March 18
“I just don’t understand!”
Willow raged, pacing the Summers’ house as Xander looked on. “Everything was perfect. Every damn time!” Turning eyes that were both heavy black with fury and lost and innocent as they once were, another lifetime ago, she asked, voice harsh and confused, “What happened, Xander? Why can’t I bring her back? It’s been nearly a year, and I can’t do it!”
Rising, Xander gathered her into his arms, quieting her with nonsensical sounds and stroking her hair softly. “I don’t know,” he admitted in his own lost and sad voice when Willow’s tears quieted.
“Maybe,” he started, wondered if it was the right thing to say, and said it anyway. “Maybe she’s just not meant to come back to us, Will. Maybe something’s purposely blocking her return, and it’s not evil.” He gave a bitter chuckle. “For once.”
“But…” she trailed off, looked up at him, quieted. Forced herself to nod. “Maybe.”
Laying her head back on his shoulder, Willow allowed Xander to comfort her, allowed him to convince her that it wasn’t her fault. And that Buffy wasn’t meant to return to them. Return to her.
“I miss her, Xander.” Willow’s voice broke on a sob. “I miss her so much. And her death,” she sighed. “It wasn’t right. She shouldn’t have been the one to die.”
“No,” he agreed, soothed his friend, tried to comfort himself. Neither worked.
“How’s Anya?” Willow asked in a total change of subject, trying to think of another way to bring Buffy back.
“Don’t know,” he shook his head. “She’s not exactly receptive to anything I have to say these days.”
“She’s hurt,” Willow agreed. “Give her time. You still love her?”
“Yeah. More than I thought possible.”
“Then it’ll work out. I know it will.” She pulled away from his shoulder and the comfort he offered. “Trust me.”
“Maybe,” he kissed the top of her head. “I have to talk to her first.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“Ready?” Tara asked as she entered the store. Anya was closing up, counting the till, marking down last minute inventory ideas on the pad of paper she kept next to the register for just that.
“Almost,” she nodded. “What do you think of those Cherokee talisman’s I showed you the other day?”
“As in what do I think for you to have?” Tara laughed, “Anya, you’re a Vengeance Demon. If you need warding against something, the world is in trouble.”
“Vampires,” Anya nodded, putting the deposit in a bag, locking the register drawer in the safe. “Bullets – okay, well they can hurt, but chances are I’ll survive. Beheading.”
“And will these talismans help with that?” Tara asked.
“With humanity?” Anya shook her head, stashed idea pad and sharpened pencil, and took one more glance around the dim store. “No. nothing will but possibly another plague.”
Clearing her throat, Tara brought their topic of conversation back on track. “Then you’re thinking of selling them?”
“Yes. Native American is very big again. Shouldn’t ever have killed them all off,” she told her friend conversationally as she locked the door. She’d briefly debated the necessity of an alarm, but that was just ridiculous in Sunnydale. A waste of money to have an alarm when the cops were clueless and the chances of human breaking and entering slim. Maybe she needed to have the place blessed again. That might work.
“They had serious magick, too. Knew the land, the different spirits that went with it. Could talk to them, too.”
“Yes,” Tara agreed. “They were powerful. But these items, are they real? Or are they reproductions to boost profit?”
“Both. Well, they’re real items to boost profit,” Anya grinned as they stopped for pizza.
“As long as they’re real and they work,” Tara said as they waited for their order. “Did Faith,” she changed the subject as they got soda to go with the pizza, “Tell you anything else about Connor?”
“Other than he’s in Quar-toth with the madman?” Anya shook her head as they climbed back in the car. “No. And I refuse to say this in front of the emotionally unstable slayer and her pissed vampire lover, if he survives that dimension, he can survive anything.”
“Poor Connor,” she sighed, hatred for Holtz welling within her, sympathetic pity for Angel. “He’s so sweet and innocent. I sensed something great in his aura.”
Anya pulled off the main road and towards the outskirts of town. “He’ll be scarred, Tara. No longer innocent. Maybe as crazy at that Holtz guy.”
“Now see?” Tara grumbled as they pulled to the mansion. “You should’ve Vengeanced Holtz.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“I want her dead,” Warren muttered as the trio walked down the street, ostensibly looking for something new to do.
They were running.
