• Title - Gifts and Curses
• Author name – Vazy
• Rating - PG-13
• Disclaimer - Uh... I guess this fic is sort of angsty, nothing incredibly hard-core though. Contains spoilers for beginning of Season 6.
• Feedback- Feedback is loved oh so much.
• Summary- AU after Wrecked. Willow can't take watching herself destroy her life with her magick addiction and leaves to deal with it. Leaving Tara and the Scoobies to battle the Trio alone.
• My amazing Beta, tazraven. And my L who checked out the original.
• Notes- I am so sorry it's been so long. At first it was the exams which I knew would slow me up but then there was personal issues with a friend, not nice kinda messy and when it happens I end up in no mood to do anything for a long time. Sorry again.
Chapter 3
The months passed with surprising speed without the redhead. Most of the time they didn’t even have a chance to stop and think of her absence. It was a sleuth of bills, social services and Scoobyage. After moving in, Tara and Buffy had gotten jobs in attempts to pay the avalanche of debt that just wasn’t slowing. Neither job was the greatest, but they were making money and keeping their heads above water.
Tara had taken a job at the bookstore in town: it was quiet and didn’t pay well, but it allowed her to read while she worked, which she loved, and kept her mind from becoming idle. An idle mind drifted to a certain place it didn’t want to be. With their combined effort, Tara and Xander stopped Buffy from taking the degrading job at the Doublemeat palace, the first job she could get and do with as little effort as possible. For a while they’d lived on Tara’s pay check. That had been a tough squeeze but they’d managed, before Buffy had gotten a job. Really, it was perfect. She’d become an assistant at the local community centre helping out with the sports that went on there.
The social services had been picking at them for a while, but soon they managed to get them off their backs by showing the responsibility the group held as a single unit. Tara kept the household in order and, in fact, probably kept the group in order, too. Most days they held meetings at the house so that Dawn wouldn’t be left alone and Tara could feed them all.
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Buffy’s birthday was on them all before they knew it; the evening was spent as just the Scoobies. It was quiet in the hope that the normal hell that befell them whenever a party was held anywhere near any of the gang could try to be avoided.
Aladdin jingled along happily in the background. It had been a choice of Anya, who’d recently discovered the delights of Disney, and no one else was particularly watching it except the ex-vengeance demon. Xander and Dawn were playing a fast-paced game of a variation of Uno. The pair seemed to have made up random and whacky rules. Tara sat next to Buffy and they chatted quietly.
“How are you feeling now?” Tara murmured before nudging the slayer with an elbow, something had been off with the slayer for days. Tara planned on getting out of her even if it killed her.
“It’s nothing.” The slayer snapped, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the enormous bowl between them. Tara raised an eyebrow and a crooked smile played across her lips.
“Yeah, nothing has got you all with the grumps, Buff.” Xander added in before triumphantly adding his last cards on the deck. Dawn glared at him before knocking all the cards over the floor. Xander put a hand to his chest in mock horror, this act of utter Xander-ness got Dawn to roll her eyes before reluctantly dropping to the floor to collect the scattered mess of cards. Xander’s eyes followed her for a moment before flicking back to Buffy.
“What’s got you so down Buffster?” He asked a frown furrowing his brow. For a moment Buffy’s face seemed to soften at the sight of her friend’s worries for her, but then she shut the emotion down. It still hurt too much to feel anything for too long.
“It’s nothing I can’t deal with, okay?” She dismissed it again with the wave of a hand.
“Buff, we’ve gotta start asking for help when we need it. Didn’t we learn anything with Will?” As soon as Xander had said this he wished he could pluck it back from the air. Dawn stiffened at the mention of the redhead and for a moment Tara looked heart broken. Buffy simply raised her eyebrow at him, daring him to continue on the path of Willow’s destruction and Buffy’s own problems. All in all, Willow was still a sore spot.
“Open mouth, insert foot.” He joked sheepishly. Even as he said it though he thought of the witch who always seemed to be doing the same thing as he was now. I’ve spent far too much time around her, he had to suppress the sad smile.
“Uh, Presents? Presents are good. All subject change, none of the hassle!” He amended, glancing towards the dining room table which was adorned with brightly wrapped boxes, parcels and a pile of envelopes. Standing, he herded the others in the direction he wanted.
Buffy surveyed the presents, considering which to open first. Before she could make up her mind Dawn shoved a box under her nose, grinning widely.
“Open it, open it!” Slowly Buffy took the box from her and tore the wrapping paper off. The box lid promptly followed the paper. Dawn squealed happily as Buffy took the leather jacket out staring at it in awe.
“How’d you afford this?” Buffy gaped before peeling off her sweater and slipping it on. Dawn shared a look with Tara that Buffy missed as she studied the leather.
“I paid I swear!” Dawn promised, not deeming the fact she’d had to borrow some money off Tara for it.
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Soon there was a mountain of discarded wrapping paper. On the table were the numerous gifts from a platoon of people, including ones from her father, Giles and oddly enough Cordelia. All she had left was one brown paper package and a few letters. Tearing the paper off the package Buffy ripped open the box. Inside was a pair of leather boots. Dawn oh-ed appreciatively as Anya studied them critically.
