a breath and held her left hand up to her heart, "You guys, scared me!"
Blocking her exit, two large, slick men narrowed their eyes and smiled.
She faked a nervous laugh, "Heh, who knew that the NO OUTLET sign on the brick wall was there for a reason!"
Then they changed.
Their faces shifted.
Bones repositioned with a cracking sound, and skin tightened.
"Well, I guess you guys did?" she shuffled back a few steps.
One stayed in front of the redhead as the other walked the perimeter, circling like dogs. Her eyes were glued to the monsters and her breathing picked up, "Say, you both don''t happen to know where the entrance to the club is, do ya?"
Both vampires took a few steps toward her, the one in front a few feet away and the one in back, a touch away. She shuddered at his sickening groan in her ear. Just then, while the thing before her snarled a toothy grin at what he was witnessing, the other drove his very sharp teeth into the supple smooth flesh of her neck.
Or, well, he tried.
"Huh?" he tried again. His teeth bore down into her skin - through the skin - all the way down, but with no fulfilling results.
The other monster before her frowned, "What the--" Just then, Willow saw the pointy end of a wooden stake penetrate the front of the vampire's seriously outdated silk shirt.
He looked down, realizing what had just happened.
"--Fuck?" A woman behind him replied with an innocent smile.
"Yeah," his yellow eyes bored into Willow's, and then to his partner in crime's right before he burst into dust.
The second vampire behind Willow actually thought the small girl in front of him could work as a shield as the busty brunette before him forced another stake through Willow's chest and into his unbeating heart.
Poof.
"Hey! Watch where you put that thing!!"
"What, it's not like you can feel it, Willow. Chill Out."
"Yeah, well... it's the thought that counts?"
"Whatever. Whaddya say we hit the cemetery and head home?"
"Yeah, sure. You're just lucky all that dust didn't get in my hair." She pouted.
"Well, there's the only thing you can thank that asshole, Rayne, for, I guess."
Willow didn't respond.
***
Faith and Willow would normally walk, talk,and bicker a little more the rest of their rounds before heading back to their shared apartment, but tonight bore silence.
'That asshole, Rayne...' What shall I be for Halloween? Oh, I know!! How about a ghost? Willow mocked herself in her head for perhaps the billionth time the past couple years, Yeah, Willow, that sound's like a great idea! Then you can feel what it's like to die before you never physically feel anything ever again. Oh, and though your body's deceased, you can forget about Heaven. Hell, you can forget about Hell!
When they reached their apartment complex, they both walked up the metal outdoor staircase to the top floor. Only the sound of Faith's heavy footfalls could be heard. Nearing their door, Faith squirmed her hand into the front pocket of her tight denim jeans. The dark material rubbed hard against her skin and produced a mild red hue on her knuckles. With a jangle, she popped out her keys and struggled with the lock. The metal crunched into the slit until it was all the way in. She turned the knob and pushed her shoulder into the hard metal door stuck in its frame. Willow didn't understand why she bothered watching Faith's struggle and walked straight through the dull metal. Once inside the dark apartment, she headed toward her bedroom, noting the messes that cluttered the living room. Living room. Faith finally burst through and shucked off her heavy leather jacket onto a nearby chair. She pulled out her concealed stakes and her favorite knife just when Willow let out a heavy sigh. Faith looked up at her roommate in the moonlight that cascaded through the vertical blinds, which imprisoned them both.
Willow was staring at a pair of crumpled socks on the carpet.
"I promise they don't smell, Will."
Instead of hashing out another argument about the merits of having a clean apartment, Willow just lifted her head towards Faith and gave a tight lipped smile. What's the use? The only company we get is Giles, and this place looks like the White House compared to his dump. Faith just watched wordlessly as Willow turned and silently slipped through an orange tinted wooden door and into her bedroom. Two seconds passed before Willow's head popped out from her door like a human stuffed buck. Faith would have laughed, but the sight was too familiar.
"Hey, Faith?"
"Yeah?"
"I wanted to go see Buffy sometime soon. Could you dial her for me tomorrow?"
