Re: Fic: Resurrection 3/? Enter Tomorrow B/W 18

[Red Q <cocoachanel67@xxxxxxxxx>]

*waits for more with black eyes*

 

Silverna <silvernawolfe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Enter Tomorrow
> by Silverna
> (silvernawolfe@xxxxxxxxx)
>
> This is an angsty fic dealing with Buffy's
> resurrection. It is the third in a series starting
> with 'Out of Nothing', then 'Into Everything'. It will
> be followed by another: 'Exit Today'.
>
> DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own Buffy and
> Co. Grizzle, Argh! 
>
> RATING: PG13
>
> SPOILERS: Set beginning of season 6. Departs from
> canon. Read 'Out of Nothing' and then 'Into
> Everything' first.
> * * *
>
> It was 1am in the morning, and Buffy hadn't come home.
>
>
> In the Summer's home, an eerie familial scene was
> playing out. The Scoobys sat around the dinner table
> and ate a very late dinner, eyeing each other and
> squirming in what had to be, the most uncomfortable
> silence ever. The dinner was unpalatable, being as it
> was last night's leftovers reheated
>  (some
>  sort of
> chicken and macaroni concoction). Tara had served it
> with Dawn's unwilling assistance, Anya had poured the
> flat coke and Giles, wisely, had made himself tea.
> Xander sat eating out of a jar of pickles he'd
> discovered, next to Anya who was sniffing at her food
> with evident disgust. Across from them Willow was
> building a macaroni sculpture while Tara ate
> microscopic particles of food. Next to Tara at one
> head of the table, Dawn glared at everybody else. At
> the other head Giles looked weary, and sipped his tea.
>
> "Where is she?" said Dawn into the silence and
> everyone froze. 
>
> Xander who had paused with one pickle mid-air,
> commented, "That’s the million dollar question!" and
> popped it into his mouth.
>
> "Are you sure this is edible?" asked Anya in her most
> anxious voice, waving her fork at her plate. She
> stared poisonously across the table at Willow. "It
> doesn't look edible."
>
> "Why are you looking at m
> e?" said
>  Willow with a filthy
> scowl.
>
> "Sweetie," said Tara in her best calming voice.
> Willow's scowl increased. 
>
> "Buffy should be home by now," said Dawn. She was
> shifting fretfully on her seat. "And we've looked all
> over the neighborhood. There's nowhere left!"
>
> "Nonsense," said Anya, turning her attention onto the
> teen. "She could be lying in some ditch somewhere.
> Next to the road. Or in an ally. Really, when you
> allow for that, the possibilities are endless."
>
> "Anya honey, shut up," hissed Xander, popping another
> pickle with an air of nervousness.
>
> "Squabbling will get us nowhere," announced Giles. His
> face was haggard in the bright overhead light and he
> failed to project his normal air of, 'it will all be
> okay'. So the Scoobys ignored him.
>
> "I don't have to shut up," said Anya waspishly, poking
> Xander in the bicep, hard. "You shut up."
>
> "No, you shut up," he said, poking her back. She
> exaggeratedly
>  moved
>  her chair away from his with a
> grating sound.
>
> Giles rolled his eyes, then took his glasses off to
> rub at them. Tara looked over to him worriedly.
>
> "I'm sure Buffy is f...fine," the blond witch said.
> "She probably just needs to be alone for a little
> while."
>
> "How long?" asked Dawn. "It's been like, hours
> already."
>
> "Well then longer than that obviously," said Willow.
> Her voice was frayed. She was staring down balefully
> at her macaroni sculpture as though she wanted to
> pulverize it with magical power. Tara flinched in
> response to her tone. But Dawn was too young and
> invulnerable to notice.
>
> "She's so selfish," said Dawn of Buffy. "I need her.
> She can't just run out. She only just got back."
>
> "That's the sort of egocentric claptrap that forced
> her off," said Anya cheerily. She paused for a moment,
> squinting her eyes than added, "young lady," for good
> measure.
>
> Dawn looked like she was going to
>  choke
>  with rage.
> Tara reached out to her in a placating gesture. Giles
> set his glasses down. Xander covered his eyes and
> groaned out,
>
> "That's so not what I meant by 'good influence'."