They’d managed to piss Faith off royally, and she wasn’t playing any more. Jonathon was scared. Not in the we’re screwed way, but in the ‘I know things I wish I hadn’t way.’ He knew Angel. He knew of Buffy and Angel. Knew that Buffy – whom he adored and mourned – loved Angel with everything in her. It was plain for all to see, except he seemed to be the only one of their threesome – not the right wording there – to have ever seen them.
Angel’s kid was gone. And while he didn’t even know vampires could have kids, he knew what it meant to Angel. In the abstract, possibly, but to have something that one didn’t think one could ever have – a child in Angel’s case, respectability and responsibility in Jonathon’s case – was something to grasp with both hands.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about Warren’s newest plan. In fact, Jonathon thought as they turned the corner to the slayer’s abode, he wasn’t sure about a lot of things lately.
His life was filled with a lot of why’s, anymore.
“There’s the place,” Warren whispered, watching through the bracken and broken windows. “What a dump.”
“Actually,” Andrew whispered, “I think Frank Lloyd Wright designed it.”
“Shut up,” Warren snapped, ignoring his companions and watching the house. “Faith’s home,” he smirked. “We can get her now.”
“Get her,” Jonathon asked, “And do what with her?”
“Just keep her until we’re finished with our goals,” he assured them.
“And what are the rest of our goals?”
“First Sunnydale,” Warren intoned, “Then the world.”
“Maybe we should start with California. Think Schwarzenegger would let us?” Andrew asked, hopefully.
Jonathon nudged him in annoyance. He didn’t want to do this. He really didn’t. But these were his…friends. And they were the only ones to accept him. Besides Buffy. But he didn’t like to think on that. Whenever he did, he felt guilty, a betrayer. Faith was right. This wasn’t what Buffy had saved his life for. This wasn’t why she’d scaled – it was so cool – the building in their old high school. It wasn’t why she’d risked her life – again – to save his.
“Let’s go,” Warren commanded, and led the way to the back entrance, through the ruined garden, passed the broken fountain, and straight into a barrier.
“Fuck!” Warren hissed, holding his tingling nose.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jonathon said, frantic and pulling on Andrew and Warren’s arms. “If she hears us, we’re screwed.”
Back on the street, Warren still cursing, Andrew asked, “What was that?”
“If you were the slayer, and had a bunch of demons after you, then wouldn’t you have a force field up to protect you?” Jonathon nodded. “It makes sense,” he continued, somewhat relieved. “But,” he added when Warren glared at him. “I suppose I can see if there’s a way to get it down.”
“Do it,” Warren growled, “I’ll meet you back at the hideout soon. I have something to do.”
Warren turned left when Andrew and Jonathon turned right, and kept going. Watching him disappear into the Sunnydale night, Jonathon turned back to his fellow geek. What had he been reduced to? This? Once upon a time he’d had the chance to do something, to help Buffy and her friends, to be a part of the Scoobs. To save the world.
“I’m such a loser,” he mumbled.
Andrew, who hadn’t heard, asked, “Why would Faith have a force field up? I mean sure, she’s the slayer, but demons can’t come in unless invited.”
“That’s only for vamps, idiot,” Jonathon snapped. “Anyone else can enter – demons, humans. Us. She’s smart in doing this.”
“But Warren wanted to get her!” Andrew whined.
“Shhh,” Jonathon hissed, smacking the back of Andrew’s head. “You want everyone to hear that?”
“Don’t hit me,” Andrew hissed back, but his voice was quieter now. “Can you really bring the force field down, Mr. Smartass?”
“Of course,” Jonathon boasted. But if Willow had done the magick, or her girlfriend, he wasn’t so sure. Those two were pretty powerful, had access to more of just about everything than he had; more than he’d ever imagined.
“I wonder where Warren went,” Andrew sighed, looking over his shoulder in the vague direction Warren had disappeared in.
“Come on,” Jonathon said and they went to read their books.
~~~~~~~~~~
Doubling back, eyes hot with anger and hatred, Warren once more crept up to the slayer’s house. He didn’t know anything about it, other than she and her vampire were staying here, nor why she’d have a damn force field up. His nose still throbbed.
Drawing the gun from under his shirt, Warren crouched down and waited. Eventually, either she’d leave for patrol, or whoever put up that fucking force field would be by. And they’d have to take it down to enter, after all.
~~~~~~~~~~
The bottle of wine was gone, and joined its sister bottle. Anya was right, Faith thought as she watched the night sky. Alcohol helped.
