Is Life Meant To Be Like This?
by Acepilot
Is Life Meant To Be Like This?
[reviews]
Is Life Meant To Be Like This?
Acepilot
Disclaimer - Buffy, Willow and co. don't belong to me, but rather to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, etc. The plot's mine, though chunks of dialogue and plot have been modified (and partially, I guess, stolen shamelessly) from several episodes of Season 7. Please don't sue, I don't make any money from this.
Rating: Will become R/Nc-17 — but not for a bit yet.
Pairing: Buffy/Willow (who else?) and also Dawn/? (It's a surprise that will be revealed in this chapter, I just want to have fun...)
Feedback: Yes, please! I beg of you.
Author's Notes: I'm back! About time, too. Been busily writing stuff for Dariaslash. I know it's been nearly a year since I last posted, but hey - I've been busy. I hope you enjoy this. By the way, in big parts of it it's not at all Buffy/Willow but in fact the Dawn/? plot line - I'm essentially writing two different, linked romances here. If you're purely B/W oriented, then just skip these bits.
And DON'T ask me about the title. Not even I know what it means. I wrote this chapter at three in the morning, and have been up since before six, therefore, any spelling mistakes can be blamed on the fact that I need sleep.
NB. If anything doesn't seem to make sense in relation to Angel Season 5...then pretend it doesn't exist. The most recent episode I've seen is the one immediately after Fred becomes...however you spell that god thingy's name. I'm pretending for the purposes of this fic that that hasn't happened. Fred and Wes are together, Angel and Nina are engaged. And I hereby, as the author, reserve the right to screw with the overall plot Season 7 anyway I wish.
UNBETAD...so proceed with care...
---
LA, July 19th 2006
"Hello L.A."
Wesley stopped short as he watched the tall redhead stride across the lobby of Wolfram and Hart, an overnight bag at her side and the right kind of sway to her hips to make her look completely and utterly intoxicating.
He spared a glance sideways and confirmed that Fred would have no reason to tell him off as she watched hypnotised herself.
Gunn smirked at both of them briefly before meeting Willow halfway and shaking her hand warmly. "Good afternoon, miss. Welcome to Wolfram and Hart. It's been a long time."
"You can drop the formality with me."
Gunn's shoulders dropped noticeably. "Thank god. I hate it. Well...what brings you to our little corner of the world? Especially considering your team's whole boycott of us..."
Willow shrugged helplessly. "Look, I've got nothing to do with that, and I'm sure that you're doing good here. But..."
"I know. We look a bit suss." Gunn shrugged. "Well, would you like to see the boss?"
"Yes, thanks."
"On it."
---
"Look, you're just being completely embasylic and pig-headed about this whole thing!"
"No, you're just refusing to see reason, Spike!"
"What reason!?! Your argument stands to NO reason!"
"Hello."
The squabbling vampires both froze.
The squabbling vampires caught each other's eyes.
The squabbling vampires turned to gaze at the red-head standing before them.
"Hi," Spike said, his eyes wide.
"I heard you were alive. Bit unbelievable."
"Trust me, Red, most of the stuff that happens around here is beyond unbelievable."
Willow's gaze lingered on Spike for another moment, before turning to Angel. "And how have you been?"
Angel shrugged. "I've been all sorts of things."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Spike all but spat. "He's been engaged, for one."
Willow practically fainted. "Engaged?"
"To a werewolf, what's more," Spike threw in. "I need to get some blood. Is Harmony back yet?"
"Should be any minute," Angel growled. "Now get out of my office, Spike."
"As you wish, sire. Or grandsire. Whichever you prefer." Spike offered a semi-formal - and somehow sarcastic - bow before stomping out of the office.
Willow turned back to Angel. "Engaged? To a werewolf?"
"Time was we might have been saying the same about you. So, Willow, what brings you to our humble offices? Here to tell us how much the Scooby Gang hates us?"
Willow held up her hands in some kind of mock-surrender. "Okay, okay. I know that things have been strained between the camps over the last few years, but...well, I personally didn't have anything to do with it. If that means anything."
Angel glared at her. "Why are you here?"
Willow bowed her head. "I was looking for a friendly face."
"Don't you have plenty of those? Buffy, Giles, Xander, your girlfriend whatshername?"
"Uh...no. Not so much any more. On the last count, anyway. I'm trying to get from here to London."
Angel arched an eyebrow. "Care to give me the complete story?"
"If I do, will it get me a place to stay?"
Angel reclined in his chair. "We'll see."
