Ahhh ... part 50. I certainly had no idea when I started that this fic would ever get this long - and I >definitely< didn't expect to pound out almost 400 pages. I'm probably going to break that mark before this is all said and done.
However, I'm kinda' happy that it looks like I'll be meeting the goals I set for this fic. Willow and Tara will be back together, and I won't re-iterate my second goal because it's kinda' spoilery. So, roll out the barrel, kittens, because this is part 50. It's like a Golden Update.
Not that there's any gold in it, mind you, but it's the 50th one, so that has to count for something, right?
Anyway, on with the responses, then on with the fic, before I give a speech or something.
**Owl: Thank you ... and increasingly nervous? Gee ... what's to be nervous about? Tara's in Hell chatting with a Hell God, Willow's still an hour away at the train station, and the Scoobies are sitting around having no idea of what to do next. What's to be nervous about?
Oh, wait - that wasn't reassuring, was it?
Thank you very much for the cheer - I loved it, and I like the new harnesses, too.
**Bobos Mom: Willow and Tara reading the phone book together? That, umm ... actually gives me an idea. Heh. But yes, this fic is rapidly drawing to a close ... I have no idea when I'll start the next one, or how 'epic' it will be, but you will see me on this thread again. I might even find time for something resembling a sequel, but that likely wouldn't be nearly as long. I'll probably take a break for awhile, though ... catch up on some fic here that I've been meaning to read, but haven't started so I'd have more writing time.
**ToughGrrl: Well, I'm sure Willow would rather have a nine-fingered Tara than no Tara at all. And Tara would certainly rather lose a finger than lose Willow. As for Willow being the bait to lure Tara into Hell ... who could possibly come up with such an evil and dastardly plan? But, either way, there will definitely be more lovin' in this fic, and it will definitely be of the witchy variety.
**blameburner: *shrug* Tara has an odd brain. That line just kind of ... popped in there. But I'm afraid I'll have to answer those questions at a later time ... but they will be answered. Sorry about the 'killing you' thing ... have you got one of Owl's new harnesses?
Title: Answering Darkness Part 50 – Riding in Cars with Vampires
Author: Sassette
Feedback: Can be sent to
pink_overalls@yahoo.com Summary: Willow heads back to Sunnydale.
Spoiler Warning: Up to and including "Tabula Rasa" in Season 6.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. I'm just borrowing them.
Rating: R – for violence
Notes: For the purpose of this story, all events of Tabula Rasa took place exactly as shown in the series; however, no subsequent episodes will affect this piece. We're splitting from canon here, because I impatiently began writing this before 'Smashed' and 'Wrecked' aired.
WARNING!!!!! This update is kinda’ gory. Consider this your ‘squickiness’ alert. I’d suggest skipping ahead to the part where the dialogue starts if you in any way have a weak stomach.
Answering Darkness - Part 50
Riding in Cars with Vampires
By Sassette
“Willow, you can’t do this,” Wesley said urgently, trying to talk some sense into the girl. Gunn stood uncertainly at his side, unsure of whom to back up.
“I’ll explain in the car,” willow said, leaving Wesley behind as she walked to the exit. Spike just smirked, casting an amused glance at the ex-watcher and picking up Willow’s laptop and bag. He hurried to catch up with her, even as Angel started to follow.
“Angel,” Wesley said, his voice low and pleading. “Please, be reasonable. You know how The Trickster operates. We have to stop Willow.”
Angel shook his head, shrugging away from Wesley’s hand and walking off. “She said she’ll explain in the car. You coming?” he called back.
Gunn looked at Wesley, then shrugged, following Angel and leaving Wesley standing there alone in the middle of an empty train station waiting room.
Wesley looked up briefly at the ceiling, as if seeking some guidance, or perhaps admonishing the Powers That Be for putting him in this situation in the first place. He took a deep breath, ordering his thoughts. He knew better than the others just what the Scooby Gang, as they called themselves, meant to Angel. The brooding vampire played things close to the chest, but Wesley knew. But more importantly, he knew how very hard for Angel it was every time he saw Buffy, and this impromptu visit to Sunnydale would likely result in such a reunion again.