>
> "But it’s how Stuffy Tweedmore talks," argued Anya,
> using her eyes not so subtly to indicate Giles. "And
> HE'S a good influence. Or so you say."
>
> "ENOUGH!" Willow cried, slamming her hands down on the
> table-top full force. She made use of the leverage to
> leap to her feat and stand there, glaring at them all,
> but most of all at Anya. "Stay here, all of you. I'm
> getting Buffy back."
>
> "You're what?" Xander had gotten to his feet in
> response to the outburst, and now stood there gazing
> across at Willow, the jar of pickles still hefted
> ridiculously in one hand. "You know where she is?"
>
> "Sit down, Xander," hissed Willow. "Stay here and keep
> your," she paused and fought for control of her
> emotions, "girlfriend under control."
>
> "
> Fiancée,"
>
>  corrected Anya.
>
> Willow closed her eyes and started counting under her
> breath.
>
> "Honey?" That was Tara of course, one tentative hand
> running down Willow's clenched forearm. "You really
> know where Buffy is?"
>
> "I can find her," insisted Willow, not answering the
> question.
>
> "No doubt you can," said Giles, from where he still
> sat playing idly with his glasses, an odd pose to see
> him in. His voice was cold and controlled, much the
> way it had been each time he addressed Willow since
> she had played the major role in raising Buffy. "But
> should you? Is it what she wants? Or," he wiped at his
> mouth savagely with one slightly trembling hand,
> "doesn't that matter?"
>
> Tense silence. Willow wasn't looking at Giles, just
> standing there, quivering with the anticipation of
> being gone. Tara's eyes were veiled as she looked up
> at her lover. Dawn was sulking, arms crossed over
> chest, covertly glancing between Willow and 
> Anya.
>  The
> ex-demon had pursed lips and a nasty _expression_. She
> also had one possessive hand clutching at Xander's
> trousered thigh across the 1 meter distance between
> where she sat and he stood.
>
> "You can't judge me," Willow said at last,
> dismissively, still without looking over at Giles. She
> stepped around her lover's chair and made to step past
> his, toward the door. She was forced to a stop when
> Giles deftly grabbed her by the arm with surprising
> strength. He looked up at her, his face angular and
> different without the glasses; his eyes alight with
> strange fire. Perhaps he wore the glasses as a sort of
> disguise. 
>
> "Oh can't I?" he said softly, his accent clipped and
> never more evident. "You're above even that, are you?"
>
> Willow sneered down at him, heedless of the others
> listening, shocked. "I'm above you," she said, and she
> meant it with every fiber of her being.
>
> "We'll see," said Giles, and he let her go. He
> r
>  arm
> burned where he'd grasped her but she ignored this and
> concentrated on exiting the dining room. Her long
> black furry coat was hanging on the rack and she put
> it on, glad she was otherwise fully dressed (in a
> green blouse and jeans). Her hand was on the doorknob
> when she sensed her lover getting up to come after
> her. Willow didn't pause. Instead she was out the
> front door with a slam, and striding down the front
> walk. 
>
> "Willow!" Tara sure enough was running out after her,
> coatless. Willow kept walking. She made it to the
> letter box when she felt that soft familiar touch on
> her shoulder, spinning her lightly around. She let
> herself spin and stood in the gateway, facing her
> taller lover down. Tara was fidgeting in front of her,
> arms folded and biting her lip in a gesture that
> Willow knew was pure nerves.
>
> "I'm not sure," said Tara gently, "that this is...such
> a good idea."
>
> "Oh?" said Willow.
>
> "I m
> ean,"
>  Tara chewed her lip. "Gi...Giles is right.
> Maybe Buffy doesn't want to be found. By us I mean.
> Maybe she needs to be...away from us." Her pale blue
> eyes begged Willow for understanding.
>
> "Away from me you mean," said Willow flatly. Tara
> didn't say anything. Just looked down. "Well," said
> Willow, "I don't want that. So it doesn't really
> matter what Buffy wants. She needs me. And I'm going
> to be there for her."
>
> "But that's not right," said Tara, even more softly,
> her lip now quivering miserably. "You can't force
> Buffy to feel what you want her to feel. And you can't
> know what's best for her just because you want so
> bad..." She stumbled to an awkward stop.
>
> "Say it," Willow's lips were a hard line. Tara
> stumbled on:
>
> "So...so badly to fix her. Willow. Have you thought
> that, that maybe, Buffy can't be fixed?"