"Sure thing, Will." Willow was just about to say her thanks when Faith continued, "Maybe I'll go with you." Willow furrowed her eyebrows and and stepped further out of her room. Now her head and half of her body were visible. Faith caught on quick to Willow's confusion. It was a little confusing since Faith always would take every chance she could to humiliate Buffy, even when Buffy wasn't present. Willow assumed that it was because Faith felt she needed to compete with Buffy since she used to be the Slayer. The funny part was that Buffy, well, this Buffy, didn't even want to open a jar of jam by herself, let alone chop heads off demons. Willow eyed Faith further.
"You know, check out the campus and see if anyone looks suspicious... jump up and down on the quad to see if it still holds up even though it's hollow underneath... Hey, how's Private Penis doing down there, anyhow?" she asked changing the subject.
"Riley?"
"No, Xander."
"I haven't seen him in a while either. And I think he's a Lieutenant or something. I don't know. All those names confuse me. The whole Initiative confuses me." Willow shrugged.
Silence eased between them. The night was overall uneventful - as were the previous. To most it would be a great sign, but others knew better.
"Well, goodnight Faith."
"Yeah, breathe well."
Willow smiled and turned into her bedroom for the rest of the night.
Faith blinked a little more, and then let out a sigh of her own before hanging her coat up in the closet, placing her stakes in a neat row on an end table, and picking her discarded socks up off the floor before heading into her own bedroom.
***
The space inside Willow's square room was mostly vacant. A mattress lay on the floor next to one wall. It had no pillow and was covered with a simple light blue and white quilt tucked under the sides. She laid down using years of practiced balance. Well, maybe she shouldn't call it balance, but it was similar.
As a ghost, Willow quickly realized she had no mass. Anything but light would pass right through her. She found this extremely interesting in her first weeks as an apparition. She tested it whenever she could. Daylight, fluorescent light, moonlight, reflected light- it all got caught on her body. Her clothing and skin could change color in the different sources of light and darkness. Her picture could even be taken. She didn't really enjoy her picture being taken, though. They always turned out, in her own words, "Ooky." But this, too, fascinated her. She made Giles take repeated pictures of her, but after receiving strange looks from the one-hour photo technician and packets upon packets of photos filled with pictures of a blurry young girl, Giles refused to take any more.
The scientist in Willow always wanted to test herself. What other scientists got to study a real live... real dead ghost? And one who's willing to cooperate?
The Initiative. That's who. She had been willing to let them test her for, oh, about four minutes until she walked out of their labs from under the university.
Along the wall opposite her bedroom door was a long window with bookshelves underneath. The shelves were overflowing. Stacks took over the floor and were also piled high up onto the top of the shelves as if they were trying to unify and escape out the window.
There was also a large table along the other wall opposite her bed. On it, there were three identical metallic contraptions. They were lined up all in a row and evenly placed. Each contraption looked like a merge between large microscope and a professional pancake flipping cook, complete with googly eyes. There was a stand with rubber feet with which it stood on and suspended was a small motor in the back with complicated computer microchips, and a series of what seemed to be hundreds of very thin metal plates attached to a moving arm - similar to a human arm holding a spatula.
All three of the apparatuses stood behind books placed before them with the fine metallic plates lost within their pages, much like a shuffled deck of cards. They were flexible but firm. Atop each robot and pointing toward each chair was a microphone.
Willow looked toward her desk and her empty chairs that sat before each instrument, but decided not to do any reading. Her voice-activated page turners were going to go unused for another night. Besides, two of the three books needed to be replaced because she had finished reading them and the other was a poorly written bore. She decided sleep would better soothe her thoughts.
She hasn't really slept in over two years.
She breathes.
She hasn't really physically breathed in over two years.
She moves her lungs anyway.
Among her books was a large collection on meditation. When she first became a ghost she couldn't sleep. She couldn't even get tired.
Ghosts don't get sleepy. Or hungry. Or uncomfortable.
But they do get bored. Dead bored. Especially when they don't even haunt things. Ghosts can get a little crazy too.