Their evening was nice. Pizza, company, strip poker – Tara’s reaction was priceless, but who’d have guessed she’d con everyone on that. Giles, while not condoning their version of poker, had helped Spike finish off a bottle of single-malt and played, anyway. Now, Spike was doing the last of the patrol, snickering all the while that he was slaying while the slayer was drunk off her ass.
“I’m not drunk,” she mumbled, sighed. “Unfortunately.”
But her companions were. Or just enough to pass out. Strong slayer constitutional and all that.
It wasn’t yet midnight, either.
Just then he returned, entering their home easily, cocky swagger to the fore. “Miss me, luv?”
Smiling, Faith toasted him. “Unbearably.”
“How’d the party go?” he asked, kissing her hello. Letting the kiss deepen to taste her heat and spice, the layer of vulnerability underneath. The underlying sadness.
“We toasted Connor,” she sighed, tears in her voice. “Dawn, too. And Buffy. Multiple toasts.”
“Good,” he whispered, cleared his throat. Forced that emotion away.
He kissed her again, hoping the familiarity and passion between them would ease the tightness in his chest. Hoped it’d make him forget the look in Angel’s eyes when they’d failed. God, they’d failed.
Giles was still looking, unwilling – or possibly unable – to give up. He’d taken a small break tonight, and, from what Spike witnessed, had drowned his sorrows much the same as everyone else. Connor’s kidnapping and their failed rescue had hit them all hard. Failure. That’s what it was. Failure.
“Heard from Angel?” Faith asked as she pulled away, leading him to their room.
“Yeah. He’s…” Spike paused, ran a hand through her hair. Shaking his head, he sighed. “He’s not doing well, Faith. I think he’s about to lose it. He said,” again he paused, wondered how much to reveal. Deciding Faith needed to know, if only to keep her own spirits up, he told her.
“He said he thought Lilah was trying to bring Buffy back.”
Jerking back, she demanded, “What? Are you sure? Spike,” she grabbed his shirt, hauled him up. “You damn well better be lying.”
“No, not about this. He’s freaked. Lost. With Connor…gone,” Spike blinked back the emotion that once more welled within him, threatened to explode. “I’m worried for the poof, and if you repeat a word of that, I’ll kill you and bury the body where no one – not even scientific idiots in Sunnydale – can find it.”
“Never,” Faith vowed. “But I swear to kill Lilah next chance I get.”
“Angel’s already beat you to that, luv.”
~~~~~~~~~~
It was still several hours before dawn when Faith wandered into the Great Room. Tired, achy, maybe just a little – barely a smidge – hung over. Though she’d never tell Spike that. But she couldn’t sleep.
Since Spike’s revelation about Buffy…or the possibility of Buffy being alive, Faith hadn’t been able to think of anything else. Her dreams were plagued with Buffy, the alive -I-like-you version. Not the I’m-going-to-kill-you version.
And now, she needed to know. How it was possible. Why the Powers would allow that. And why, her sister slayer, hadn’t known.
“Giles,” she murmured, shaking him awake, “Up and at’em. I have a watcherly question for you.”
“Faith,” Giles cracked an eye open. “If you insist on asking me scholarly things before offering me a cup of coffee, I’m afraid I’ll have to kill you.”
Snorting, “That’s the second threat I’ve had tonight,” she smirked. “I’ll start the coffee. You shower.”
Heading for the kitchen, Faith clicked on the coffeepot, wandered to the French doors. The sun was a faint hint of pink on the horizon, still a ways off. Spinning at the noise behind her, she relaxed when Tara sat on a stool.
“Startled me,” Faith admitted. “What’re you doing up?”
“Hear you and Giles speaking,” she yawned. “Got any water? Aspirin? A sledge hammer to permanently maim me?”
“Coffee’s on.”
“Almost good enough.”
A crash from outside startled them. Another noise, and Faith moved to check it out. Slowly, kitchen knife in hand, she stepped out, cursing her lack of stake. The bullet caught her off guard, whizzing by and bouncing off the force field behind her. Directly into her chest.
“What the fuck?” she demanded, but all that came out was, “whaaaaafuu.”
Tara raced for the courtyard, screaming for Spike, Giles, anyone. The second bullet caught her in the belly. And as pain exploded through her, she looked up to see Warren standing there, smug.
Spike raced out, Tara saw, blinked, felt the hard ground beneath her and a softness she didn’t expect. Anya. Anya was holding her. Tara glanced back at Warren who now looked terrified.
