kendra_triedsohard

Tried So Hard

Author: Kendra A. (kendraangelusslayer@yahoo.com)

Rating: PG-13 for now, though I may change my naughty mind

Summary: After I watched "Wrecked", I felt this kind of wave of nausea at the humiliation Willow was put through. I thought Alyson Hannigan did an acting job that surpassed awesome, but it hurt to watch, and I was super upset because Willow is one of my favorite characters. So, "Kendra," I said, "Kendra," says I, "You've got to do something about this." And so, here is what I did. It's not reversing "Wrecked", per se. it's just setting things right. kind of.

Pairing: Funny question, this. It's kind of not really a 'ship, though if I continue it, it'll be Willow/Angel, and fluff. Sort of. I'll send it to some Willow/Angel lists with my wholehearted apologies.

Author's Notes: Look, I have no idea what drug withdrawal must really be like, and even less what magic withdrawal is really like. Don't hold it against me. And any spells or side effects are products of me, me, and only me. Have fun!

Dedication: This is wholeheartedly and without question for Lisa (a.k.a. Firedrake), my Muse, who is patient and wonderful and who thinks that I'm
working on "Morning". I'm sorry, Lisa, I couldn't help myself. So here's another angst-fic for you.

~~Part: One~~

January, 2002. Sunnydale, California.

Willow woke up feeling ill.

She'd tossed and turned all night long, the bottled-up magic burning inside her stomach like acid. Her grim resolution had held strong, but the rest of her had not. Her head hurt; her stomach lurched; her limbs shook uncontrollably; the sheets that still remained on the bed after her restless night were soaked in sweat.

The sound of the alarm clock blaring was not one she wanted to hear, but she repeated her little mantra in her head despite her pounding migraine and switched off the clock. Then, steeling herself against the inevitable, she swung her legs out of bed and stood.

It was no surprise to have the room twist as though it was caught in a cross-dimensional spell; there was no shock in the fact that the dizziness
forced her to a pathetic pile on her hands and knees as her stomach turned inside-out. Wave after wave of nausea hit her slender frame, and Willow retched and coughed up absolutely nothing for nearly fifteen minutes until she was able to take partial control of her senses and focus on her mantra:

* * *

It had taken Willow forty-five minutes to walk to the Magic Box. Things were getting worse, and despite her resolution to not bring any of her friends into this, something had to be done. There were no words to describe how sorry Willow was for everything, but she didn't want redemption so badly she'd die for it.

Steeling herself against the dizziness as she forced herself to stop leaning against the outer wall of the shop, Willow stood up as straight as she could and took slow, steady steps to open the door.

The bell tinkled as she entered; the reactions of all of the people inside were well-known. Dawn grimaced, turned her back and left the room; Xander looked after her helplessly, and shot a self-righteous glare in Willow's direction; Anya frowned at Xander; Spike scowled but stayed stalwartly at Buffy's side; and Buffy forced a smile onto her pretty face and refused to make eye contact.

"H-hey, guys," Willow said, her voice crammed with familiar Willow cheeriness.

There were mumbled greetings, and everybody turned back to what they were doing. Instead of inconspicuously joining them, Willow paused at the landing. "C-can we talk? Something's. you know. going wrong. I think."

At that, Buffy and Xander looked up. Their eyes held a measure of 'What's she up to now?' and 'I hope this isn't regression'. Willow sighed. "Something's going wrong w-with me. My magic."

At the word magic everyone stiffened, and the looks in Buffy and Xander's eyes were terrible indeed. Willow made her way to the table, trying desperately to control the shivering in her limbs, and shakily sat down. Nobody noticed that she was nearly falling over; nobody noticed that her frame was growing ever skinnier; nobody noticed the circles under her eyes. Willow figured she deserved it.

"I-I've tried not to pay attention to this," Willow began, "Because I thought it was n-normal, you know, typical w-withdrawal or whatever." She looked up, hoping to find encouragement in their eyes, but there was only judgment. "I h-haven't been feeling well at. at all, and I had an idea, but I figured I should ask you all first." Willow paused, took a breath, and said: "I was thinking of asking Angel if I could move to L.A. with him for a while."

There was complete silence, and then Xander hissed, "Trying to find the easy way out, Wills?" The nickname held no comfort.

She had been expecting his reaction, but nothing could have prepared her for the contempt in his dark stare. "N-no. No, Xander! I can explain, if-"

"Can't take the consequences, Willow?" Buffy demanded. "Aren't up to doing the penance?"

This was like something out of a nightmare. "No! No. Buffy, please-"

"And to Angel, of all people," Xander interrupted. Hate dripped from his every word. "Oh, no, can't go off to some AA retreat or something, have to go the Deadboy in L.A., who'll treat you like you're made of glass, is that it?"

Willow tried desperately not to cry-if she cried, they'd think she was weak. They'd think she was feeling sorry for herself. "Xand."

"-What I want to know," Anya said frankly, with no trace of judgment in her voice, "Is why Willow didn't just go and write to us from there?"

Another bout of silence followed her question. Anya, true to form, seemed not to notice. "I mean, if she wanted the easy way out, Xander, why didn't she just go? She wouldn't have to deal with us at all that way."

