Willow's Rescue
by willow
Chapter 1
[reviews]
WARNING: Serious Willowy angst. Also, much Kennedy bashing.
Chapter one...
***********************************************************************************
Willow sat cowering in the cornor of the bedroom, holding back unshed tears, her naked form covered in cuts and bruises, some new, some old.
This was how she spent most of her afternoons since she moved in with Kennedy.
She thought things would get better after the wedding. She had agreed to Kennedy's marriage proposal only to feel safe in her own home. She had thought it through logically.
If someone proposes to you, that means they want to spend the rest of their lives with you, and that must mean they love you, right? And people who love you would never intentionally hurt you.
Nothing changed.
Only Willow's last name. It was Kennedy's way of marking her, her way of making Willow her property.
Night after night she suffered beatings, rape and psychological torment.
There was rarely a night when Willow wouldn't cry herself to sleep.
Willow wanted to talk to her family, Xander, Dawn, Giles, Faith and especially Buffy who had all moved to L.A to help out Angel and the gang. She wanted to tell them why she hadn't kept in touch, why she never called or wrote or asked them to visit her in England. Kennedy had stopped her. Isolated her. Willow had no one but Kennedy.
Every time she was beaten, Willow prayed to whoever was out there that Buffy would come and save her, sweep her off her feet and back to L.A, far, far away from her abusive wife and they would live happily ever after.
Her prayers were never answered.
******************************************************************************
The house Buffy and Dawn had settled in was similar to the one back in Sunnydale. It was about the same size and decorated with mostly the same colours, the only difference was more and bigger rooms.
One thing the house lacked, though, was Willow.
To say Buffy missed Willow would be an understatement.
She craved Willow.
Buffy couldn't stand not seeing her best friend every day.
Never seeing that award-winning smile that could light up the darkest situations or hear her talking in her odd Willowy way tore her up inside.
The last time she saw her Wills was at her wedding, marrying no. 1 bitch, Kennedy just over a year ago.
The hardest thing Buffy ever had to do was watch Willow marry another woman.
Most mornings, Buffy would sit on the bench in the back yard, thinking of Willow whilst drinking her manditory early-morning mocha.
Buffy was in a daze this morning. It was nearing Willow's birthday and the witch hadn't called and told her of any plans.
"Whattya thinkin' 'bout?" Buffy was snapped out of her daze by a suprisingly bouncy, peppy, smiley Dawn.
She smiled back at her little sister, "Just... stuff... Willowy stuff... it's her birthday next week"
Dawn suddenly toned down on the peppy, and her expression turned serious "Ah...," she sat down next to her sister, "I miss her so much."
Buffy wrapped an arm around her, "Me too, Dawnie." There was a brief pause before Buffy started again, "Hey, wanna go out and get all sugared up on mochas?"
"Nah, I'm already too hyper, look what came through the post this morning," Dawn handed Buffy the replies she'd got from several different College's, including UCLA, Yale, Harvard and even Oxford and Cambridge all accepting her as a student.
"Oh my God, Dawnie!!!" The slayer tackled her sister into a hug, "Well done, I knew you'd do well"
"Well that goes without saying," Dawn said playfully followed by a little giggle, "I'm thinking Oxford, it looks awesome, Buff"
"If that's what you want then go for it, Dawn"
"Really? You won't mind me leaving you here all on your lonesome?" Dawn put on a mock guilty face and Buffy swatted her on the arm.
"No, I'll be fine," they both smiled before Buffy added, "besides, I'd be down every weekend to check you're OK and to embarrass you infront of all your new English friends"
"Oh, har de har" Dawn stuck her tongue out at Buffy and Buffy mirrored the action, "so what are we going to do to day? It's Saturday and I've got no school for the rest of the Summer, Hell, let's go crazy and get those mochas!!"
Buffy raised an eyebrow at her sister and smiled whilst she shook her head.
There were a few comfortable minutes silence between the two before Buffy came up with an idea of how to start their Summer.
"Dawn?"
"Hmmm?"
"Let's go see Will!"