Willow huddled under the blankets in Buffy's bed. Everything seemed to hurt now. And the world felt different. Something had happened to her because of all the dark magic she'd briefly channeled. Something she had no defenses for. Something affecting her mind and her memories.
In the past she'd been faintly aware of the latent power that seemed to leech from anything magical, but after collapsing following Xander's yellow crayon speech her magical senses seemed a bit out of control. Whenever she looked at someone she would see, like an after image or shadow, some color. It wasn't their aura. She could see that also, if she titled her head just right.
She could still remember Tara teaching her how to see auras. A quiet night on the roof of their dorm, the stars sparkling in that special way they'd always had around her. They were very northern-light-ish and everything made of once living material had one. But Tara had never told her about anything like this. It was something else, superimposed only on things with a magical signature. And there were the occasional sound effects to go with it.
Fortunately, not everyone or everything had it. It would have driven her crazy trying to see past everyone's aura and magical aspect. Buffy seemed to sport a gold one with a thin black border. If she listened carefully, Willow could hear some kind of background drumming or the padding of bare feet.
Dawn's aspect was, unsurprisingly, a mint green. She didn't hear any distinct sounds when Dawn was nearby, but she'd thought once or twice that she'd heard the faint muffled sound of distant drums. She wondered if it was an echo of Buffy's.
She couldn't keep her thoughts on a single topic long enough to figure out why Xander didn't have a magical aspect like Buffy or Dawn. After everything that had happened to him, there should have been some small trace. She wondered if he was magically neutral or if it was a result of their encounter on the bluff. But he was one of the few people she could stand to be around because of it.
She had a hard time looking at Giles' aspect. She suspected that if she could see her own it would look something like his, except fresher. Death and dark magic must leave a mark, she thought. His was black with a faint silver border and the occasional gold sparkle.
She'd seen Anya's only once. From the look on her face that one time, Willow suspected Anya knew exactly what she was seeing. But she hadn't said anything that she'd heard.
Willow futilely tried to block out the images and sounds constantly bombarding her mind. She'd first tried to stuff cotton balls into her ears and up her nose but, in the five minutes before a screeching Dawn had forcibly removed them, it hadn't helped. She'd tried wrapping one of Tara's scarfs tightly around her face but that just made her feel claustrophobic.
She suspected that any drug she could find that wouldn't cause brain damage would be worse than her magical power trip had been. With the exception of Buffy, her skin still crawled when anything magical touched it. Whenever her mind settled down enough to allow her to think in full sentences, Willow struggled to rebuild her control over her hyper magical senses and to stop the slow fading of her memories.
Buffy watched Giles stride up the walk from her position on the front steps, in no hurry to get up and greet him. It might be selfish, with a catatonic Willow in the house but this was the first sun she'd gotten in days and she was going to soak up as much of it as possible before the unfun began. Besides, she had plans to make. Plans involving a tube of coconut sunscreen, a warm beach, and an imaginary hottie to call her own.
Sighing as the scent of her imagined coconut oil was replaced by the odor of roasting tweed and some earthy aftershave, Buffy stood up. From the expression on his face it was a sure thing that he was there for the same reason as the last time.
She pretended to not see the faint tremble in his shoulders, the only visible sign that he'd just barely survived Willow's grief stricken rampage several weeks before. It certainly didn't inspire any confidence in his plans. He should have stayed in bed himself she thought, though she knew better than to tell him that.
She wasn't sure why he was in such a hurry to pry Willow loose from Sunnydale but she was so over it. If the ultimately conscientious and loving witch, Tara, couldn't instill a sense of magical perspective in Willow, she wasn't sure how a bunch of old women in England could do it. Or are they wymyn since they're wiccan, she wondered for a moment before her brain realized that it wasn't equipped for such deep thoughts only an hour before lunch.
Sure, she wasn't happy with the idea that someone else, a continent and ocean away, claimed to be able to help Willow where she couldn't, but she'd had too much time after her best friend's freak-out to think about things. Willow's suicidal impulses, which had earlier fueled her attempt to end the world, hadn't been repeated but they shouldn't be taking any chances.
She'd willingly given up her bed for the almost catatonic witch, but holding Willow's hand and keeping her company to keep away the nightmares obviously wasn't the best answer to her problems. A smile and a bowl of chicken soup weren't going to fix Willow.
She might be a slayer but she felt almost useless in this kind of situation. It wasn't some monster she could defeat for her best friend. Even the gradual decrease in the dark magic aura around Willow owed more to time than anything they were actively doing.
She'd decided that if Giles really wanted to take Willow to the coven, she wasn't going to interfere. If he could get her past the Dawn and Xander gauntlet on the other side of the door, he could handle getting her to the help he'd promised. Not that either of them had agreed with her decision to let Giles take their sick friend to England. Dawn had been the louder of the two, protesting even as she'd packed a bag for Willow.
But no matter how much they wanted to, they weren't the ones to help her but they couldn't seem to see that like she had.
The only question was what they would do when Giles tried to remove her from the house. Xander hadn't argued when Giles had said he'd found her a place to recover from the magic but she knew he wasn't going to just let Giles take her away. She'd heard him arguing with Anya more than once about going with Willow if he couldn't convince Giles that Willow was better off in Sunnydale.
Willow was Xander's family and he would fight tooth and nail to keep her in his life. He'd been shaken by her reaction to Tara's murder and seemed to have taken some kind of vow to stay by her side until she recovered. Buffy just hoped he wouldn't leave her to deal with an angry Anya.
Dawn, the few times Buffy had gotten her to talk about the issue, seemed to feel a need to protect Willow. She suspected it was because she was her last link to Tara. More than once in the last two weeks, Buffy had found her in Willow and Tara's old room, tears pouring down her face as she scrubbed away at the carpet, trying to remove the dark spot where Tara's blood had soaked in. But in Willow's presence, her voice took on a gentleness, a softness that belied the obvious pain and anger she was feeling.