Willow let out a long, shaky breath. <I never thought I'd be thankful to Anya for anything.>

Buffy ground her teeth and sighed. "Alright," she said. "Why do you need to go to L.A., Willow?"

Willow raised her eyes from her hands, which were clasped together so hard the knuckles were white. "I. I can explain?"

Buffy set her jaw and nodded once, stiffly.

"O-okay." Willow furrowed her brow and tried to remember the speech she prepared in her mind. "I've gone two months," she said. "Two months, no magic. And I've tried to get my life b-back on track."

She looked around the table at the four of them: Anya, Xander, Buffy, Spike; and she thought she saw Dawn lingering in the door to the exercise room out of the corner of her eye. "This is going to be hard to say right without sounding like I'm trying to take the easy way out," she added with a breathy, nervous giggle. Spike's eyes bored into her.

"Uh. like I said, I don't really know what magical withdrawal is supposed to feel like, or how long it's supposed to go on for," she continued, "and nobody here really does either. And the thing is, I think it might be h-hur-hurting a little too much and going on a little too long.

"And the truth is, it has been hard. I mean, we've all done terrible stuff before, every single one of us, right? Buffy left after she sent Angel to
Hell-sorry, Buffy-and she came back, and was forgiven soon enough, even though you relapsed a little, and almost left again. But I haven't," Willow whispered, looking back down at her white-knuckled hands; "I haven't, but every time I walk into a room with you guys, the only one who looks at me like I'm human is Anya.

"I've tried so hard, and I haven't done any magic and I don't plan to ever again, but I feel like I need to be with people who won't judge me for every move I make and who won't hate me. I know what I did was wrong and I've told all of you that I'm so, so sorry, and I don't know what else I can do! I hurt, okay?" Willow said, finally letting the tears come. "I can't tell you how much this all hurts. It hurts to have you hate me-you guys are my family. It hurts to know that there's no forgiveness no matter how hard I try, and it hurts that I wasn't able to tell you any of this before because I was too afraid you wouldn't believe me. It hurts to have nobody to talk to.

"It hurts to not be able to use magic, and I know it's wrong to say that, and I don't plan to use it, but it's true! I went too far, and I know I crossed way too many lines, but that magic was something special and pure and beautiful and it was a part of me, and it wouldn't be so hard if you hadn't turned your heads away every time I tried to talk to you! And what hurts," Willow said, barely daring to breathe, "is waking up every morning."

The magic shop was silent again.

"I can't make you understand the pain," she continued, "but I'll try anyway. Every morning, I get up after a night of no sleep, because I toss and turn and sweat and cry all night long; and when I stand, I fall to my knees because of the pain." Willow looked to Buffy, her eyes pleading. "There's so much pain, Buffy, you can't believe it. It tears through my stomach and my head and it takes me forever to get up. I get up at seven and I'm only ready by nine-thirty, did you know? And I used to be able to be ready for anything in a half an hour."

Willow held Buffy's level stare, afraid to look away. "So that's why I think I should go to L.A., because they won't hate me there. They might be a little worried, but they won't hate me. They'd have to have seen what happened to really hate me. And they'll help-can you imagine Cordelia put up with any crap from anybody?" Willow gave a funny little laugh. "And Wesley and Angel might know better what's happening to me, and why, and they might be able to make the pain stop."

The silence was like a long black hole. It was like driving through a tunnel in a car alone, or sitting next to a person you've just had a fight with, so the silence is infinite, but you'd never hear a pin drop.

Buffy said, "Maybe the pain is normal, Willow." Cruel.

Xander looked ill.

Anya looked at Spike; Spike looked back. Finally, he said, "What's this pain like, then?"

Willow furrowed her eyebrows. "I. I said-"

"Yeh. You said it hurt. But how? Is there any physical effect?" The questions were direct, callous, but Spike's eyes held a bit of sympathy and a bit of. worry?

Willow thought, and her head began to ache. "I get up every morning, and I've got a migraine-it's like I'm being stabbed in the skull," she said slowly, her eyes far away. "And my stomach hurts, because I'm so hungry. I can't keep anything down, I throw up before bed every night. And I get out of bed and I can't stand because I'm so dizzy so I fall down, and I cough and choke and I'm so nauseous but I can't throw up because my stomach's so empty."

"Normal drug withdrawal side effects," Buffy cut in. "This might be something you just have to ride out, Willow."

Spike looked like he could contradict, but didn't. Xander turned an interesting pale shade.

"B-But Buffy." He swallowed. "She says it hurts." For him, that was enough reason to forgive anything, no holds barred. Willow could have kissed him for looking like he cared.

"This is something Willow brought upon herself," Buffy said, looking away. "And she needs to accept the pain that comes with it."

Even Spike looked shocked.

"I cough up blood, Buffy," Willow said in a tiny voice, knowing she had lost, knowing it was all for nothing. They'd follow Buffy, all of them, and they'd hate her until she died one morning, retching on her knees, coughing up blood and silver.

Anya seemed to sit up straighter. "Blood?"

A tiny nod. "Blood and silver."