“Those look expensive!” She noted glancing at the tag on them. Tara noted that Buffy was merely frowning at them.
“Uhm, B-Buffy?” She tapped the slayer on the shoulder.
“I needed new boots.” The blonde muttered before adding “I didn’t think I’d mentioned it to anyone…” Xander looked underneath the footwear in question before retrieving another envelope and handing it over to Buffy in silence. It was quite thick and when split open slips of paper flew out. Grabbing a hold of one Buffy looked at it.
“It’s from Willow.” Tara quickly gathered the rest of the photos for Buffy passing them over without looking at them. Buffy pulled out another sheaf of paper and read it quickly. Sighing she rubbed her eyes.
“What does she say?” Xander probed gently.
“Not much. She says happy Birthday of course. Said I hope I like the present, apparently I mentioned I needed boots in passing. She said she’s still okay and she’s dealing with it. That’s about it though.” Buffy summarised as she glanced down the letter.
“Doesn’t mention where she is?” Dawn asked reaching out for a photo. Flipping it over she glanced at it. Before frowning, Anya looked at the photo with her.
“Why is that bear there again?” She asked bluntly. Buffy flicked through the few photos she held. They all seemed to contain the same bear. They showed the teddy bear in an office, in the supermarket and with high-rise buildings out the window behind it.
“It’s Willow being Willow. She’s always loved stuffed animals.” Xander answered for Buffy brushing his fingers over the surface of the photo. Buffy nodded distractedly she recognised that office.
“Why not send photos of herself?” Dawn asked glancing at the bear sitting on sand with the sea in the background.
“Well she’s either done something to horribly disfigure herself due to magick, I’ve seen it happen, nasty, or just thinks we hate her so much that we wouldn’t want to see her face.” Anya said knowledgably. Tara looked alarmed at the throw-away comment of disfigurement.
“Ahn…” Xander warned. Rolling her eyes she slumped further in her seat. Buffy sat still studying the photo.
“Well, Happy Birthday Buff.” Xander smiled weakly.
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“I don’t know Ahn.” Xander admitted rubbing the back of his head. Anya shot him a glare over the cash register.
“What do you mean you don’t know! It’s our wedding!” She all but screamed. Xander shuffled his feet awkwardly not daring to look at the ex-demon.
“She’s not here and I don’t think I can do this without her.” Another death glare was sent his way, clearly telling him to elaborate on this crack pot theory. Running a hand through his hair in frustration he tried to explain in a way Anya would understand him.
“She’s Willow. I need her there. I’ve known her since we were toddling around and jamming random stuff into our mouths, y’know? She’s always been there for everything. Willow is more family than my folks… And she just needs to be there, okay Ahn?” Xander didn’t make eye contact with his fiancée, he just stared at the fraying laces on his trainers. He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder glancing up he saw that Anya had moved beside him.
“I understand. You love her, not in the same way as me but you love her. Like you love Buffy. And she’s my friend too, I would not want her to miss this important occasion. We can wait… It’s not like we can go ahead with the wedding without the best man anyway.” The last part of Anya’s sentence came out as a grumble but the rest of it was heartfelt. Xander pulled her into a deep hug, his eyes squeezing tightly shut.
“Thanks Ahn.”
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Demons had been coming and going over the three months of Willow’s absence. Nothing severe had happened on the whole supernatural front at all really. The main pain for the Slayer and the Scoobies was the evil trio: Warren, Jonathan and Andrew. They’d blipped up on the radar several times. They hadn’t caused much damage to the actual town of Sunnydale, aside from the havoc that the demons that they summoned caused.
The fact that they’d set themselves up as Buffy’s ‘arch-nemeses’ meant that they were constantly causing trouble for her. So far they’d managed to turn her invisible which had only just been reversed by Tara’s quick thinking and Xander’s love of the gadgets in comic books. They’d also messed around with Buffy’s head several times. First forcing time to speed up, demons to attack her and then making her re-live the time she’d agreed to help Anya at the Magic box over and over again. They’d also sent a demon after her that had sent Buffy into a state of madness. This was once again averted thanks to the Scoobies, but not without being beaten, tied in the basement and nearly killed by the demon that had made Buffy crazy. Once Buffy had come to her senses and saved them, Tara had managed to make the antidote which cured the bout of madness.
The latest scheme that the Scoobies had stumbled into was cameras. The trios had been hiding them everywhere Buffy went. The initial camera had been found by Dawn knocking over a gnome in the front garden. Then Anya had found one in a skull when cleaning.
“I don’t know how the hell we’re meant to stop them,” Buffy scowled poking at the cameras that sat on their dining room table “I mean I have no idea how to use that thing!” Buffy jabbed a finger towards the laptop that Willow had left behind.
“I-I don’t think any of us do, except Dawn. And I don’t think she knows how to hack.” Tara muttered eyeing the laptop in question as if it was a bomb.
“So basically we need Willow?” Xander summarised.
“And we have no idea how to get Willow.” Anya added unhelpfully.
Last edited by vazy on Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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