"Giles." She aimed a glare at him as he approached. The past few weeks had forced her to really take charge again. There'd been no time to deal with her own issues, her own anger. Anger at herself for letting things go so wrong. At Willow for almost taking the world with her when Tara died. Or even at her own inexplicable helplessness when Spike had attacked her. Too many things had happened in too short a time. No matter how much she rationalized it, Buffy knew she was being a coward, taking the easy way out by handing Willow over to someone else to fix.
"It's time for her to go," He told her firmly, stopping in front of the steps. "The Coven is expecting her."
"I know," she said, moving over to give him room to pass. "She's as ready as she'll ever be. But Giles?"
"Yes?" He stopped in mid-step, looking down at her.
Before she could warn him about the possible reception he was going to receive in the house, the door burst open.
"Buffy!" Dawn yelled in an overly loud voice.
"What?" Turning around, Buffy brushed by Giles.
"She's gone!" Dawn blurted out, her eyes darting in Giles' direction, clearly panicking.
"Gone where?" Buffy asked.
"I don't know. She's not in the house," Dawn said, grabbing her arm and attempting to drag her into the house.
"Where's Xander?" Buffy asked, following her through the door, a silent Giles at her heels.
"He's asleep," Dawn said, pointing up the stairs.
"Asleep?" Buffy stared at her sister for a brief moment before running up the stairs. Stopping in the doorway to her room she looked around. Xander was lying back in the large chair he normally occupied while Willow slept. Frowning, Buffy walk over to him and shook his shoulder. "That's not normal," she muttered when he didn't wake up. "Giles!"
Giles stepped around her and bent down to examine Xander. "It's a simple spell. She must have put him to asleep. He should wake up in several hours when the spell wears off," he said, pulling out a handkerchief and cleaning his classes.
"Wake him up now!" Buffy insisted.
"It's safer to let him wake up naturally," Giles told them, pointing towards the door.
"Why'd she do that?" Dawn asked quietly, preceding him down the stairway.
"I don't know," Giles said. "We'll ask her when we find her."
"How're we going to do that?" Buffy asked from the top of the stairs. "She managed to put Xander to sleep and get out of the house without any of us noticing. Yesterday she needed help walking to the bathroom."
"If she used magic to escape there will be a trail," Giles said, following Dawn into the kitchen.
"What do you need?" Dawn asked. "Can we get it from Anya?"
"We'll have to call the Coven," Giles said.
"Can't you find this magical trail thing yourself?" Buffy asked, pacing in front of the stove
"Normally," Giles said, grimacing slightly as he joined Dawn at the small kitchen table. "Unfortunately, I haven't recovered enough magic yet. It could be another week."
"Oh." Buffy sighed. She didn't expect Willow to get very far in her condition but she wasn't going to wait that long. Anything could happen before then. "How's this Coven going to help?"
"They can give us the general area."
"Like, in Sunnydale?" Buffy suppressed a growl at his nod. "We know that already. Is there anyone else?"
"No one we can trust." Taking off his glasses again, Giles methodically cleaned them.
"Can you teach me?" Buffy asked, holding up the kettle. Returning it to the stove, she turned it on at his nod.
"Why not me?" Dawn asked, grumbling as she nervously bounced up and down in her chair.
"Someone has to be here when Xander wakes up," Buffy told her.
"Giles can do that," Dawn protested.
"Giles isn't doing anything." Buffy told her sister. "He barely managed the walk here."
"You were going to let him take Willow," Dawn said. "If he could do that, he can keep an eye on Xander until we get back."
"We?" Buffy raised an eyebrow at her sister.
"Someone has to carry Willow back after we find her," Dawn said.
"Wrong answer," Buffy said. "Giles is going to show me how to do this magic bloodhound thing and you are going to stay here."
"But..." Dawn whined.
"No argument. From either of you." Buffy stared at Giles for a moment before he nodded his head in agreement. "I know you want to help." Buffy said softly, gently squeezing Dawn's shoulder. "But it's almost dusk. And Willow probably isn't going to be too coherent. She isn't going to want to come back."
"Okay," Dawn said, slumping back into her chair.
Willow could hear them talking in the kitchen. They thought she was already gone. She was surprised at her own cleverness. Something was telling her to leave; to get out of town. It'd been murmuring in her ear for days but this was the first time she'd listened. But she didn't really have the energy for anything fancy or quick.
She wasn't as worn out as she'd been pretending but she'd exhausted herself with the sleep spell on Xander, the disillusionment spell to hide her presence, followed by the torturous trip down to the living room. It wasn't so much 'Exit Stage Left' as 'exit Willow Rosenberg, pulled by snails' she thought. All she needed was another minute and she could sneak out. There was bound to be a bus or train headed somewhere far away.
Willow wasn't worried about Giles' magic tracking spell, especially if he had to teach Buffy how to do it. A slayer might be able to sense magic but they were hunters, all brute force and violence. A magical decoy should fool her and Giles' spell long enough for her to disappear. As long as Buffy relied on that and not her own over-developed slayer senses.
Willow took one last look around. There were some things she would miss, while she could still remember anything. Late nights cuddled on the couch with Tara. Being graced with her best friend's smile during a study night sleep-over. Family dinners with Joyce, Buffy, and Dawn when her own parents were out of town. But too many of her thoughts of Tara lead to pain. Those memories she wouldn't miss.
Opening the front door, Willow cautiously went out onto the porch. Somewhere out there was freedom. Freedom from pain, from loosing her true love, from disappointing her family. Taking a deep breath, she stepped onto the sidewalk towards it.
