Pieces

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Forge - Pieces

Of all the nights you had to be stubborn Willow why this one? Why not last night? Last night was easy, or tomorrow even. Tomorrow would have been just peachy to make your Slayer-Sidekick return. Why tonight? Tonight, the first night I've come across a real vamp nest in weeks and of course it's the one night you just had to tag along!

Out of seven there's five left, I've lead them away from you Willow but I can't see you now, I don't know where you are, I don't know if you're safe…tell me you ran Willow..tell me you did the smart thing, you so regularly do the smart thing except when it really, really counts..tell me you did the smart thing and ran, not walked, not passed go, but RAN back to the campus!

Please be safe Willow, please.

Thrust, dust..typical male...four to go.

Please, please, please….

My timing sucks.

I just had to get fed up with being afraid tonight. Had to ask, no demand Buffy take me with her on patrol tonight and of course this is the one night when there might actually be real problems. But..it's just..just today was Thursday.

Even before all this started I hated Thursdays and now I hate them even more. On Thursdays I barely get to see Buffy. None of our classes overlap on Thursdays, we can't even have lunch together as I have class when she's free and vice versa. Before..before..everything I usually didn't see Buffy till Friday morning because I'd be asleep by the time she got back from her patrol. Now I wait up because there's no way I'm going to try and sleep without her around. Yeah I'm dependent, maybe even addicted..if you slept next to Buffy Summers wouldn't you be?

Now though, now we're in trouble. Or I'm in trouble. I had gotten tired of waiting for Buffy to come home, I had gotten really tired of sitting in an empty dorm room and I had gotten really, really tired of being startled by every voice in the hallway, every heavy footstep that echoed outside my door.

I'd gotten tired of being afraid.

So what do I do? I demand to go out with her tonight and run the risk of getting used as a snack by something that was undead! I'm pretty sure that is not the definition of 'Safe' you would find if one looked it up in a dictionary. Then again I only feel safe when I'm around her, with vamps in tow or not, if I can see Buffy I know I'm safe.

That's the problem. I can't see her. The fight dragged her away and the second she's out of eyesight my muscles lock solid. I'm incredibly aware where I am at that second.

It's dark.
I'm in a graveyard.
There's a mausoleum to my left.
And the door is opening…from the inside.

Buffy…help me!

I feel it before I see it. Then I see it too, the air ripples a bit like water, it's a wave thingie and it hits all of us. Passes through my gut and all my muscles from my chest down lock solid, all cramped up. I go down and would be vamp chow if whatever hit me didn't effect them either. Don't focus on that either, focus on what that was. 'Cause I know what it was. Willow.

I recover faster than my playmates, they're scrambling on the ground, kicking their feet in the dust, hands clawing at their chests like they're trying to pry something out of them. Few seconds later they're trying to really claw something out of their chests before they explode into ash. Leave the stake in the remains of the last one, don't have time to grab it, gotta find Willow.

I'm flying back the way I came, well not literally of course, I'm the Slayer, not Superwoman. She's a wimp. I'm erasing the space between where I wound up and where I left Willow. Faster..gotta move faster.

Damnit!
Damnit!
Damnit!

Stupid Wiccan, knew you wouldn't run, knew I shouldn't have brought you along, I knew it, knew it, knew it..but I just gotta cave in every time you use that damn 'serious' look of yours. Before we became an 'Item' I couldn't stand up to that and now..damnit, damnit, damnit!

Be okay Willow, you have to be okay or I'll..I'll…

Die.

There she is! She looks okay, she's upright..seems to be fine..no vamps around..so..what's wrong with this picture. She's standing stock still..one arm wrapped around herself, just under her breasts, she's got the one fist in her mouth, like she's trying to muffle a scream.

Oh god what happened now? This isn't fair, why does everything have to happen to her, why can't the whatever-they-are just give her a break..she looks like she's about to crack and I can hear the beginnings of her cries leak around her fist they sound so…much like laughter?

I move to her and I see her shoulders shaking now, not with sobs but..she's giggling? I cup her face in my hands and her eyes focus on me, behind her fist, which is still clamped against her mouth, I can see her lips turning up. Something isn't right here.

"Willow..what happened?" I say.

"Beep beep." She says around a mouthful of knuckles.

The moon isn't full, but almost there and if I didn't look undead already the blood leaving my face would cause anyone who saw me too slowly reach for a cross.

I swallow. "Willow?"

"Beep beep." She says again, stifling another giggle. "I'm the roadrunner!"

Omijeezusfuckingchristwhatthehellhappnedhere!!!

I'm still holding her face in my hands and I give her just an eensy shake. "Willow" I say sharply..a little too sharply because her eyes widen a little. I try and relax.

"Willow.." I'm repeating myself, damnit. "What happened here? I was fighting the uglies and..felt..something."