Anya jumped in her chair and reached across the table to pull at Buffy's sleeve. "Buffy, this is serious. Blood is one thing, silver is quite another.
But I've heard of witches who go without magic and without help, and blood and silver is a bad sign."

Buffy flinched, and darted a quick look over her shoulder towards the back room, where everybody knew Dawn listened. "Willow did some bad stuff," Buffy said, and left.

* * *

"Angel Investigations, we help th-"

"Yeah, I know, you help the hopeless, Cordy," Xander's impatient voice interrupted. "But this is an emergency-is Angel there?"

Cordelia never thought to argue. Xander hadn't called Angel 'Deadboy'; something was definitely wrong. "Yeah. One second." She pressed a button on the phone and yelled, "Angel! Line 3!"

The phone clicked as Angel picked up, and he yelled back, "I got it, Cordy, thanks."

"Angel? Angel, man? You there?" The voice on the other end of the phone was so panicked that it took Angel a moment to realize who it was.

"*Xander*?"

"Angel, look, I know we've had our disagreements before, and I'm not sorry at all, but this is an emergency and we need to forget about our personal troubles," Xander said quickly.

If Xander was ready to apologize (sort of), he wasn't kidding. "Fine, Xander. What's wrong?"

"Willow's been coughing up blood and silver," Xander said with a break in his voice, "And it just got worse, and we don't know what to do."

* * *

An hour and a half later, Spike's black DeSoto pulled up in front of the Hyperion and Spike strode in, followed quickly by Dawn, Anya and Xander, who carried an unconscious Willow in his arms. Even in her death-like sleep, Willow's body jerked as though possessed. Her lips were dry and cracked, and a thin line of blood-laced liquid silver trailed from her mouth and down her cheek.

Angel got up from the desk and went around to help. Cordelia stood and fidgeted nervously, biting her newly-short nails even further to the quick. Fred and Gunn came out of the back office, and Wesley charged up from the basement with a musty book in his hands. "Is she alright?" Angel asked, lifting Willow's limp body from Xander's arms to his own.

"Does she bloody look alright?" Spike demanded.

Angel winced as Willow's slender frame shivered in his arms. "We can use my room," he said, and walked as quickly as he could up the stairs. Wesley
followed close at hand, explaining in a hushed tone that he'd found the cure, but it would have to be used soon or not at all. Xander and Spike came at their heels, while Anya and Dawn held hands tightly and worriedly at the foot of the stairs.

* * *

Xander clutched Willow's long-fingered hand in his own larger one and tried not to cry. She looked so small and pale lying there on Angel's crimson bedspread, and the unnatural blood and silver trickling from her mouth made it hard to believe that she wasn't already dead.

Wesley held her other hand, her left one, and was carefully painting runes on the back of it with reddish-brown henna, muttering in some unknown language the whole while. Spike paced back and forth, from the left side of the bed to the right; Angel, too, paced back and forth, but from the head of the bed to the foot.

Willow no longer jerked or tossed where she lay but shuddered slightly, perpetually, and blood and silver still dribbled from her mouth as she
breathed.

* * *

It was around one o'clock in the morning when the doors of the Hyperion were thrown open with a loud bang and Buffy stormed in. "Where is she?"

Cordelia, who had fallen asleep across her keyboard, looked up drowsily. "Wha.?"

"Willow! And, and Dawn! Where are they?"

Dawn stepped out of the office, where she'd been sprawled across Anya's lap on the couch. "I'm right here, Buffy," she said.

Buffy rushed towards her and swept her into a hug. "Oh, God, are you okay?"

"I'm not really the one you should be asking after, but I'm fine," Dawn said distantly.

"Wha-oh, you mean Willow? Where is she? I need to talk to her." Buffy scowled. "We'll figure something out, but I really don't think there's anything to worry about."

At that moment, an exhausted looking Angel, Spike and Wesley descended the stairs. Angel held an armful of bloody towels. Dawn jerked away from her sister and ran to Spike. "Will she be okay?"

Spike looked as though he was considering lying a little to soften the blow, but the desperate look in Dawn's eyes changed his mind. "I dunno, Li'l Bit," he said after a moment. "She coughed up a lot of bloody silver, not to mention just plain blood. I know the Watcher's spell stopped whatever it was from eating her insides out, but we don't know if it was in time." He trailed off when he saw Buffy standing there. "Buffy."

Spike had always looked at her with such unconditional love that the ambivalence in his eyes was like a stab to the gut. "Spike? What happened?"

"The 'penance' your witch had to pay really was killing her," Spike said softly. "She's upstairs."

Buffy looked to Angel, who stood by his office door, and to the heap of formerly pristine white towels that were now covered liberally in blood.
"That's." The Slayer swallowed. "That's all Willow's blood?"

Angel nodded and went into the office, presumably to dispose of the towels.

"What happened?" Buffy asked quietly.

"Not really sure," Spike told her. "Ask him." He jerked a thumb towards Wesley.

"Wes?" Buffy looked to him expectantly.

