Pairing: W/S, possible metion of others.
Setting: Mid-Season 5, shortly after Joyce's death.
Genre: Angst, Darkfic, AU/Historical, Challenge Response
General Warnings: Graphic depictions of sex, language, violence, S/M, characters' death.
Summary: Willow's dreams transport her to Nazi Germany, where she must fight, (and survive), a different kind of evil.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;
Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?
Lewis Carroll, Life is But a Dream
~Part: 1~
Wind whistled past Willow's ears as she ran. Cold air was forced rapidly in and out of her lungs, freezing her nostrils, her throat, her chest, scraping like ice shards at her insides. She glanced over her shoulder without stopping, trying to catch a glimpse of her pursuer. Something caught her foot and she stumbled, landing face first. Frigid snow filled her nose and mouth, and stung her eyes. She sputtered and rubbed her eyelids. Whoever was chasing her was now standing right behind her. Terror and confusion filled her; the last thing she remembered was going to bed that night, next to Tara. She slowly turned her head and saw a tall figure standing above her. Shadows concealed his features, but his attire was unmistakable. A Nazi uniform!
"Get up, Willow, get up! We're gonna be late."
Willow frowned. The words seemed to be coming from the man standing above her, but there was something incongruous about it. The voice was feminine and shrill, and did he say they were going to be late? Late for what?
She blinked a couple of times. The shadows dispersed and a new face formed in front of her.
"Dawn?"
"Duh. Buffy says it's your turn to take me to school, so you better hurry up or I'm going to be late."
Willow looked around her as if to reassure herself that what she had seen moments earlier was indeed a dream.
"Where is Tara?" she asked apprehensively.
"Already gone, you overslept. Are you going to get up or am I going to be late, again?"
"No, no. I'm up! See? Just give me a moment and ." she stuttered as she wandered aimlessly around the room.
"Uh, if you're looking for the bathroom, it's that way," Dawn said, pointing Willow in the right direction.
"Yeah, right, the bathroom. Thank you."
Dawn eyed her suspiciously. "Willow, are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just this dream I had."
"It must have been some dream."
Willow shook her head as she made her way to the bathroom. "No, not really. It was just so - real."
By the time Willow had exited the bathroom and hastily thrown on some clothes her head had cleared up considerably, but a strange feeling remained. A sensation of cold and dread.
Her day proceeded normally and the dream of that morning, along with the strange feeling, was all but forgotten as Willow settled on her bed for the night.
"Good night, honey." Tara whispered in the darkness and Willow felt her girlfriend's comforting arm around her.
"Umm, good night. I love you."
"Me too."
As she closed her eyes, Willow gathered the blanket closer around her body. The room was chilly. It was more than chilly, it was freezing cold, she was freezing cold.
"Get up! I said, get up!"
"What? Already?" She mumbled.
Willow rubbed her eyes sleepily. As her surroundings came into focus, she froze. Snow clung to her clothes and dripped from her hair as she struggled to get up. Before she could find her bearings, a strong hand wound itself around her hair and yanked her to her feet.
"Ouch!" Let me go!"
The man who held her captive only laughed cruelly and punched her in the stomach, hard. All the wind was knocked out of Willow's lungs and she would have plummeted to the ground had it not been for the man's strong grip on her hair.
"It's only a dream. It's only a dream. Wake up, Willow. You can wake up if you want to. It's only a dream," she mumbled to herself as she was dragged through the snow and thrown into the back of a truck.
There were half a dozen women in the truck with her, their faces pale and gaunt, their eyes vacant. They looked like specters in their bloodied and tattered dresses. Willow's heart began to beat faster and her breathing became ragged as the women stared straight ahead, ignoring her plight.
She remembered something she had read once, about how people could wake themselves up from a dream if they screamed loudly enough. Willow let out a shrill scream. Suddenly, her voice was cut short and tiny lights exploded behind her eyes. The faces of the women swirled before her and disappeared into an impenetrable, black fog.
The next thing Willow felt was a small hand gently nudging her back.
"Go back to sleep, Tara. I don't want to get up yet. It's so cold," Willow mumbled.
"Get up, you have to get up now, or they'll hit you again." The voice was not Tara's and its tone of urgency caused an alarm to go off in Willow's confused mind.