>
> Willow's right hand shot out and she slapped Tara
> across the cheek, hard. Then she gasped in the 
> back
>  of
> her throat in pure reaction. Tara was staring at her,
> face white (and a little red on that cheek), eyes
> moist and leaking pain. They stood together in that
> moment, mutually shocked.
>
> "Goddess," whispered Tara finally. Her own hand moved
> up to cup her cheek in reaction, but she lowered it
> again before it made the full assent. 
>
> "Tara," said Willow, her own green eyes wide. Then she
> turned away from her shell-shocked girlfriend and
> started running down the street. Her mind was buzzing
> it was so full or thoughts and reactions but it was
> too much to actually think anything in particular.
> Halfway down the street she managed to think something
> definite and it was all about Buffy. She saw that dead
> look on the slayer's face when Willow sobbed out that
> she was in love with her. How could that dead look be
> true? That wasn't what she wanted. She imagined
> herself saying, 'I love you' and Buffy looking
> disinterested.
>
> She
>  shook her head adamantly, denying her tears,
> denying her pain for now. It was time to find Buffy.
> Regardless of what…everyone said, Buffy needed to be
> found. The slayer had stood there in her bedroom while
> she, Willow, stood 5 feet away in Tara’s arms and
> Buffy had nothing to say but, ‘shut up’? Not, ‘I love
> you too, Willow’. Not, ‘let’s be friends again Willow,
> because I’m dying without your affirmation of my
> existence’. 
>
> “Something’s wrong with me,” Willow muttered to
> herself, and she knew deep inside herself that it was
> true. She couldn’t deal with this Buffy-absence. It
> was killing her last shred of self-respect. She froze
> in some dark alley she’d inadvertently run down and
> she put both her hands up in the air, palm out.
> “Find,” she intoned, and the green firefly light,
> previously only for finding lost Tara popped into
> existence. “Change,” ordered Willow, and the light
> flickered once, twice, than with a fizzle be
> came
>  a
> silvery-blue. “Find Buffy,” said Willow and the light
> obeyed. Willow smiled (not a very nice smile), and
> followed it. 
>
> The ‘firefly’ cut down the dark alley and Willow saw
> she was forced to climb a barbed wire fence. “Stuff
> this,” she said, as the light buzzed impatiently on
> the other side, wanting to be away. “Levitate!” And
> it wasn’t so very hard after all, to start walking up
> the air beside the fence, like she was climbing a
> flight of invisible steps. Power seemed to be at her
> beck and call on this cold, unthinking night of
> everything changing forever. Taking it had never been
> so sinfully easy. Child’s play.
>
> She was halfway down the next alley when she heard
> footsteps (soft to be sure but there) gliding up
> behind her. ‘Vampire’, she guessed and raised one hand
> with her back still to the creature. “Fire,” she said
> and orangey flames licked up into life, tonguing along
> each finger. Who needed Latin when you
>  had Raw
>  Power?
>
> “Crap!” cried the vampire, scudding to a halt inches
> from Willow’s back, yes, with no small degree of
> difficulty. Willow turned around with what she labeled
> a pleasant smile. Miscellaneous vampire didn’t look
> too reassured. “Easy, easy,” he gasped, hands up and
> stumbling backwards. “It was an honest mistake,
> really! I thought you were just another mortal snack
> when uh, obviously you’re so much,” his eyes were
> bugging out of his head, “more.”
>
> “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” said Willow. She
> looked admiringly at the flames stroking along her
> raised hand. They didn’t hurt at all! Groovy. 
>
> Vampire guy looked even more terrified and actually
> got down on his knees in some kind of supplication.
> “B…b…because I can be v…very useful to you, Oh Mighty,
> uh One. I can uh, serve you and do stuff for you
> that’s, erm, beneath you. I may seem uh, weak and
> p…pitiful…”
>
> Willow smiled down at him.
>
> “B…but 
> I’m not!”
>
>  he said, his voice squeaking with
> fear. “I’m strong, strong I tell ya, and I can do
> missions and stuff if you want, Mistress. Anything you
> want. Anything.”
>
> Willow’s fire-hand sputtered a bit and suddenly went
> out, with a whoosh of smoke. She frowned at it
> perplexedly. “Strange,” she muttered.