----
Willow looked out of the nearest window at a view of LA at night. It bustled with practically as much activity as it did during the day, if not more, as people lived their lives - or unlives - to the max, trying to cram as much as they could into the twenty-four hours offered them each day.
She traced a fingertip down the pane of glass, feeling a tear mirroring it on her cheek.
She hauled herself away from the vista before her and over to the phone, punching in the number she'd forced herself to memorise some time ago now.
The phone was half-way through its fourteenth ring when it cut off abruptly to be replaced with a somewhat exasperated voice moaning: "Do you know what time it is?"
Willow couldn't resist breaking into a grin over that. "Yes, I do. It's time you were up for classes."
"Crap! It is too!"
Somewhat fainter, Willow heard someone ask, [Who is it?]
"It's Willow."
[Say hi for me.]
"Okay. Hey Will -"
"I heard. I say hi back."
"Cool. So, when can we be expecting you?"
"I don't know. Are you really sure this is such a good idea?"
"Look, she's lonely. And I'm willing to be that you are to."
"Dawnie, just because we're both lonely doesn't mean that we're going to fall into each others arms."
"I'm not trying to play matchmaker here!" The exasperation in Dawn's voice was rather ruined by the quite loud [Ha!] that echoed across the line, and the following exclamation of [Ow! Dawn!] that trailed it closely.
"She's getting over a cold," Dawn offered in explanation.
"Of course," Willow agreed with a smug grin on her face. Even when nothing else made her feel at all optimistic, Dawn could always make her smile.
"I can hear that smirk, Willow. But anyway - look, I'm not expecting you to fall into each other's arms. Okay, so that would be ideal, but I just think...well, the two of you are friends. You could really use each other right now."
Willow sighed. "You're probably right. We could."
"Where are you?"
"I'm in LA."
"LA? With Angel?"
"Yes, with Angel. I went and asked for his help."
There was an extended pause. "And how did that go?" Dawn sounded somewhat tentative.
"Better than I thought it would. He's engaged, you know."
There was an even longer pause. "I'm sorry, Will, I think we must have a bad connection. This long-distance thing, it's a pain - "
"No, I said he's engaged."
"Engaged in doing what?"
"Engaged to be married to a werewolf, named Nina, who it turns out is very nice."
Willow could hear Dawn's breathing suddenly very loudly. "I don't really know what to do with that."
"I didn't either."
"Any other surprises?" Dawn cautiously asked.
Willow toyed with the idea of simply saying, 'Spike's alive and well,' but quickly decided against it, fearing that, if Dawn had a heart-attack, Buffy wouldn't take it at all well.
Neither would the girl who Willow could hear quite audibly beginning to kiss Dawn's neck...
"No, no surprises."
Dawn's voice came back at a pitch some two octaves higher than it had been a moment ago. "Oh, good. Good."
"Okay there, Dawnie?" The grin was well and truly back on Willow's face.
"Yes," (her voice wavered) "I'm fine. So, eheh, *gulp*, when can we be expe-h-cting you?"
It was all Willow could do not to break down into hysterical tears. "I don't know yet. I'll call you when I'm more certain."
"Mmph. Okay. Right. Call me back soon."
"Not in the next twenty minutes...and get to class, both of you!"
The grin surviving, Willow replaced the handset in the cradle and flopped back onto the somewhat comfortable bed beneath her.
She rolled over to gaze at the girl standing in the doorway. "Buffy..."
"I'm sorry," the blonde offered, not moving from her station in the doorway. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
Willow shook her head. "That's all I had left in me, anyway."
"I didn't realise meditating was such hard work."
Willow grinned as much as the pain in her belly would let her, savouring the chance to show off her newfound skills. "I'm healing. Growing new skin."
Buffy started slowly towards Willow, still warily keeping her distance but somehow drawn to the beauty that sat cross-legged on the bed. "Wow. That's magic, right? I mean, when most people...when they meditate they don't get extra skin, right? 'Cause Clem should like...cut back." She took a tentative seat on the edge of the bed, trying to block out the siren begging her to take the girl in her arms...
"It's magic. I'm drawing power from the earth to heal myself."
Buffy pulled back marginally. "We're on the second floor."
Willow chuckled, despite the pain it caused her to do so. Even when she was at her worst, Buffy could make her smile. "You know, Giles says everything's part of the earth. This bed. The air. Us."
"Explains why my fingernails get dirty even when I don't do anything," Buffy contemplated.
"Plus you stuck your thumbs in a demon," Willow pointed out.
