Only Time
by Chaseher
**CHAPTER 2**
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If we had forever
How long could I linger
Basking in your smile
Wrapped round your finger
If we had forever
How long till you see
The soul that you own
That resides here in me
We don't have forever
You are already gone
Yet the memory of you
In me lingers on
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Chapter 2
I stand by the door watching her. She knows I'm here yet she doesn't lift her eyes from the text she is studying.
She received the scrolls from a contact she made online. They were written in some ancient language that could only be unlocked with a spell. Another spell cast without thought or care so long as it helps bring about the desired results. Each incantation bringing her closer to the darkness that I fear will eventually transform the light in her once vividly green eyes to a dark cold shade of black permanently.
She's been there before, when Glory took my mind. However, I was not here for that, and thankfully never saw it first hand.
I am powerless to stop her. She's hollow, empty even, and nothing I can say or do will change that. She's not just missing her best friend, she's missing her other half.
That should shock me, but it doesn't. I've known who held the other half of her heart since we met.
Static electricity! Static electricity is the only word that comes to mind, when I try to explain what it was like to be in a room with the both of them. Whether sitting on the couch barely touching, or across the room from each other laughing at Mr. Giles scolding Xander about something silly, there was a charge in the air that was uniquely Buffy and Willow.
I have never feared Willow's love for her blonde heroine. We all have an infinite ability to love and be loved. The only thing I used to fear was being ripped away from her before our time together was through. Leaving things only half said or done between us.
Yet now I fear there will come a day when I look upon her and see nothing of the vibrant and beautiful woman I fell in love with looking back.
Since the day she pulled herself up out of bed and asked me to phone Xander & Anya for a meeting, she has been going non-stop. She is searching for a way to bring back the only thing that will ever be able to make her whole again.
Willow has convinced herself that because Buffy died by mystical forces that she can safely be brought back. She is also convinced that the nightmares she has every time she closes her eyes to sleep are a sign that Buffy is not in the happy carefree place she had originally invisioned for her friend.
If Willow is right then we will be the ones doing the rescuing for once. However, I have my doubts and they are big ones.
Buffy was a champion of the people. She gave of herself willingly and selflessly. If I try to rationalize this with my beliefs then I can only come to one conclusion...Buffy is at peace. Yet the connection that Buffy and Willow shared in life, and now maybe in death is such that I am unsure what to believe.
The only thing I know for certain is that before I let the keeper of my soul's twin walk headlong into the darkness that is required for the spell she has chosen to use, I will do a spell of my own to divine whether or not this choice she has made is for better or worse.
The spell is like a normal locator spell only minus the map. In it's place I need something that belonged to Buffy, something special to her.
I still feel like I'm trespassing when I enter her room. For the first few weeks, I came in because Willow refused to leave. Since she decided to bring Buffy back, Willow hasn't set foot in here. When I asked her about it, she shrugged and said that it was Buffy's room and when she gets back it might make her grumpy to know we didn't respect her privacy.
I wanted to grab her and scream that the dead have no privacy. Their lives are laid out for the world to see and go through. The memories captured in a photograph, a piece of jewelry, or a simple stuffed animal are no longer private, because the person they belonged to is gone. It wouldn't have mattered, Willow's resolved face has been painted on in what I can only hope is a temporary shade of gray.
This necklace should work. I remember the story very well as it's one Willow related to me right around the time we first met. How the mysterious Angel stopped Buffy in an alley on her way to the Bronze and gave her the necklace and a cryptic message that helped set her on a path toward her death. Her first non-permanant death that is, thanks to Xander.
Dawn is at School, Willow is researching, and Xander won't be by until later tonight. Since I know Willow won't come in here, I'll do the locator spell from Buffy's room. Using her necklace, as well as being surrounded by all of her things will hopefully help this work better.
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The passage of time
The blink of eye
Both happen so quickly
The elusive is hard to spy
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I can't finish this. Extinguishing the candles, I rise from the floor, my conscience screaming that we can't do this ritual without knowing where Buffy truly is. Yet despite the screaming of my heart and soul, I place the cross back into Buffy's jewelry box, and close the door to her room.
Why? It's simple really. I will lose the only good thing that has ever happened to me if she doesn't get her light back. As much as she can't live without Buffy, I can't live without her. If that means sacrificing a little of myself, then so be it.
Fate is a cruel task master, and I have no doubt that once we tip the scales between this world and wherever Buffy is there will be a price to pay. Natural order states that there is a balance that must be maintained, between all living things. So the big question is if we bring Buffy back, who does fate have lined up in it's sights to take her place?