Her eyes focus a little more and she stops chewing on her fist instead folding her hands over each other between her breasts..almost like in prayer.

"Vamp grabbed..tried to.." She says. Her eyes are getting all shimmery and shiny, whatever happened she's about to break again.

"Where is it Willow? Did it hurt you? Bite you? Are you okay?" I ask. I have to know.

"Vampire tried to get me, you were not around, that's okay though cause you didn't know he was there," She's not looking at me anymore, but over my head, behind me actually. "Saw him come out of the mausoleum, coming for me..couldn't see his eyes or anything else..just his hands. Hands that were going to..grab..and….tear..hands that were gonna…touch…"

She looks like she's about to break into tears when..she's..just back. From where ever, whatever it was pushing her..she's not there anymore 'cause now she's looking right at me.

"He was going to touch me Buffy and I couldn't let him do that. So..I..so ..I did my little pencil trick."

"You brought a pencil?" I ask. Okay, stupid question but I'm just so amazed, surprised, relieved..so..what was with that 'beep beeping'?

"No." She says. "The vamp..um..he…he was the pencil. He's behind you." She giggles again.

I slowly turn around and get a good look at the mausoleum I passed. The one half of the double doors stand open, a darkened opening in a dark night but that's not the thing that I see. What I see, what causes me to start really worrying..

In one of the mausoleum walls there's a hole. Like something hit the wall at incredible speed and punched through the one foot thick cement like it was paper. From the hole, in the wall, I see two feet sticking out, as I watch one of them gives a little twitch.

"Just like the cartoons." I hear Willow laugh behind me. "He was the coyote, I'm the roadrunner. Beep beep!"

I turn around and look at her again..just…look. I'm not horrified at what she's done, they're demons, whatever works is fine by me. I'm ..she's.. she's just..standing there..giggling..and I know she's ..in shock or something. She's starting to lurch as she giggles, repeats 'Beep beep' a few more times. She nearly falls forward but catches herself at the last instant. I should take her in my arms, hold her, whisper sweet nothings, get her out of wherever she is inside but I can't..I can't..and the countdown is ticking.

Five…
Four…
Three..
Two…
One…

Her feet go out from under her and she's about to fall and I'm free from whatever paralyzed me. I scoop her up in my arms and pull her close, running my fingers through her hair, I can feel her breath in my ear.

"Beep….beep…" She whispers.

Zero.

And the tears are there, like they always have been. She's crying now..wow..hasn't been this bad in a long time, I mean I can barely hold her she's shaking so much. I'm trying to be supportive, saying the right thing, touching her the right way, holding her so she knows I'm there. 'Course there is no 'right way' in such a situation.

So I try and kiss away her tears.

There's a lot of them so I do a lot of kissing, and as I try and bind this ..hurt..that I have no understanding of, that I'm trying to fix as best I can, her sobbing slows, quiets..and finally stops.

I kiss the last tear I can see in the dark, just broken free of her lower eyelash and moving lazily down the swell of her cheek, it's so shiny against her pale skin, reflecting in the moonlight. And it's gone.

I pull my face back so I can look at her. "There." I want to say. "Feeling better?"
But she doesn't give me the chance.

My mouth is half open when her's finds mine.

Don't get me wrong, I made my decision to be with Willow not out of sympathy or some sort of need to give her what I felt she needed, when she needed it. I chose to love Willow, and to allow her to love me. It was sudden..and not. I don't know if it could be that way for everybody, having a deep, abiding bond of trust and camaraderie that all of sudden, 'Hey Presto!' gets flipped into something a hell of a lot more intimate. But that's what happened with us. I think.

I can't say that I felt it 'Always there.' Or that there 'was a sudden burst of awareness' that clued me in..it simply was..and then even more ..was. 'I love you.' Willow said and I…I…thought that was another right thing in the world. As it should be.

But despite all this, or probably because of it our..the..er..physical aspects of our relationship was incredibly slow, a choice I actively made and I think she appreciated. The 'farthest' we ever got was when she chewed delicately on my ear a few nights back after one of my 'Cure All Summer's Tickle Therapy'.

But now…now I find my face trapped between her warm hands, and her tongue is dancing between my teeth sweeping away all sense of ..of…being other than that glorious taste and a warm humming, buzz coursing along my nerves and it is oh, so very right and good and I find myself feasting on it, on the experience as if I've been starving but was never aware that I was ever hungry!

Her hands move..down my face..along my jaw…sliding over the skin of my throat..I'm aware of this, so very ..there! I suppose I could wax poetic for hours about this one instance. 'Blind and now I see..dumb and now I know' kind of stuff but it would all fall so short of the actual ..event..