That, more than anything, sent Wesley into motion, running to catch the motley group of demon fighters, jumping into the back seat of Angel’s illegally parked convertible.
“Well, if a Hell God is going to be unleashed upon the Earth, I don’t want to miss it, do I?” Wesley said by way of explanation as everyone in the car looked at him.
“Right,” Angel said with a nod, and just the barest hint of what could be termed a smile. “Buckle up,” he reminded them, everyone but Spike fastening their safety belts as Angel turned the key, pulling the car out of the parking lot and heading to the road.
“Spike, seatbelt,” Angel growled, turning to glare at him.
“Oh, don’t be a bleeding nancy,” Spike scowled. “I’m already dead.”
“The police pull you over for not wearing a seatbelt. It’s the law,” Angel said slowly.
“Oh, fine,” Spike said, hurriedly putting on his seatbelt. Was everyone going to give him grief for everything he did? Willow had sat up front, and Spike had followed, wanting to stick close to the redhead. Really, he was the only one of the bunch who knew Tara, and Spike wanted to stay close to Willow, ready to reassure her if need be.
Somehow, when Angel had shown up, taking over with Willow, Spike had resented it. His mind had called up memories of Willow. The way Willow had let him cry when he had kidnapped her after Dru had left. The way she had encouraged him to try again when he had first found out he couldn’t bite people. Red was all right, he decided.
And he, too, had been there for her. Distraught and unhappy, he had reassured her just how bitable she was, making her feel better about herself. Sure, she had ended up braining him with a lamp and running off, but it was a moment they shared. They had a >history<. It was almost like they were friends.
But Angel had objected, telling Spike to get in the back seat. Luckily, Wesley had arrived just then, jumping into the spot Angel had insisted he take, and he had not brought it up again, just issuing stupid orders about seatbelts, then taking off.
Willow shifted nervously in her seat, opening the thick sheaf of bound papers in her hand and squinting at it, trying to make out the words in the dark. Her laptop rested across her legs, the weight comforting and familiar amidst the strangeness and fear permeating the situation.
‘Angel to the left of me – Spike is on the right, and I’m stuck here in the middle with ou,’ she thought absurdly, cracking a smile as she regarded her laptop fondly. How crazy was all of this? She was surrounded by vampires and it made her feel … safe.
If only Tara were there, it would be perfect. Of course, if Tara were there, then she wouldn’t be there, because there wouldn’t be any reason to be riding around with these men to rescue Tara in the first place. But still – it wouldn’t matter where they were or what they were doing. If only Tara were there, it would be perfect.
Willow shook herself from her thoughts, looking back down at the papers, inwardly cursing the lack of light. Maybe if she turned it on, she could use the screen as a light source so she could read?
Angel glanced over at Willow as he drove, his worry evident on his features. She looked … tired – but more than that. Worn out. Run down. He imagined that plenty had happened since that first call he had gotten from Sunnydale, and most if not all of it must have pushed Willow closer and closer to the ends of her strength. “There’s a flashlight in the glove box,” he said, his words barely audible to Willow as he drove.
Spike looked over at him, then opened the glove box, pulling out the flashlight and switching it on. As casually as he could manage, he held the beam of light as steady as possible, aimint it at the papers in Willow’s hand. “Well, she can’t hold it herself, and you’re driving,” Spike said defensively, his voice raised so he could be heard when Angel looked at him with surprise in his eyes. “I’m no keener on the end of the world than you are. In fact, I seem to recall a time when you tried to end it all, and I helped stop you,” he concluded cheerfully, a smug look crossing his face.
“No fighting over me,” Willow said when Angel growled, gripping the steering wheel tightly at Spike’s words. Then, she froze, her eyes widening. “I don’t mean ‘over me’ fighting over me, in the ‘fighting for Willow’ sense, because that would be silly. But no getting all growly and fighty with me sitting here, because I’m not loving the idea of being in the middle here,” she said in a rush.
Finally, Wesley could no longer contain himself, unbluckling his belt and sitting forward, leaning close to the back of the front seat. “You said you would explain,” he said, practically shouting over the wind. “What do you know?”