“Faith!” Spike screamed, kneeling beside his woman. Holding her close, whispered to her. “Faith, hang on, luv. Don’t leave me, it’ll be okay. You’re the slayer for Christ’s sake. You’ll be fine.”
“I called the ambulance,” Giles said, clothing askew in his rush from the bathroom to here. Shock, horror settled in his eyes as he knelt beside Tara, helping Anya stem the flow of blood from her stomach. “Faith?” he demanded.
“You’ll be fine,” Spike continued as if he hadn’t heard, and probably hadn’t. ‘Baby, you’ll be fine.”
“Spike,” Faith said, clearly, definitely. “Lov...”
“Faith,” he repeated, rocking her dead body. He knew that, knew she was dead, knew as surely as he knew sunrise wasn’t that far off. He wasn’t going to accept it. Couldn’t.
He was still there minutes later when the EMTs arrived, when Giles pushed them away from the grief-crazed vampire, when he promised to bring the body to the morgue, knowing he wouldn’t.
“Spike,” Giles said gently, tears in his eyes, on his cheeks. “Bring her inside. The sun’s about to rise.”
Yellow eyes met his, and Giles wasn’t surprised. “Warren,” he snarled, gently lifting her and doing as Giles requested, though if he’d actually heard the command or not, Giles didn’t know.
“Yes,” Giles nodded. “Warren.”
Kissing her forehead, Spike absently wiped the tears off his cheeks, smearing them with Faith’s blood. “I love you,” he admitted to the slayer, smoothed her hair off her face, and left.
“Warren, you bloody bastard,” Giles said aloud. “You’re a dead man.”
Picking up his cell again, he called Willow and Xander. They needed to know what was going on, even if they weren’t aware he was even in the states, let alone Sunnydale, he had to tell them.
~~~~~~~~~~
Willow only heard, “Warren shot Tara.”
While Spike was destroying the hideout Jonathon and Andrew cowered in, killing both boys in turn, Willow was tracking Warren. She’d gone more than a little mad, pushing Xander away when he’d offered to drive her to the hospital. Screaming to the gods her rage and despair.
So while Spike was taking his anger and grief out on the other two, Willow was draining all the magickal knowledge she could. The self-imposed locks on that side of herself snapped open with little more than a nudge, shuddering something deep within her that rejoiced at being set free.
As Spike destroyed the lab, the books, the papers, the comics and videos and electronics around the dead bodies of Andrew and Jonathon, Willow was screaming her way through the dawn light.
She’d tracked Warren to an old factory. Ironically enough, it was one she was quite familiar with. She’d been held hostage here, had kissed Xander here, and had lost Oz here.
And while Willow tracked Warren, Xander frantically drove the streets of Sunnydale looking for his friend. And Spike dropped through the sewers, heading for the last of the trio. A quick stop at Willy’s for information – there was a rumor that a magickal blowout was taking place on the other side of town, the industrial side – and he was racing for it. If that wasn’t Willow, he’d sell his leather coat.
While Spike was running in a blind, blood-haze filled rage, and Willow was systematically killing Warren, and Xander was driving around trying to find her, Giles and Anya sat in the hospital lobby and waited for news on Tara. She wasn’t bad, the doctors assured them, would be fine after a couple hours surgery.
Should no complications arise.
She’d beaten him there. The bloody bitch had beaten him to Warren. But he wasn’t dead. Not yet. With a cry of anguish, a snarl of berserker fury, Spike leapt between Willow and Warren. Warren, who was tied to the wall, silently sobbing through a mouth sewn closed, and Willow was flew backwards, unprepared for Spike.
“He’s mine,” Willow snarled, eyes black, hair black, her skin cracking from the overload, the air around her shimmering with power. Hard, black power.
“Don’t think so, Red,” he said, voice flat, unemotional, and powerful himself.
It occurred to Willow, just before she attacked, and not that she cared, that she’d never seen Spike like that. He was passionate, always emotional, hot and greedy, not cold and calculating.
But then she attacked, and what did it matter what he was?
It was far from an even match. Oh, in strength Spike had her beat over and again. But Willow used the darkest of magicks, the blackest of spells. Only by surviving over a hundred years did Spike manage to dodge fireballs, binding spells, and falling debris. He got in good shots, but Willow got in more.
His rage was his ally. By using it, by balling it all into one hard core, solid, unmovable hatred, he survived. Barely.
It was a lucky shot. The pole was there, just there sticking out from the wall filthy and bent. It was enough. It was more than enough. A quick physical shove, hard sure, and poof. Death.