>
> Vampire guy looked less fearful and got to his feet,
> dusting off the knees of his jeans while keeping one
> eye on the witch. That one eye grew big as he made a
> connection. “Hey,” he said, “you’re that uh
> witchy-girl that travels around with the slayer?
> Aren’t ya? Aren’t ya?”
>
> Willow’s eyebrows shot up and she forgot her smoking
> hand, putting her hands on her hips. Unfortunately the
> hand was still hot and singed her jeans. “Yow!” she
> said, pulling it away again.
>
> Vampire guy lost some more fear. “Yeah, I recognize
> you,” he said. “That red hair, the magic, you gotta be
> that lesbian witch the little dude went on
>  about.”
>
> Willow re-forgot her hand. “Lesbian witch?” she said.
> “That’s nobody’s bees-wax! The lesbian part, that is,
> the bad-ass witch part is free domain! Not that I’m
> ashamed of my ah, lesbian heritage, it’s just not the
> sorta thing I want ugly little monsters talking about
> in bars, or hey, anywhere! Who told you that anyway?”
> She tapped her nose. “Because it may not be entirely
> of the truth.”
>
> “Little guy,” repeated the vampire. “Jonty, Jonno,
> some wussy name like that. Him and his two buddies
> keep hitting all the demon clubs trying to fit in.” He
> laughed derisively. “Like we can’t smell nerd-dom all
> over them. They just wanna hang out with us ‘cause
> humans won’t accept them.”
>
> Willow put two and two together. “Jonathan,” she said.
> “And whoever. Look…”
>
> “I’ve seen your friend,” mentioned the vampire with a
> sly look. He was standing casually across from her
> now, apparently fearless again, and also appear
> ed
>  to
> be picking his right fang. Yuck. 
>
> “Who?” said Willow, fascinated in a grossed-out way by
> the fang-picking. She had forgotten to be menacing.
> Everything about this night was surreal.
>
> “The slayer.” Vampire guy looked triumphant than
> confused. “The uh, first one, I think. Little blond
> vampiress. Sexy teeth.”
>
> “WHAT?” Willow was flabbergasted. “Buffy’s a vampire?
> NO!”
>
> “Yeah, she’s definitely a vampire.” Vampire guy
> swaggered with self-importance at how he seemed to
> have one up on this crazy witch. “Got that whole dead
> vibe going strong. Or at least she’s some sorta demon,
> or something. But I’d guess vampire. ‘Cause, hey,
> they’re a dime a dozen in this hellhole town.”
>
> He wasn’t prepared for the crazy witch with now two
> hands aflame to be in front of him, shaking him,
> holding him aggressively by his fake-leather collar.
> The fake-leather burned and assaulted his sensitive
> nostrils and he could feel h
> is undead
>
>  skin beginning
> to crawl and scorch beneath the semi-protective
> covering. “Hey!” he cried, back to real fear.
> “Lemmego!”
>
> “You saw her…” Willow swallowed down something, “her
> teeth?”
>
> “No, no!” cried poor vampire guy. “Just saying she was
> hot. It’s an _expression_, is all. Sexy teeth, y’know.
> Didn’t mean nothing. I didn’t see nothin’. Let go, let
> go!”
>
> Willow regained some composure. She stared up into
> vampire guy’s terrified (now smoking) face, and
> discovered something. This was fun! “Am I cooking
> you?” she found herself purring, licking her lips as
> she noted how his vamped out face was bulging with
> demonic veins, apparently about to go up in smoke. Her
> flaming hands had burned right through the ‘leather’
> and were clutching at the cold, slick skin beneath. 
>
> Vampire guy’s teeth were rattling in his head as his
> blood literally began to boil. “Crazy witch!” he
> screamed even as the skin began falling away fr
> om
>  his
> bones into a coating of finest ash. Then he exploded
> outwards into rain-of-dust and Willow stepped back
> distastefully, holding still flaming hands out in
> front of her.
>
> “Flame off,” she tried, unsuccessfully. “Uh, desist!”
> Maybe it was the word, maybe it was the tone, but
> thankfully the fires blinked out and that stupid smoke
> wafted up again. Willow wrinkled her nose. “That one
> needs some work,” she decided. She turned on her heel
> to look for the firefly light. Ah, there it was,
> hovering over just near the corner. She headed back
> after it. All in a night’s work, that vampire-dusting.