“Does the name ‘Tara Maclay’ mean anything to you?” Willow yelled back, half-turning in her seat to regard Wesley with serious eyes.
“Tara Maclay? No, The Trickster was defeated by Fiona Maclay,” Wesley responded. “No one named Tara Maclay was there.”
“Fiona Maclay?” Spike said with a frown, switching the flashlight to the other hand while he fished in his pocket for his cigarettes. “I thought Margaret MacDonald defeated The Trickster?” Wesley looked at him oddly. “What? I’ve been helping. I know what’s going on.”
“No, Margaret was her love, and also a practicing witch. She was there, but Fiona defeated The Trickster. But I still don’t understand how you got a ‘Tara Maclay’ from all of this.”
“Tara Maclay means everything to me,” Willow said, taking a deep breath before finishing her explanation at Wesley’s confused look. “She’s my girlfriend.”
“Oh, Dear Lord,” Wesley said in a wondering tone, his eyes going wide.
“I wonder if they teach them how to say that at Watcher’s School?” Spike whispered to Willow, earning an amused look from the girl. “He sounds just like Giles.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Willow chuckled soundlessly. Wesley had sounded >exactly< like Giles. Then she paused, looking at Spike with a furrowed brow. Was Spike … trying to cheer her up?
“Hey,” Spike said at her serious expression, bumping her shoulder with his gently. “We’ll get your bird back,” he went on, his voice low. “There’s no way she won’t come back to you. We’ll make it right, you’ll see.”
Willow smiled wanly, appreciating Spike’s efforts. Part of her still couldn’t trust Spike, not really. After everything he had done to the Scoobies before he was chipped, and even after, really, she couldn’t let herself really believe in him.
But she could believe in his words. They were right and true. Tara would come back to her – and she would find Tara. She could always find Tara, and she wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Maybe she was kidding herself, maybe there was nothing she could do, but if sheer love and dogged determination could possibly make a difference, then Tara was as good as saved.
“Yo, what’s all that mean?” Gunn asked Wesley in the back seat. “Who’s the Maclay chick?”
“Fiona Maclay defeated The Trickster. Tara Maclay, obviously, must be her descendant. Which means The Trickster needs Willow’s girlfriend to open the Hellmouth and come to Earth,” Wesley said slowly, his brow furrowing as he ordered all the new pieces of information in his thoughts.
“And Willow’s girlfriend’s the one who’s already in Hell?” Gunn asked. “Sounds like a party.”
“Yes, well, if your idea of a party involves Hell opening, Hell Gods escaping, and lots of blood, then yes,” Wesley agreed quietly.
Spike lit his cigarette, the wind threatening to extinguish it completely. He cradled it in his hand carefully as he smoked, blocking the wind with his fingers, the warmth of the lit tip seeping into his dead flesh. Still, he held the flashlight carefully, casting worried glances at Willow occasionally, trying to appear as if he didn’t give a damn.
Truth was, he liked Red. Sometimes. But Tara? Red’s bird had a way of worming her way into anyone’s heart, even a soulless demon like him. She had never treated him badly, and in that way, she reminded him a lot of Joyce. Joyce had been an amazing woman, full of tea and sympathy for him – it was something completely alien to him. He had no frame of reference for anyone being that nice to him, even before he had been turned.
Even during his life he had been ridiculed and laughed at. His un-life had been a bit different, but not much. Angel and Darla had always treated him with something akin to contempt, only Dru truly understanding him. Only Dru had loved him.
And in the end, Dru had left him – for stopping Angel from ending the world. Not that he had done it all himself, but he had helped, and Dru’s reaction to that had been far from favorable. It had always gnawed at him how Angel – Angelus, he corrected silently – had always held such fascination for Dru. It was like when Angelus was there and paying attention to her, he, Spike, ceased to exist.
It had made him wonder, in his more introspective moments, if Dru hadn’t made him to make Angelus jealous to begin with.
Either way, Dru had loved him. He knew that. Perhaps she had grown to love him, as he made himself more and more into the demon she wanted him to be, but whether it happened early on or late in the game didn’t matter. She had loved him.