After about a week of being a complete spaz from being turned, Willow sought Giles' help. He only wished she had done so at a suitable time. 3:20 AM on a school night wasn't his idea of great timing, but Willow was going insane. He was, of course, willing to help and offered her great assistance for her problems.
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"Giles!" Willow shouted at the bottom of Giles' stairway. "Are you UP THERE!?"
Giles rubbed his foggy eyes not knowing exactly what was going on. "GILES!!!!!"
That got him up. He jumped and ran to the balcony overlooking his sitting room on the first floor of the loft and saw a jittery redhead muttering to herself, pacing back and forth. "Willow? What's going on? What's wrong? Has something happened?"
His barrage of questions went unnoticed as Willow looked up at him with a strange smile.
Now he was truly scared. If not for Willow, then himself. Then came the babble-thon.
"FINALLY! Jeez, Giles. I've been trying to get your attention forever, and ever, and ever, and, well, you get the point. I can't stop. I can't-it won't stop. It just keeps going and going and going and going..." She started banging on an invisible bass drum before her as she marched in circles around his desk. "I hate that pink bunny. Anyone who hates pink bunnies should get an award. A Willow-award. Maybe a medal. Or, I know!! A trophy, with me. Right on top," she started maniacally laughing at the thought, "It can be huge, with a little gold figurine of me. Oh but, you wouldn't be able to touch it. Me. The little statue. It would be a hologram. What ever happened to those, weren't they popular, like, ten years ago?"
"WILLOW!!!!!!"
Giles had made it down the stairs and stood right in front of her, squinting without his glasses on. He had been trying to get her to quit talking, and when she finally stopped, her mouth opened and closed a few times, like the puttering of a lawn motor after being turned off abruptly. He looked into her eyes, and then saw them shift around quickly as she searched for her scattered thoughts.
"I can't. I can't sleep. I can't. I can't do this anymore, Giles." Her eyes fixed onto his and her breath hitched. He stepped closer to her and was about to pull Willow into a hug and then realized he couldn't. His arms stopped mid-motion to hers. It brought her attention and that was when her eyes filled with tears. With a pained soft voice, "Where's my body?" she looked up, every bit the scared little girl.
"I placed it in the Raking crypt for safe keeping." He watched as one of her tears rolled off her cheek to the floor, but faded into nowhere, "It's heavily locked, and has no mystical or demon value inside. I also put up a personalized barrier that will protect and also warn me if someone or something tries to get in."
She sniffed and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. Her tears went away as quickly as they came, but she still had a heavy sadness within her weightless form, "How can I sleep?"
"It's safe, Willow." He looked truthfully into her eyes, "You're safe."
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After that episode, Giles helped Willow to slow down her mind and spirit. He helped her learn to meditate to the point of achieving a faux-sleep. She could do it only for an hour at most when she first started, but even that helped her control herself greatly. She could focus her thoughts, commit her daily activities to memory, and calm her nerves. It also helped her to fight the boredom of being awake non-stop when she was so used to sleeping eight hours every night. After a few months, she was able to train herself so she could sleep a full night.
With normal meditation, her days and nights turned back into days and nights. Separate - not just one long day that lasted weeks.
Lying down on her back, Willow looked straight up to her ceiling. Again, the moonlight came in through her vertical blinds, and the bars shadowing her body started to bend and sway apart in a strong breeze. She could hear the clanking of each long strip of plastic as they scraped together, letting more light into the room in some places and darkness into others. Maybe a storm's coming. She closed her eyes and listened as the tree leaves roared at eachother.
Her breathing slowed. Her stomach raised up and down methodically and after a couple minutes, Willow's mind settled. Her clustered thoughts spread apart. They floated outward and far away with the wind. She thought about her breaths, about her time, about blue hair, and about shadows. She had her own shadow, too. Even if it was something two-dimensional and never tangible, it was a part of her. It was her. She was actually here, and it was proof.
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End Chapter One
Willow as a ghost very interesting I will like to see where this is going. 
So I'll be right there, waiting for your update!
Its so original.I love it.More please.
in a ghostly way?