But Willow’s death wasn’t instant; it wasn’t the quick death of a stake through the heart, not. It was the slow agony of a metal pike in the lung, maybe grazing the heart.
Spike stared down at her, impassive. Without a word, he turned, looked at Warren, and twisted his neck. He expected the chip-implanted consciousness to harm him, send spears of agony through his head because he’d killed a human, though how it knew human vs. demon he never did figure out.
But there was nothing. Or maybe it was the numbness of his heart that prevented him from feeling any other pain.
“What did you do, you undead bastard?” Xander shouted, racing into the factory from the bright and warm day. He had a stake, raised in trembling hands. His face was grief ravaged, twisted in anger.
Spike caught him as Xander brought the stake down, caught him round the throat and looked at him with blank eyes.
Xander shivered, wondering what it was about the silence, about the eerie emptiness in Spike’s normally expressive blue eyes that scared him more than anything he’d met in the last six and a half years.
His brow was ridged, eyes that freaky color of the insane, out for his blood vampire. He was dead. Xander knew that. He was dead no matter that Spike had helped them for the past three years – maybe two, did that year he returned to Sunnydale really count? No matter that he was sleeping with Faith, that he had a damned chip in his head that said he couldn’t kill humans. Xander was going to die by Spike’s hand.
Placing his other hand over Xander’s face, Spike shoved. Watching for a moment as Xander fell to the ground, stunned. Any other time – any other Spike – would have laughed at the look on Xander’s face, stunned, shocked, a little dumbfounded.
“Everything I care about is gone.” He said, but Xander wasn’t sure if he was speaking to himself or Xander. “She’s dead.”
Spike didn’t want to be alone, not because he feared it, but because he needed to be needed. Dru, Dawn, Buffy even. Faith. Especially Faith. Now, with no one left, he was lost.
Xander laid there, sprawled on the floor of the burnt out factory he’d once kissed Willow in, and watched Spike walk further and further away. Up the stairs, “Hey! You sick bastard! Too chicken to kill me? Too weak to do it? That chip in your head make you a neutered puppy?"
“I’m not going to kill you, Xander,” Spike’s voice floated back to him. “You don’t want to be alone. You think that in death you’ll be with those you love. And that,” the voice was fading, but Xander could still hear him clearly enough. “Is the best sentence I could give. Much better than death. Much more permanent.”
Xander listened to the silence, screamed into it, how did Spike know that? How did he even know that? It was his greatest fear – to be alone. No one left to protect, no one to look to him for comfort and support. Spike leaving Xander alive…was, indeed, the most horrific sentence.
“Xander…”
Jerking up, Xander dropped the stake to the ground with a clatter that echoed in the charred room. “Willow,” he murmured, racing to where she still stood, impaled. Taking her as carefully from the wall as he could, wincing as she did, hands bloody with her blood, heart breaking just a little bit more.
“Xander…did I do it? Did I bring Buffy back?”
Sinking to the ground with her in his arms, Xander felt a tear splash down his cheek. “No, Will,” he brushed hair, black and red now, off her forehead. “No, we didn’t.”
“Xander?”
“I’m here Wills. Hang on; we’ll get you a doctor, and you’ll be good as new.”
She laughed darkly, coughs up blood. “Yes. here. Why?”
God, she was dying, oh, please, God, why? Why her? Why not him instead? “Hey,” he said, choked on a sob, tried for light and failed miserably. “Where else would I be but with my best bud?”
A cold smile lighted her face, and she slowly focused on him. “Always hanging on the fringes of everyone’s life, aren’t you. Using everyone you know. Using us up, until we’re no longer useful.”
Willow’s pained whisper cut through the thick silence of the room, and through Xander’s heart. “You’ve obsessed over Buffy since you laid eyes on her.” Another cough, her eyes closed, but her voice was still strong. “I loved you for most of your life, but you couldn’t or wouldn’t see it until you thought I was out of reach. Oz…do you remember, Xander? Here, in this factory…” her eyes opened again, didn’t look around but right at him. “Do you remember? Do you remember when you learned, once and for all, that Buffy wouldn’t have anything to do with you? Whether Angel was around or not, she didn’t want you.”
A spasm shuddered through her, more blood dripped from her mouth, and her voice was fading. “Typical selfishness…you destroyed my happiness.”
“No,” Xander shook his head, shocked, appalled. “It wasn’t like that.”