And he would always be grateful for it.
Maybe it was twisted and wrong to equate Dru’s love to Joyce’s or Tara’s, but he did. To his mind, they were the same. Not that Joyce or Tara loved him – far from it, he speculated. But the way they treated him – like he was a person, with thoughts and feelings he was entitled to instead of a hapless poet or a soulless demon – that was something else to be grateful for.
So for their sake, because Joyce loved all the Scoobies dearly, and because Tara was the one in danger, he would help Red as much as he could. She was likely the only one who could fix this, if he knew anything about prophecies and rituals and all that stuff he had picked up despite himself living with Dru. That was, of course, discounting Buffy as a motivation. He frowned as he took another drag on his cigarette. Was he kidding himself? Just coming up with reason after reason to be nice, when the fact was, he would do anything to get on Buffy’s good side?
He didn’t know, and he didn’t care to know. Sometimes, introspection was just more trouble than it was worth, and it didn’t matter why he did something, did it? No, it didn’t. He’d just keep an eye on Red, and he wouldn’t worry about why.
Willow flipped to the page dealing with the Maclay Demon. Those two words in the table of contents had nearly knocked her over, their impact was so great. As soon as she had seen them, she had known. Tara must have been the one to have defeated The Trickster, and the legend of the Maclay Demon that she had lived with her whole life must have had their source there.
She tried to clamp down on her anger as she silently read, the strange circular pattern of light and darkness that only a flashlight could make slowing her down, but only slightly. The Trickster was responsible for it all. She really didn’t care the few minor hardships she had endured because of him – in fact, he could have done much worse, and she wouldn’t have minded, not really. What happened to her wasn’t important.
But what he had done to Tara … there could be no forgiveness and no mercy for such a thing. She had spent her life living in fear, surrounded by the hatred and vitriol of her father and her brother, because of The Trickster’s curse, with only her mother, who held the same fears and was subjected to the same violence, to stand by her.
No, The Trickster would pay. She didn’t know how, but she knew that he would. She would stop his plans cold, no matter the cost, and when he was defeated, she would laugh.
She turned her attention back to the paper in her hand, wading through the pompous wording and unnecessary imagery. Who wrote like that? Or, more accurately, who wrote like that in an academic paper?
Far from being dry, it honestly read like a Harlequin romance novel, and Willow had to stop herself from turning and looking at Wesley speculatively. The man had either had too much time on his hands, or the Watcher’s Council was a much more disturbing organization than Willow had thought.
She turned back to her reading with a little sigh, bypassing the flowery passages and flights of fancy Wesley had taken, sifting through it all and finding the facts. It was the facts she needed – this paper might even be an entertaining read at another time, in another place.
But not here and not now. Now she needed information, because Tara needed her. And if she couldn’t use her magicks, and knowledge was power, then information was the only thing she could take with her when she marched into Hell.
Because she would.
She had promised Tara that she would always find her. There was no way she was going to let some little thing like a Hellmouth she wasn’t sure she could get through, or Hell itself, which she wasn’t sure she could survive, stop her.
The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.
What was Tara doing now? Was she all right? Lost and alone and scared? Willow shuddered, a chill running down her spine, and she didn’t know if the cold wind surrounding her or the icy fear welling up within her was the cause.
She barely noticed and made no acknowledgement when Spike managed to shrug out of his coat, keeping the flashlight steady, then wrapped it around her fingers. She was too lost in her racing thoughts and the words unfolding before her to make any acknowledgement, but shifted appropriately at the right times so that he could arrange the material around her.
Wesley’s words were somewhat familiar, much of what he had written already found by Giles’ group of friends at the Watcher’s Council, but this was clearer. Obviously, Wesley had had much more time to compile his data, and perhaps his original findings were as scattered and inaccurate as those she had on her laptop.
“Wesley?” she called, looking over her shoulder at him, finally noting that she had Spike’s coat keeping her warm. She looked over quizzically at Spike, who only shrugged and scowled in response, then turned back to the ex-watcher.
“Yes, Willow,” Wesley yelled back.