> No, dusting seemed too soft a word.
>
> It took several streets for her hands to cool down
> enough that she felt confident about putting them near
> her clothing and by the time she started paying real
> attention to her surroundings again, she recognized
> exactly where she was. The light had come to a halt,
> hovering near her head and up
>  ahead in
>
>  a clearing was
> the wreck of the Glory’s tower. Willow shivered. She
> loathed this place. She dimly remembered Dawn
> recounting to Tara how the tower had fallen completely
> down when Dawn had gone after out-of-it-Buffy right
> after the slayer’s resurrection. Willow frowned. She
> wished she knew exactly what had happened that night.
> It could be useful. 
>
> Eyeing the wreckage uncertainly, the witch started
> forward. Dust hung in the air and she could almost
> sense an aura of blackest despair clinging like alien
> mold to everything in sight. Nothing could grow here
> but that. It was poisoning the very air, she was sure.
> Tall twisted metal spires reminded her of dinosaur
> skeletons. Dead relics of a dead world, a dead time.
> She stumbled up and over blocks of concrete and steel
> and wondered why on earth Buffy was here. What was she
> doing? After all, there was nothing left to leap off!
> What other fascination could this hole possibly ho
> ld
> for
>
>  the slayer? There was something sick about it.
> About Buffy.
>
> “Find Buffy,” she mouthed to the firefly light, which
> seemed to be as hesitant as her about what to do next.
> Reluctantly the light jerked forward, then stopped,
> then jerked forward again. Willow followed. Once she
> almost fell and cut herself on a jagged pipe, but she
> stopped herself with one well placed hand, just in
> time. Breathing heavily she looked up and saw the
> light stopped again, this time hovering at the
> entrance to a kind of cave in the wreckage that looked
> suspiciously like a gaping, hungry maw. “I am so not
> going in there,” muttered the witch, talking to
> herself to try and stop her own involuntary shivering.
> “Unless of course,” she pulled herself up closer,
> “it’s where Buffy is,” she finished weakly, seeing the
> bare and bloody feet just inside the entrance. “This
> sucks.”
>
> She peered inside. It was late, very late. Would Buffy
> be asleep? Or m
> aybe dead
>
>  and lain out like the Lady of
> Shallot, only without a lake and without a boat and
> without a ceremonial gown? A shell of herself, never
> to wake again. Willow shook herself. Really, she had
> to get a grip on herself, on everything. She stood
> there gripping a jutting rail in the wall for balance,
> bent her head, and looked in again. There were
> evidently holes in the enclosure’s roof, because the
> moonlight was wafting in there and the witch could see
> quite well. 
>
> She saw Buffy, stretched out on her back, dressed in
> her little-girl cow pajamas, face lax and innocent in
> sleep. Willow looked for a very long time. She drank
> in the shadows under Buffy’s eyes (deep, deep shadows)
> and the soft planes in sleep of what was these days, a
> harsh face awake. She paused on Buffy’s lips, parted
> just so. She saw the smudge of dirt on Buffy’s cheek
> (kinda cute – it made the witch’s hands itch to
> tenderly rub it away). She saw the hollow of
>
>  Buffy’s
> neck at the neck of those fuzzy pajamas, and imagined
> she could see the pulse that fluttered there, beating
> strongly, on and on and on. She saw Buffy’s hands
> lying carelessly by her sides, and she noted that they
> were red with scratches and looked inflamed. Stupid
> Buffy. The girl didn’t know how to take care of
> herself properly. Was Willow the only one who cared
> about taking care of Buffy?
>
> She saw the rip in Buffy’s pajama leg and the abused,
> blistered feet and suddenly, something in Willow was
> screaming out silently, screaming out for Buffy to
> wake up and notice her: to see her, really see her.
> “Buffy!” she cried out hoarsely, and she didn’t
> recognize the wreck of her own voice. “Buffy, I need
> you.” And she was down on her hands and knees and
> crawling into the gaping maw of the beast, of death,
> and stretching out beside her former best friend.
> “Buffy,” sobbed Willow as she moved incessantly along
> the slay
> er’s left
>
>  side, trying to get in close and be
> safe and okay again. “Buffy, Buffy, Buffy.” The slayer
>
> === message truncated ===

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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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