"Ahem," said Wesley. Buffy was annoyed at him for a brief moment until she realized he was actually clearing his throat and not being pompous. "Uh." He flipped through the book he'd brought down with him. "The-the magic that Willow had been practicing was inherently natural to her being," he began.

"Natural," Buffy repeated.

Wesley coughed and rubbed hid tired eyes. "Un-unlike the magic that Mr. Giles or Willow's girl-ahem, girlfriend Tara might have practiced, Willow was a natural-born witch."

"Like Amy?" Dawn asked in a small voice.

Wesley looked slightly lost.

"Amy's the girl that turned herself into a rat senior year," Buffy clarified rather unclearly.

"Into a. into a rat," Wesley said blankly. "Well, transfiguration would be quite a feat for an eighteen-year-old."

"But Tara's mother was a witch," Buffy said, frowning. "Doesn't that count?"

"Inherited witchcraft doesn't necessarily guarantee a natural aptitude at all," Wesley said, turning a page of his book. "Your friend Tara may have had witch blood, but the talent her mother possessed wasn't passed down. The magic she performed was most likely effective through pure force of will, or something to that effect."

"But Willow's a natural witch?" Buffy muttered.

"If she wasn't, she would not have been expelling blood and silver," Wesley said impatiently.

"All of that blood she coughed up?" Buffy asked hoarsely.

Wesley shot a cautious glance at Dawn. "Not per se, Buffy," he said stiffly. "Dawn, I know you are concerned for Willow's welfare, but I feel that fully explaining Willow's condition to you would cause you undue distress."

Dawn pursed her lips and sighed angrily. "Right. Of course. Little Dawnie can't handle anything."

Buffy looked from her sister to Wesley quickly and shook her head. "Forget it, Wes. We can hear it later. Where's Xander?"

Wesley moved around the counter and sat down at the front desk next to Cordelia, who had fallen asleep again. "He's upstairs, with Willow," he said.

* * *

Buffy found Angel's suite without much trouble, and paused at the doorway to take a deep breath. Then she pushed the door open and entered.

The door to Angel's bedroom was open still, and she could just see the light from a lamp inside. What she saw in that room gave her pause again.

Willow lay on her back in the center of the bed, breathing raspily through her nose. She was as white as paper, and she still bled, though only from her cracked lips and not from her mouth or throat. There were streaks of blood on her cheeks and forehead, and her hair was sweat-soaked. Xander lay next to her, curled on his side, clutching her hand like a lifeline. He looked so alive next to Willow's pallor that it was alarming, and there were streaks of white under his eyes that Buffy knew were dried tears.

Buffy moved forward and sat down lightly on the unoccupied side of the bed and took Willow's left hand in her own. She ran her thumb over the complex brown designs on the back of Willow's hand and sighed. Her friend was so pale, so dead looking, and her hand was so thin and light. Bird's bones.

There was a stirring, and Xander coughed a little and opened his eyes. He met Buffy's own worried ones calmly, and said, "Buffy. Decided to care a little?"

Buffy bit her lip as her own eyes filled with tears. "Xander, you don't know how sorry I am."

"Willow wouldn't want me to antagonize you, especially after how we did her, but I think you need to know exactly what we did to our best friend," Xander said. His voice was trembling.

"We," Buffy said.

"*We*," Xander agreed. "All that blood-she coughed up a lot of it, Buffy, but. Oh, God."

Buffy lay down next to Willow, holding the unconscious girl's hand to her heart.

"The magic she used. it was natural to her. She might have abused it in the end, but it was something built-in, and when she stopped using it, for our sake, it was like. not breathing for her." Xander stopped and ran a hand through his hair. "All this magic was building up inside her like carbon
dioxide, but she wouldn't let it go, both because she didn't know what was wrong, exactly, and also because she wouldn't have anyway, to keep us happy. But all of this magic took up room inside her, and it needed more space the more she stored it; so she threw up everything she ate-that room in her stomach, the magic took it up.

"And it took all of her energy, and when there was nothing more to take, she started coughing up blood. Her own blood wasn't welcome in her body, Buffy, because the magic needed space. And the silver-that's an advanced stage. The silver was the magic itself. It was compressed into a physical form, that's how much everything had been forced into so little space." Xander glanced at Willow's prone form and stroked her damp hair away from her forehead.

"She would have died one morning, coughing up blood and silver," he continued, unknowingly repeating Willow's own predictions, "Because we were too busy blaming her for everything, for channeling all of our personal anger at her over something that should have been forgiven a long time ago."

"But all of that blood, Xander?" Buffy asked, hardly daring.

"When Wesley did that spell. it released a lot of the magic inside of her, and it kind of. I think exploded is the operative word here," Xander whispered. "And that pressure inside forced her blood out. So when Wesley finished the spell, she bled." Xander swallowed and silent tears slipped from beneath his eyelashes. "From everywhere. From her eyes, like tears. It looked like she was crying blood. From her nose, from her mouth, from beneath her fingernails. slowly. It was horrible. And then I guess it wasn't going quickly enough, because suddenly she was covered with blood, and once we'd gotten her cleaned up, Wesley said it was because her pores were bleeding."

Buffy clenched Willow's limp hand tighter in her own and let go a muffled sob. "Oh, God." She kissed Willow on the cheek. "I'm so, so sorry."