“Here,” she said, awkwardly handing back her precious laptop. “There’s a file on there called trprophecy. Giles translated some of it, but I don’t know how accurate he was.”
“I’ll take a look,” Wesley said, taking the laptop carefully and opening it, cursing under his breath. Macs. He hated them. He just hoped he didn’t break the thing, or Willow was likely to turn him into a toad.
Willow went back to reading after yet another interruption, trying to focus. She needed to stop these stray thoughts. That last one was likely useful, because it put Wesley to work on their long drive back to Sunnydale, but there wasn’t anything Spike or Gunn could do – and Angel was driving, so he was out. Instead, she needed to read what Wesley had here.
One thing immediately struck her as Willow read. The Betrayer and The Devil seemed to be a mistranslation on the Watchers’ part. Or, rather, Wesley had come up with a subtly different, but undoubtedly more accurate translation. The Demon and The Adulterer.
Willow’s heart clenched as she read their story, the truth behind a legend that, according to Wesley’s work, lived on in that part of the world today.
The Demon, Fiona Maclay, had been a white witch, and a midwife on the island, her family having lived there for generations. Despite how long they had made the island their home, they were considered outsiders, and not above the superstitious whisperings of the townsfolk.
A young minister and his wife moved to the area, to see to the spiritual needs of the people. She was already pregnant with their first child, and she insisted on seeing the midwife, despite his reservations. Still, he loved her, and it was the way of her family, and so he relented.
And so Margaret MacDonald met Fiona Maclay, and they became friends. The townspeople grew more accepting of Fiona, expecting Margaret’s pious influence to sway her from the Old Ways, only to later learn to their horror that the opposite had taken place – Margaret learned the ways of witchcraft, and they became lovers.
It was the second year after they had met that Fiona became aware of strange signs. She studied a book, which Willow assumed had to be the book Spike had told her about, trying to interpret them. To her horror, she realized that a Hell God was preparing to come to the Earth, and she spent many nights in secluded study, trying to find a way to avert this tragedy, for the world would never be the same if The Trickster escaped from Hell.
Margaret tried to help, but the more Fiona learned, the more she withdrew from her lover, afraid for her. She tried to convince Margaret to leave – to take her son and her husband and get off the island, but Margaret refused.
Finally, Fiona had her answer, and after much tears and anguish, Margaret convinced Fiona to tell her how she was going to defeat a God.
When Margaret learned that Fiona was planning upon calling down the dark power of another Hell God – a sworn enemy to The Trickster – Margaret was both furious and terrified. She tried to convince Fiona to seek another answer, but Fiona saw that it was the only way.
Incensed by the machinations of two demons who served The Trickster’s interests – Angel and the Construct, Willow realized – the townsfolk arrested Margaret for witchcraft, blaming her for the ills that had befallen them.
Fiona could not save her lover, because the time had come, and so she went alone to the circle of stones above the village where the barrier between Hell and Earth was weakest.
She was triumphant, but no details about that battle remained, for when she returned to the town, all ability to reason had left her. She was kind and compliant, but her mind had become addled. Her brothers fled the town, taking their sister with her, and no account remained as to where they had gone, though many suspected they left for America.
Margaret’s husband convinced the people to let her go, with the promise that they would leave and never return. They moved to the mainland, where Margaret lived her life with a man she did not love, bearing his children and keeping his house, never to practice witchcraft again.
Willow completed the section, feeling hot tears falling down her face. The words had struck a chord in her. She wasn’t sure Wesley had gotten all the details right, or if perhaps he had just made up and filled in logically where the accounts of the time left holes, but the story sounded familiar, as if it were a forgotten tale told to her in her childhood, only to stumble upon it again as an adult.
She could feel Margaret’s confusion, her anguish, in discovering a forbidden love. On the surface it sounded so cheesy and movie-of-the-week, but she could feel it. And the way Fiona had distanced herself seemed eerily familiar. Hadn’t she and Tara done just that? Hadn’t they both distanced themselves a little, in order to protect the other?