"True," Buffy agreed. She gazed at Willow and saw how pale and wiped the girl was as she leaned against the bedhead behind her. "You're wiped out. I should go." 'God, I don't want to go...'
"No," Willow's voice seemed to plead. "Please stay. I missed you so much when I couldn't find you."
"We missed you too. I missed you," Buffy amended. 'God, how I missed you.' "Dawn's...uh...working on what caused the mutual no-see-ums, but so far we haven't -"
"I did it."
'Huh?' "You did a spell?" Confusion laced Buffy's voice.
"I didn't mean to!" Willow's assurance came less than a heartbeat later. "I-I just remember thinking I wasn't ready to see you guys yet." Willow hung her head. "I was afraid we wouldn't, you know, connect."
Buffy looked at the redhead in awe. "So you made it happen just by thinking it?"
Willow gave her a weak little smile, the kind of Willow-only smile that always managed to bring her to her knees. If she was standing, they would have buckled beneath her. "Guess I have a ways to go before I master my powers, huh?"
Buffy shook her head. "It's okay. Just so long as you're alright."
"It's nice to be forgiven." Willow's smile grew somewhat sad. "Too bad I need so much of it."
Buffy fought off tears at the same time as struggling not to hold Willow tight and refuse to let go..."I have a confession to make. I thought it might be you, with the flaying." Buffy looked away in shame.
"I know," Willow managed.
"I wanna be the kind of person that doesn't think that," Buffy told her, her voice remaining utterly serious. She was begging for forgiveness in every way but getting down on her knees, and they both knew it. "Xander never thought it."
"He did, a little," Willow pointed out. "Heck, I did a little. Xander has the luxury of not saying it, but you're the slayer. You have to say stuff like that." She sniffed quietly. "It's OK. It's OK too if you still don't think I can recover from this magic stuff, 'cause, honestly, I'm not that sure about it either."
Breathing deeply, Willow lent forward again, as if nothing had happened.
"I thought you were too tired," Buffy whispered.
Pain crossed Willow's face, but even that, Buffy realised, didn't mask her beauty. "It hurts too much not to try."
"I'm sorry." It was as if she couldn't raise her voice to an audible volume, but Willow heard her nonetheless.
"It just takes so much strength," a teary Willow confessed. "I don't have that much."
Buffy looked up into the eyes of her best friend - the love of her life. And she saw the pain there. She knew she had to do something. "Well, I've got so much power, I'm giving it away."
Willow looked deeply into her, and Buffy could feel the layers of emotion peeling away under that gaze, leaving her exposed and vulnerable...but not afraid. She could never be afraid. Not with her. "Are you sure?"
"Will it help?" Buffy countered.
"Much," Willow whispered.
Buffy slid into the centre of the bed and took Willow's hands in her own, sitting cross legged and beginning to meditate.
"Good," she whispered, reaching out to brush the pillow that lay in front of her, the sounds of London's morning rush hour leaking in through her windows as she collapsed into tears on the bed.
---
Dawn tucked her head into the crook of her lover's neck, letting the tall girl pull her in close. "Willow was right, you know. We really should be getting to school."
"Yes, but I really don't want to go."
"Neither do I." She planted a kiss on the nearest convenient piece of flesh. "But I feel the professors at UL will fail to see 'was too busy having sex' as a valid excuse..."
"Alright, alright!" She kissed Dawn one more time before clambering out of the covers.
Or trying to, at any rate.
"You know, you're not making this any easier."
"Yes, well, I personally see 'was too busy having sex with Dawn Summers' as a very, very GOOD reason..."
"Okay then - " She gave up all pretense of trying to get out of bed and rolled very artfully and flexibly over, pinning Dawn underneath her back with a grin on her face.
"You know, just because you're a slayer and everything doesn't mean you're always going to be able to do that," Dawn informed her, though her voice was somewhat muffled.
Her breath caught.
"Or that, either..."
There was a pounding on the door.
It was all both girls could do not to swear.
"Alright lovebirds! Time to get up and go to school. You both have classes and it's not like you didn't both get enough last night!"
Dawn's eyes widened as she was freed. "Buffy!!"
She could hear her sister chuckle through the door, growing quieter as she slunk off down the corridor toward the kitchen.
Dawn rose and walked over to where her girlfriend stood smiling at her. She wrapped her arms around the taller girl's neck.
"I love you, you know?"
"I know, Dawn."
She stood on tiptoes to press her lips to her lover's...
"Dawn! Amanda! Come on!"
"Argh!"
Amanda bowed her head in laughter.
---
(Quick! What's Amanda's last name, or do we never learn it? And please, feed me back!)