Xander shifted his hold on Willow's hand and reached across her torso with his free hand towards Buffy. She took his offered hand in an iron grip and together they relaxed against Willow, and slept.

~~Part: Two~~

Willow woke up and could not see.

She did not panic; instead, irrationally, she assumed she was dreaming, and that in dreams, perhaps, one could be robbed of one's sight.

The darkness was soft and inky and it smelled. different. Different than her room at Buffy's house, different that her old bedroom on Westminster Drive, different than the musty smell of Giles' house, different than the smell of Lysol and beer that was the dorm room at Stevenson Hall. The air that surrounded her smelled of dark things come to light. It was spicy and mellow all at once, and had the distinct taste of nutmeg. It wrapped around her body and felt like absolution.

Willow shuddered in pleasure and stood.

She could feel silken sheets brush her legs as she placed them on the floor, and felt the air on her bare legs as she pushed herself off the bed. There was no dizziness, and no nausea; there was quite simply a sense of peace. The magic inside her was undeniably there; indeed, it hummed as it ever had, but it felt released, as if she'd been using it regularly, and it twined around her like a cat, purring for attention and completely content.

Willow stood for what might have been seconds, might have been hours, might have been days in that perpetual infinity until the darkness was interrupted with a sound as gentle as water rippling: a baby's cry.

The sound was not harsh, as babies are wont to sound, but inquisitive: why am I here in the dark? It was as if the sound had a lead tied to it, for Willow followed it as surely as if she could see it, and soon the palm of her hand met with the knob of a door, and the knob turned and clicked beneath her touch, and she entered into more darkness.

The baby cooed as if it knew she was there, and silent as death but a thousand times more kind, Willow slipped to the crib that she couldn't see and sat on the chair beside it and looked inside.

<*Connor*,> thought Willow, and Connor replied, <Yes.>

* * *

Downstairs, in the Hyperion's lobby, Connor's soft cry was easily heard by the assorted creatures of the night.

Buffy sighed. "Angel?"

He looked up from the computer behind the counter and nodded. "I hear him-just a minute, I've got to finish writing this down-"

"Nah, I'll get it," Lorne said. "If he needs to get back to sleep, he'll need someone who can sing him back *properly*."

Angel scowled at him.

"Check on Willow while you're up there?" Xander asked from where he was sprawled on the floor of the lobby.

"Sure thing, hon," Lorne said, and had walked halfway to the second floor when he turned and came back down. "Are you sure that's the most comfortable place you could be?"

"Oh, yeah," Xander said confidently. "Floor's nice and cool."

"It's not my fault the heater's broken!" Angel protested as all eyes in the lobby turned to look at him.

"It's gonna be a sauna upstairs," Lorne said, loosening his red and yellow striped tie.

And it was.

Since the lights glared so terribly and added so much heat, they had opted to keep them off while none of them were upstairs; they also didn't want the lights keeping Connor awake or shocking Willow if she woke without their notice. The corridor on the second floor was dark and velvety and very nearly steaming, and despite the fact that it was mid-January, Lorne found himself humming "Summertime" under his breath.

"One of these mornin's. you're gonna rise up singin'. then you'll spread yo-our wiiiiings. and you'll take to the sky." The door to Angel's suite was unlocked, and Lorne slid his cerulean jacket off and draped it over what he assumed must be a chair just inside the door.

<Second door on the left is Connor's crib.> Lorne remembered, and opened the door.

Though he couldn't see (demon eyesight only went so far when there was absolutely no light), he could certainly hear, and what he heard was the gentle giggle of a contented baby and the soft but confident sound of a young woman singing:

"Go to sleep now, my pumpkin. let me cover your toes (here there was the sound of a soft kiss being placed on the baby's forehead). if you sleep now, my pumpkin. you will turn to a rose."

Willow laughed softly and bounced Connor in her lap. Though the darkness was infinite, she could see his dear little face clear as day and his perfect toothless, soft-lipped grin. "If you had teeth," she whispered to him confidentially, "and if you had hair and were perhaps six foot one and not a baby, you'd look a great deal like Angel, do you know that?"

Connor just grinned at her.

Lorne, meanwhile, had just received a very specific reading from Willow's soft lullaby, and though he didn't much think it was about Willow, it was about Connor, and he knew Angel would want to know.

He turned and began the long walk back down the corridor, and then it suddenly
occurred to him: Willow was awake.

* * *

Willow picked Connor up, cradling him tenderly in the crook of her arms, and carried them both back to the first room. It was so warm and soft here, and Connor was so sweet and trusting in her arms; and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she was awash in love.

Somehow, in this beautiful dream, she had spoken Connor's name. It had come to her from the depths of nowhere, and he had said her name back and he loved her. It was the simple, unconditional adoration of a baby to its mother, though neither of them would have called it that, necessarily, and it seemed perfectly natural that they'd curl up together on the big soft bed (Willow carefully keeping Connor on his back) and go to sleep.

* * *

"Willow's awake?" Buffy whispered, unfolding her tiny frame gracefully from the chair where she'd been sitting.