Eyes closed once more, a faint smirk crossed her bloodied lips. “No? Suddenly developed a raging passion for me…? The moment I had someone I loved…who loved me…turned me from a fawning tag.”
“Willow,” he said, desperate, wondering why. Why so many things. “Please…”
Voice barely audible now, Xander wondered where she got the strength to continue. Wondered how long she’d built this up. “You’re poison. Never satisfied…until their life is as shitty as yours. But Buffy,” her voice changed. “She escaped you didn’t she…”
A grimace of pain spread across her face, but her eyes were blank. “Maybe you’re right…maybe you actually grew a set where Buffy was concerned.”
Something flickered across her face, a look Xander wasn’t sure how he could have missed before. Love, loss, hate, bitterness. Xander was stunned. “Oh, God,” he breathed out, “No…”
A cold laugh, harsh, and still fading as he held her in his arms. His closest, dearest friend. The one who knew him the best. Who he thought he knew… “God, no, how could I have missed it? Wills?”
His tone was almost childlike as he said his name. A plea…a plea not to destroy anymore of his certainties, anymore of his childhood beliefs, despite the hardness of life these past years. “How could I have missed it? How did I not see this? You were in love with Buffy…”
A spurt of strength, and she stared cold and loathing as she met his eyes. “Easily, Xander. You never see anyth…unless it directly affects you…knocks you out of your selfish preoccupation…endless career of making yourself indispensable…fetching and getting snacks.”
Her laugh was a little hysterical, and despite the cruel words, Xander didn’t want her to die. She was going to, and he knew that.
“What bothers you most? That I loved her too? ...of the two of us I probably had a better chance?”
“Oh, Will,” he sighed, brushed at her hair again, unable to let her go. Holding on to her, even harder now, desperate to save her though he already knew…. “Why didn’t you ever say anything? Did you think it would change how I felt about you?”
With a shove, she pushed him away rolled onto her side. Coughed yet more blood, could feel her heart weakening. Loss of blood. Loss of life. And she wasn’t sure she cared. Not any more. If she was dead, she could be with Buffy. Wasn’t that how it worked?
“What was there to say?” But talking was becoming harder now, and her whisper was full of venom, a hiss of hatred. Even in her dying moments, however, she’d be satisfied with nothing less than her spoken vengeance on the boy who once battered and broke her heart. Repeatedly.
“Me,” she continued looking up at him from the ground, laughing at his shocked face, the blood, her blood, covering him. “Cordelia, Anya… still you couldn’t commit…to any of us…” Her breathing was ragged, now, and she knew…knew this was the last thing she’d ever do. “You destroyed us…in one way or another…because of your fixation on Buffy.”
“Willow, honey,” Xander tried again, but whatever he wanted to say stopped behind the clog of tears in his throat.
“You were content…waiting out the men in her life…eventually they’d go…with her trapped here…you’d win…by default. Buffy never thought the worse of you…so tragically lonely…” another cough, weaker as she tried to balance on her arms, but they gave out. “So few who could survive in her life…but I knew…was suppose to share the secrets of my soul with you?”
Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he scooted back on slippery hands. “This can’t be the girl I knew all my life…you can’t really believe my motivation for being there, for being here, for you, for Buffy all these years…you can’t believe it was all self-motivation?”
But if he held onto the dream of Buffy one day…maybe one day waking up and seeing him for what he was. For always being there for her, through Angel, Angelus, Angel…Parker, Riley, Spike…then it was just dream. There wasn’t anything wrong in that. It wasn’t the dark and twisted motives Willow made them out to be. After all, Buffy needed someone better in her life than that filthy murdering blood sucker. So why not him?
Pulled from his thoughts by Willow’s hollow laugh, he met her eyes; it was almost as if she knew what he was thinking. The smile was coldly triumphant. “I won in the end. You won’t have her. Or me…fitting justice...” she wheezed, eyes closed now, permanently. “You’re alone…alone. I couldn’t bring her back to me…now I’m going to her. You won’t have her…”
She died there, sprawled on the floor in triumph.
Anya watched him from the top of the stairs, holding a weak Tara, Giles on the other side. They were letting Willow know she was alive. Instead, they heard the confession, watched the couple, saw Willow die. Without a word, they turned and left.
Anya helped Tara into a car, waited while Giles went to the other side. “The best way to curse Xander,” Anya said as Giles pulled away, back to the hospital. Tara was oddly quiet, but Anya said nothing about that. She could, when pressed, be tactful. “Is to leave him alone.”
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