Other thoughts flooded her mind, and with them a wave of guilt. She was the bait. The whole time, she was the bait to lure Tara to The Trickster, and she had fallen in line with his plans again and again.
Was she falling in line with them again now? She didn’t know. There was no answer to that question. But it didn’t feel like she was. Then again, it had never felt like she was before, either.
Still, that was a risk she couldn’t take. Tara was in Hell right now, and it was all her fault.
She cursed herself quietly, using language a nice girl like her had no business knowing, let alone using. Tara was in the gravest of danger, and it was her fault. Everything was her fault, because she should have seen – should have known somehow that she was missing something.
She had assumed. She had made and ass out of herself and Xander. Her dream had told her – she had been asking the wrong questions. It was her own fault that Tara was in trouble, like it was her fault that she and Tara argued, leaving Tara alone at the cultural fair where she couldn’t run and she couldn’t call for help, and she was completely at Glory’s mercy. And Glory had been in her dream.
Thoughts of Glory crossed her mind, and she cursed her, inwardly this time. Even when that bitch was dead, she was causing problems. Between Tara’s horrific visions and the part she had played in the tragic love story written in the pages in front of her – not to mention the entire situation the previous year – Willow half-wanted to bring her back from the dead, just so she could have another go at her.
The anger welled up fierce and strong, as she cried again, bitter tears slipping past her eyelids and trailing down her face. Glory. She hated her. She hated her and The Trickster as she had never hated anything before, and would probably never hate anything again. It galled her that Glory had been both the salvation of the world and the destruction of her happiness in a lifetime she couldn’t remember, but still resonated strongly within her.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Spike said, peering closely at her. She flinched when the light from the flashlight moved to her face, the bright glare striking her eyes.
“Spike, stop it,” Willow said, throwing up her good hand reflexively to block the light and flinching into Angel.
“What’s going on?” Angel asked, taking his eyes off the road to look at Willow, prepared to pull over and take the time to beat Spike to a pulp if need be. Or just stake him. That would probably be faster.
Angel sucked in a breath – a reflexive holdover from the days of his humanity – at the sight before him. A dark crackling energy trailed down from Willow’s eyes, streaking across her cheeks.
“Oh,” Angel said weakly, stepping on the accelerator.
“You’re ummm,” Spike said, gesturing to his own face, a concerned look crossing his features. “You’re all … crackly.”
“I … what?” Willow said, raising a hand to her face, getting a little shock when her fingers touched the thick fluid there. “Oh. Oh!” she said, turning Angel’s rearview mirror so she could see herself. Her eyes seemed darker, though they weren’t shaded to black like she was preparing to cast, and she hoped that was just the poor lighting. But she couldn’t explain away the liquid dark magick on her face where tears should have been.
“What is it?” Wesley asked, feeling the edge of tension in front seat.
“We need to hurry,” Spike said after a moment. “We need to hurry a lot.”
Willow just stared at her reflection, then glanced down at her hands. Those seemed normal. Nothing strange there. Frowning, she slowly peeled back the layers of Spike’s shirt covering the shallow gashes on her arm.
“You don’t want to do that, pet,” Spike said slowly, his own hand reaching out to stop her movements.
“I have to see,” Willow insisted stubbornly.
Spike just looked at her a moment, his eyes raising up to meet Angel’s, for once a fleeting instant of understanding passing between them. Then the moment was gone, and Spike gently withdrew his hand, gamely holding the light on Willow’s arm.
Willow unwrapped the cloth, the skin around the wounds angry and red. It had stopped bleeding at some point, at least, she sincerely hoped it had, because the dark fluid crackling with energy seeped forth sluggishly.
“Her bag,” Spike instructed, turning back to look at Gunn. Gunn nodded, retrieving the bag from where Spike had dropped it at his feet and handing it up.
Without a word, Spike took out the baking soda, raising an eyebrow in question, looking at Willow.
Setting her jaw, her eyes narrowing, Willow nodded tightly. Spike swallowed once, then pressed one hand to her chest, holding her firmly back against the seat, then sprinkled the baking soda on the wound.