"Willow's awake!" Xander exclaimed, doing some interesting acrobatics and floppings-about in an attempt to get up off of the allegedly cold, slippery and newly waxed lobby floor.

"Willow's awake!?" shrieked Dawn, flying out of Wesley's office.

"Willow's-" Anya followed Dawn, and was about to say something, and then stopped. "Damn. You all have said 'Willow's awake' in just about every thrilled tone of voice that exists." She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "I'll just say I'm happy and you all can believe me; how's that?"

"Fred, Gunn, Willow's awake!" Cordelia said gleefully, exiting the other office with her colleagues a step behind her, and then she stopped. "What?"

* * *

The group expedition down the second floor corridor was almost like a parade, such was the tangible feeling of inexpressible joy. Willow was alive, and well, and awake!

The door to Angel's suite was opened with much pomp and flourishing, and the door to Connor's bedroom almost with a fanfare; but then Spike said, "They're not here."

"What?" said Buffy.

"What?" said Xander.

"What?" said Anya.

"What?" said Dawn.

"What?" said Cordy.

"What?" said Fred.

"What?" said Gunn.

"What?" said Wesley.

(They all said this simultaneously, so it wasn't quite the boring, tedious or monotonous string of 'what's as it might appear.)

"What?" said Lorne. "But-they have to be! They just were!"

"It's okay, Lorne," Angel said, turning towards his room. "They're in here."

The door was opened with fewer fanfares, and there was a hushed clamoring of the people without night vision to know what was going on. Finally, Angel, Spike, Lorne and Buffy backed away on tiptoes from the silent soft room, and led the procession downstairs, leaving Willow and Connor to dream on.

"Oh!" said Lorne to the dejected crowd of people who plopped back to their various seats (or, in Xander's case, flopped facedown onto the floor) in the lobby. "She was awake, though, and singing babycakes a lullaby."

Xander perked up at this. "The Pumpkin Song?"

"Yes, that," Lorne said tolerantly. "Look, Tall-Dark-and-Brooding, the girl's fine, absolutely fine-I got a reading off of her."

Angel brightened slightly at this revelation. "Good."

"And I got a little premonition about the newest addition to our happy family, too," the anagogic demon continued. "Got a pen and paper? It's a long verse."

Pen and paper were agreeably handed over, and after quite a bit of writing, Lorne produced this:

"This little Babe, so few days old
Has come to rival Satan's fold;
All Hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake:
For in this weak unarmed wise
The Gates of Hell he will surprise."

Angel read this and frowned. Cordelia snatched it from his loose grip and read it with Fred, Wesley and Gunn looking over her shoulder.

"Lorne, I've heard that before. It's the first verse of a really old, really weird-soundign Christmas carol."

Lorne grinned broadly at him. "Oh, no, that's where you're wrong, Batman. See, it's a prophecy, and a couple of would-be composers thought it sounded properly Messiah-esque and whisked it away for their own sinister purposes. But it ain't about Jesus, honey. It's about Connor."

~~Part: Three~

Spike paced, stoic and blank-faced, beside his Slayer as she huffed down the street. Her short hair was tucked tightly behind a claw-hold, and her face was set in a firm pout.

Finally, after about an hour of stomping around L.A., Buffy stopped. "Argh!" she screamed unhelpfully.

Spike put his hands in the pockets of his duster and wished he had some cigarettes.

"Spike-" Buffy sighed and turned to look at him. He met her gaze levelly and didn't move.

"I feel so guilty," Buffy murmured, and crossed her arms. "But I'm so pissed. So indescribably, unbelievably pissed. Did you see Connor?"

Spike gave a short laugh. "Yes, pet, I did. The pouf's son. Saw him all right. Cute."

Buffy frowned. "Don't you get it? Angel had sex with Darla! Darla!"

Spike pursed his lips and thought about this. "Look. Buffy."

She glared.

"I get that you're pissed that the p-that Angel has done 'the wacky' with Darla." Spike clenched his fists in his pockets and sighed. "But I, personally, do not like being your Dear Abby for love troubles, especially when you know, and I know, that I'm. in love with. you."

Buffy grimaced. "Please."

"Like it or not, it's the truth!" Spike said tensely. "And you don't seem to mind overly much, seeing as we've hardly spent a night apart for two bloody months! And don't you pout at me!" he added as Buffy's lips began to droop. "But think of this-vampires have great senses of smell, eh? Can always tell. who's 'done the wacky' with who. And I'd say that Angel's showin' some nice restraint for someone who's so bloody uptight, considerin' that we've been stinking up his hotel for three days smelling like us!"

Buffy gasped, and a delicate hand came up to cover her mouth as her eyes widened. "He. Angel knows?"

Spike clenched his jaw and nodded, staring fixedly at a fascinating spot on the alley they were in. "Yeh, he knows."

"He can smell it?" Buffy hissed, disgusted. "My best friend almost died, I'm screwing a demon and Angel knows, and I'm worried about where his little son came from." She shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Great. That's just great."

"Puts things in perspective, doesn't it?"