She pulls her mouth from mine and again I'm swept away by sensation but now it is not one of satisfaction but of need..need..desire..so intense that, if I were not already kneeling, I would fall down. When did I kneel? I'm moving trying to find her mouth again with my own, trying to get a taste..just a taste once more..

"Want..want you.." Willow gasps before answering my searching lips with her own.

Bliss.

Her hands..her hands are moving again..over my shoulders..across..and down..I can feel her, through my jacket, shirt..clothing..I can feel her and..she's desperate and so am I and..and..we're in the middle of a graveyard.

I have to stop this.

It is so hard to do so though. Need is just screaming a bloody chorus in my mind and instinct isn't helping with it's pounding in my ..heart..yeah..my heart. I do it anyway. Shit.

"Willow.." I say trying to pry my face away.

"Talk..later.." She says trying to initiate another kiss..kiss hell! More like bonding! I so want to bond right now.

"No no no no..I say.." I say. "Talk now, we can't..I want to God knows I want to..want you..but we can't!"

She's still trying to kiss me. "Why..?" She whines. "Need you, want you…" Her eyes are closed but somehow she knows exactly where my lips are. I grab her face in my hands, gently.

"Willow!" I whisper. She's crying again, a mix of something I'd bet..pain, fear..whatever..lust..I dunno. I want to do everything I can to make it better but not here, not now. It would be a mistake. Yeah, and if I keep saying that I just might believe it.

"Don't you love me?" She keens softly. Her eyes are open now and tears are pooling out of them, running down her face, between the skin of my palms and her soft cheeks. She's looking at and she's ..I've seen people in pain before but this..

"I do love you, I love you so much and so suddenly it scares me!" My throat is beginning to choke up. Damnit, we're both going to be crying any second now.

"But this isn't the answer." I continue. "Not now..soon I promise but not now.." I pull her into my embrace. "I love you." I whisper into her ear.

She rests her head on my shoulder, just letting me hold her. She sniffles a few times.

"Yeah." She says.

"Besides," I glance at the nearest headstone. "Mrs. Jacob O. Berry, Born: 1848 Died: 1922, beloved wife and mother, might not appreciate the noise."

"Might register a complaint." Willow giggles slightly.

"More of a possibility than I'd like to admit." I say and she snickers quietly. Good..this is good, laughter is good..I hope.

We stay like that for a little while. Just kneeling in the middle of a graveyard, moon overhead, that kind of stuff. I'm never going to get these stains out my jeans.

"Buffy." She says.

"Yeah?" I say.

"Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for." I say. "Just a little awkward on the timing. Soon though."

"Promise?"

"Whenever you're ready." I say.

"Okay."

A few more minutes pass before I release her from the hug. I stand up, brush what dirt off I can and offer her a hand up.

"Let's go home." I say. The mystery of whatever the hell that was she hit the vamp with can wait. Right now, yeah..right now..the ..comfort is more important.

She takes my hand and stands up, waits a few seconds before jumping my arms, Slayer reflexes, fast, fast, fast y'know. She leans up and kisses me on the cheek.

"Carry me." She says.

Joy.

Funny thing that..'cause it is.

Wow..nice place B. Small, but cozy. You and Red got it good.

Too bad about the unlocked window though. Nice that I don't have to worry about that 'Non-Invited' thing like vamps.

Looks like no one's home though, course I figured that out breakin' in. Well, I'll just sit here, relax, maybe they got something in the fridge. Didn't want to sample the 'dining benefits from the Bus Stop snack shop so I'm feelin a might peckish. Sure you won't mind.

Nah, nothing worthwhile. Well..where are you guys anyway? After all the mystery to get me here then Spike goes and pulls a vanishing act. Don't even know why I'm here anyway.

'You and Red might having something in common.' Yeah right.

Hell with this, I'm not wasting my time waiting around, it's been..what..three whole minutes already? Talk about rude hosts. Okay, time to go..

Hark? Do my ears deceive me? Is that someone at the door?

B opens the door, she's cradling Red in her arms..how the hell did she use the key? Red looks passed out, must have been one hell of a party. Wish I had been there.

She's see's me. I'm just laying there sprawled on her bed, leaning against the headboard, legs crossed, didn't even bother taking off my boots. Did I mention I'm using one of her stuffed animals as a footrest? Not on purpose, it just kinda was there. Comfy though.

She looks at me, on her bed.

I look at her, holding Red.

Ooo..poetry.

Need to say something, something to let her know I'm not here to cause problems, not here cause I wanna be but somebody told me I should be..need some sort of icebreaker..

"Shut the door B. What will the neighbors think?" Not the best choice of words.

She kicks the door shut, walks to Red's mattress(Don't wanna rhyme too much.), lays sleeping beauty out carefully. Did she just caress her face? Curiouser and curiouser.

And now she's walking toward me and she doesn't look happy.

I can't help it, I smile.

Uh oh.