Everyone flinched when Willow screamed, her left hand digging into Angel’s arm as he drove, her legs kicking instinctually and her body trying to bend over her wound and take the pain away. Willow’s cry died away, to be replaced by anguished heaving gasps, the bubbling hiss of the baking soda interacting with the dark magick distinct and clearly audible.
Willow risked a look down, her jaw clamped tight, oddly fascinated by the bubbling and popping on her arm.
She gasped and shuddered, then the reaction subsided, leaving a gooey mess there, cooling in the night. Spike left his hand where it was a few moments longer, then Willow nodded again and he moved it, her body finally allowed to slump forward.
As she shook, cradling her arm gingerly, Spike took out one of her shirts and carefully wiped the wound, removing all trace of the goo.
“Again,” Willow gasped out, looking up at him.
“What? No!” Spike said, shaking his head.
“Again,” Willow insisted. “Then wrap it up.”
Shaking his head, Spike pushed her back in the seat, and she braced herself for another round. There was no screaming this time, but everyone in the car winced at the sound of Willow’s painful moans and whimpers.
Her eyes shut tight, her small frame shuddering in her seat, her limbs jerking spasmodically.
“Did you have to do that?” Angel bit out, glaring at Spike.
“This stuff is helping. The dark crackly stuff is killing her,” Spike ground out, looking over at Angel angrily as he carefully rewrapped Willow’s arm.
“I … I think there’s some water, in the bag,” Willow said softly. She thought she had backed a water bottle, but she couldn’t remember, being too distracted by the painful throbbing and burning in her arm.
“Oh, right,” Spike said with a nod, digging around in the bag and pulling forth a bottle. “Here,” he said, handing it over.
Willow shook her head, denying the bottle. “Open it up and put the stuff in,” she said, leveling a look at him when it seemed he would refuse.
“Are you sure?” he asked gently.
Willow just nodded. “It’s … it’s building up fast. I need … I have to be okay … long enough …” Willow trailed off, the unspoken thought that she had to stay alive just long enough to save Tara hanging in the air between them.
Spike looked like he was going to say something, then sighed, nodding again and opening up the bottle.
A strange feeling welled up in Spike – one that he wouldn’t have ever thought he would associate with Willow. Respect rose in him, strong and sudden as he looked at Willow, determined to save her love at any cost.
It was her quiet strength. There was nothing flashy or overly heroic about it – just the dark gritty reality that something had to be done, and that she was the only one to do it.
He started sprinkling in the baking soda, the white powder filtering through the clear liquid, clouding it in a strange pattern. He watched it for a moment, placing his thumbs over the mouth of the bottle and shaking it up, letting the substance mix with the water then started sprinkling some more in.
“What will that do to her?” Wesley asked uneasily from the back seat. He had noticed what the baking soda had done to her arm – how could he have missed it? – and he was worried about what it would do to her if she ingested the stuff.
“It’ll hurt,” Spike said dryly, leveling a disapproving look at Wesley. “A lot.”
“Is … is this really … necessary?” Wesley asked weakly, echoing Angel’s earlier concern.
“Yes,” Willow ground out, taking deep breaths and readying herself.
Spike finished preparing the drink, screwing the nozzle back onto the bottle and handing it over to Willow. “I’d offer you a bullet to bite, but I don’t have one,” he said softly. “And that would interfere with the whole drinking thing.”
Willow offered a wan smile to Spike, taking the bottle and drinking deeply, choking down the gritty liquid. She felt herself start to gag, but forced herself past it, swallowing the liquid and wincing at the pain in her gut. It churned violently, and she spluttered, leaning forward and catching some of the water in her hand, coughing.
Frowning, Spike patted her on the back until she stopped coughing, then helped her sit back up. He reached for the bottle, but Willow shook her head, her resolve face falling over her features.
“Love’s bitch?” Spike asked softly, leaning in so only Willow would hear his words, a small smile turning the corners of his mouth.
“Woman enough to admit it,” Willow agreed with a nod and a sad half-smile.
“Cheers, luv,” Spike whispered, as Willow raised the bottle back to her lips.
at: 4/22/02 12:49:44 am
), everyone does.
at: 4/22/02 10:08:36 am