* * *

"I don't know if this will work," Lorne warned. He, Cordy, Fred, Angel, Anya and Dawn stood over Angel's bed, in which Willow and Connor slumbered
peacefully on. They'd both been fast asleep for two days, and it was only concern for his son that had moved Angel to periodically lift Connor from
Willow's arms and carefully feed him some baby formula even as he slept. Whenever the baby left her arms, Willow shivered and silent tears ran down her face.

It was painful to watch, and also worrying, as Willow's inexplicable awakening had passed so quickly and seemed to have amounted to nothing.

"You were able to get into Cordy's head," Fred pointed out. "When she was having those killer visions."

"Oh, yes, them," Cordy muttered. "Those fun things. How could I forget?"

"Yes, I know, sweetcheeks," Lorne said, hitching the legs of his dark red slacks and lowering himself onto the bed. "But that was just to glimpse at
something-take a little look-see and go-and even then I got thrown back against the wall like-like-something that gets thrown back against the wall really hard." He sighed. "With Cordy, it was like standing by a city's entrance, just to see what's going in and out. With Sleeping Beauty here, I'm going in. Who knows what kind of mental guards she'll have up?"

"I thought Willow wasn't doing magic anymore," Anya said pensively. "How can she have guards on her brain?"

"It doesn't have to be magic," Angel answered, shifting apprehensively. "If she's strong enough mentally, she'd be able to get anyone or anything out by pure force of will. It's kind of personal to have someone walk around in your mind."

"Not helping with the reassurance, Mr. Pessimist," Lorne scowled. "Go away. I can't concentrate with all of you standing around being nervous."

"But-" Dawn protested.

"Shoo! Scoot! Cease and desist! Begone!" Lorne huffed in decidedly hostile manner.

The cowed group shuffled out of the door.

"Ooookay, Willow, honey," Lorne muttered. He flexed his arms in an attempt to raise morale and gently placed his fingers on her forehead. "Ready or not, here I come."

With a slight mental push, the green-skinned demon was in.

Lorne looked around and furrowed his brow. "Hmm. That was easy."

He stood in what looked like an office waiting room. There were several dark green armchairs against one wall, and in a corner was a table covered in magazines. There was even a receptionist's desk. The intercom balanced on the counter suddenly turned on and a little red light blinked. "Miss Rosenberg will see you now," a mechanical voice said.

"Thanks," Lorne said confusedly, and stepped through a door into the main office.

The room was five-sided, with one wall that was all windows. The rest were book-lined, and while almost every shelf looked to be dust-free and in
impeccable alphabetical order, a few books from a shelf near the floor were shoved haphazardly in next to each other, and some had fallen onto the
uncarpeted honey-wood floor. Lorne knelt to look at them: "The Liatian Codex of the Dead" was the title of one, and "Mesopotamian Resurrection Practises" was another. He frowned and put the books back down before he turned to look at the rest of the room.

In front of the wall of windows was a wide desk. On it were three small detached shelves labeled "in", "out" and "pending"; there were some
computer-printed papers in each box. Lorne picked one up from the "pending" box, and after looking at some other papers realized that everything was written in binary code, all ones and zeros.

"For goodness' sakes," Lorne grumbled, and replaced the papers. He glanced around again and was somewhat surprised to observe that a slender laptop computer had appeared on the desk besides the boxes. Lorne hesitantly walked around the desk to stand in front of the laptop and flipped it open. The monitor flickered to life immediately and he was asked for a password.

"Password?" he repeated under his breath. "Uh." He typed in 'willow', and was pleasantly surprised to have the computer chime and flicker to the main desktop. There was what he assumed was the hard drive, which was labeled "Nano-Willow"; there were several independent folders labeled "Scooby Gang" and "Buffy's Resurrection" and "Magic Stuff"; and the rest looked like anyone else's computer. There was an Internet Explorer alias as well as one for Netscape Communicator; there was an AOL Instant Messenger alias, and two Mac StuffIt files. There were links to two different printers, a color one and a black-and-white, and aliases for MacScrabble, Myst, Riven, RealPlayer and the Sims.

"This is the wicked witch's brain?" Lorne muttered. He tentatively double-clicked on the folder entitled "Scooby Gang", and was presented with a
list of Microsoft Word files, each with the name of a different White Hat, even those at Angel Investigations. Lorne dragged the mouse across all of the files and then released the button to go to File and open all of them.

They were all in binary code.

101011110001010111010100010101000101010001011110100010101010111101001010101011001010101000001010100010101010101010101101111010010111101000110010101101111110100101

said the very beginning of the file entitled "Harris, Alexander LaVelle", and the same went for "Summers, Buffy Anne", "Summers, Dawn", "Emerson, Anya", "Giles, Rupert", "MaClay, Tara", and "Chase, Cordelia". There were also files on Faith Wilkins, Daniel Osbourne, Alan Francis Doyle, Gunn, Angel, and Wesley, with two very small files on Lorne and Fred.

"Why are these all encrypted?" Lorne scowled.

"To stop anagogic demons from snooping through my brain," Willow said.

Lorne looked up suddenly. Willow stood in front of him, a few feet from the desk, cradling a cooing Connor in her arms. She smiled. "You're Lorne, right? Angel's buddy?"

"I wouldn't call me his buddy," Lorne said dubiously. "After all, it's kind of trying to be a 'buddy' to someone who can butcher Barbra without even trying."

"Angel's sung Barbra Streisand?" Willow asked with a smile. "Never mind. I don't want to know." She gently bounced Connor in her arms and her face grew grave. "Am I really a wicked witch? Is that what they think?"

Lorne had to recall his self-addressed comments from a few moments before to remember what Willow was talking about. "Wicked-oh, no, honey, not at all. I don't always mean exactly what I say," he explained.

"I try not to use magic in my head," Willow said, "not even to guard my own brain. So I let you in, but you can't read anything I've got filed."

"Want to explain that again, pumpkin?"

Willow smiled at the word pumpkin and shifted Connor slightly. "I felt that if I wanted to get rid of my magic addiction I shouldn't even use spells inside myself for protection. So all of the encryptions should be totally magic-free. I'm a computer whiz, you see."

"I think you're the only person I've ever met who files their brain," Lorne said, letting his glance drift around the room with all of its carefully shelved books. Willow looked around with him.

"Most of my information isn't in the books," Willow said. "A lot of this stuff is memories, from when I was little and before I really understood computers enough to file and save. See? Those are my seventh grade pre-Algebra textbooks." She nodded towards a shelf to her right. "And those are my fifth grade journals." A nod towards her left, where there were several shelves full of smaller books patterned with flowers and hearts.

"I really started sorting through the info in my brain once I met Buffy. It had never occurred to me that I'd need all of this. stuff. I like to have my
thoughts in order." Her eyes flicked to the small pile of books that had tumbled from their shelves. "And this way I always know when I need to sort
something."

"So the loose books. those are unresolved issues?"

Willow tickled Connor's cheek and smiled. "Yes. And the independent folders on the desktop, those are unresolved too. You'd be able to read the files if you'd given the right password."

Lorne raised an eyebrow. "Why do you have computer games in your head?"

"So that when I'm asleep but not dreaming I have something to do," Willow said. "Here-you might need this." She bent slightly to catch the paper that a printer at her side was producing.

"That wasn't there a minute ago," Lorne observed.

"Of course it wasn't," Willow said. "It's my brain, after all." She handed Lorne the piece of paper.

Der kleine Knab, kein'n Tag noch alt,
Er stürmt die Burg des Satans bald;
Sein Nahen macht die Hölle zag,
Ob selbst vor Kält' er zittern mag;
Denn unbewehrt und schwach und klein
Ins Tor der Höllen bricht es ein.

"This is gibberish," Lorne protested.

"No, it's not, it's German," Willow said. "It's the first verse of the prophecy you pulled from my brain. It got translated when you picked it up, but it would probably be more accurate if you just had Wes or Angel sit down and translate it into English word for word."

"Speaking of which, young lady," Lorne scowled, "What are you doing still asleep? You woke up and then came back in here, taking the apple of Broody's eye with you, and they're all worried back at the hotel."

"Tell them I'll be out in a little while," Willow said. She crossed the room and sat down at her desk in front of the computer, moving Connor to cradle him with her left arm. "I need to go through my files."

"Can I take Connor with me?" Lorne asked gently. "They're worried about him."

Willow glanced down at the now-sleeping baby. "You *could*, but he's perfectly safe here with me. And I might get the second verse of that prophecy. It's delivered to Connor in care of me, but he can't read it himself. I've got it saved on the hard drive in English, German, and Latin."

Lorne shook his head. "Sure, honey. Just finish up soon, and come on out. Everyone's here-even another stuffy Watcher is flying back from England. And they're worried about you."

"I'll be about as soon as I can," Willow assured him. "Just one thing-how long have I been asleep?"

"A day, and then you woke up for a half hour, and then two more days," Lorne said.

"That long?" Willow looked alarmed. "Oh, I'll finish up all right. Tell them I'll be out soon."

"Sure thing, sweetness. And-just think of this: a long shower awaits you when you get up. You can get rid of all that blood."

"Blood?" Willow said. "What blood?"

Lorne lifted his fingers from where they'd been pressed to Willow's temples and shook his head to rid it of cobwebs. He stood to let the others know that Willow was all right, and noticed a small, cream-colored envelope that was laid neatly in the center of the girl's collarbone. He gingerly picked it up, and as it wasn't sealed he extracted the contents.

"Jumping Jellyfish," Lorne whispered, and then frowned as he realized he'd really said what he'd thought he'd said. There was a small note at the bottom of the page.

Wes: You shouldn't have too much trouble translating this. It's not any archaic form, just your basic modern German, though some references might be a little dusty. Any German dictionary will do for translating, though Spike tells me he speaks the language as does Angel, so they might help for this to go faster. Angel: Connor is absolutely fine, I promise. He's with me while I decode and sort some files. We'll be out in a little while, none the worse for wear. Connor should not be altered at all except for being a little precocious. But then, he tells me you've got aspirations for Notre Dame, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Willow

*Non-message portions of this document have been removed*

"Jumping Jellyfish," Lorne whispered again.

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