She slowly opened her eyes. It was night-time She was still in the back of the truck and the voice she had heard was that of one of the women she had seen earlier. A soft moan escaped her lips; the back of her head ached something fierce and her ploy to awaken herself had not worked. The door of the truck flew open and there stood the same man who had punched her earlier, along with two others dressed in similar uniforms.
The man was barking at them to get out of the truck and the other women nearly trampled Willow in their haste to comply. Slowly, still uncertain about what was happening and how to proceed, Willow climbed to her feet and out of the truck with the others. They were led in a single file to the side of a building, where an overhead flood light illuminated the yard.
Willow looked down at herself and frowned. For the first time she noticed that she was dressed much the same as the other women: faded grey buttoned shirt, a matching skirt that reached well below her knees, and black shoes. The only difference was that except for some wet spots left by the snow, her outfit was in good condition, especially when compared to the others'. She gingerly ran her fingers over the fabric; it felt cold and rough, and very real.
A soldier who looked somewhat older than the others and moved with an air of authority approached the group. He made his way down the row of women until he was standing in front of Willow.
"Well, well, well."
His voice was deep and lazy, but his eyes were piercing sharp. He was looking at Willow as if he knew her and the girl could not help but cringe under the scrutiny. Her eyes traveled to the ridding crop the man held in his hand. He was softly tapping it against his open palm and Willow idly wondered why the man had a riding crop when she saw no horses around. Dreams are just strange that way, she thought. As the man circled round her, examining her closely, she reminded herself that this was all a dream. She heard a whistling sound an instant before she felt the stinging pain of the riding crop hitting the back of her legs. Her knees buckled and Willow fell to the ground.
She tried to climb to her feet and run, but before she could spring into action two soldiers had secured her legs and were lifting her by the ankles. She scratched at the snow with her fingers as she tried to get away, but her feet were up in the air and her face was nearly buried in the snow. The cold air hit the soles of her feet and she tried to look over her shoulder to see what was happening.
Her eyes met those of the man who had hit her with the crop and a new wave of panic assaulted her.
"This will be your first lesson about running away. Learn it well, or it will be the first of many."
Without giving her a chance to respond, he brought the crop down on the soles of her feet. Willow howled and pulled her body forward, but the two soldiers held fast to her ankles. Blow after blow rained down on the woman's bare feet. The leather stung and the pain radiated up her legs until, her conviction that it was all a dream and none of it real forgotten, Willow stopped struggling and only sobbed.
The assault stopped as abruptly as it had started and her legs fell limply to the ground as the soldiers released her. She buried her face in the snow, wondering when she would wake up from what had turned into a nightmare. She felt gentle but urgent tugs on her arms and realized that the other women were trying to help her to her feet. Willow tried to stand, but the burn of the snow on her bare and bloodied feet sent a new wave of pain shooting through her legs and Willow collapsed to her knees, where she was allowed to remain.
The sound of heavy boots crunching against the icy snow told her that the soldiers had moved away from her. She followed the sound until it stopped and only then did she chance an upward glance. They had stopped in front of another woman. Willow saw the woman's slight frame shake as she tried to suppress a cough. She looked ill and frail, weaker than the others. The officer motioned with his crop and his two henchmen immediately moved forward, grabbing the woman by the arms and pulling her away from the others. The woman struggled valiantly but in vain, and she was easily subdued.
Willow made as if to stand, but a warning glare from the officer pinned her to the spot.
"Let this be another lesson to you all. You will work hard, you will not complain, you will not try to escape. Break any of these rules, and you will share her fate." The hissed threat was directed at the group, but his eyes never left Willow as he spoke.
The faces of the two soldiers morphed into the familiar demonic façade and they swiftly sank their fangs into the woman's neck. Some of the others scream, but Willow could only watch with a mixture of horror and fascination. Somehow it made an appalling sort of sense that vampires should be a part of her dream.
She sought refuge in the only comfort available to her, the knowledge that none of what was happening was real, and so she resumed her chant. "Wake up, wake up. It's only a dream; you just have to wake up."
But she couldn't wake up, and everything felt real. The smells, the sounds, the sight of the woman's lifeless corpse crumpling to the ground into a grotesque heap. Willow's voice rose frantically, until she was screaming at herself to wake up.
As if through a haze, she heard the officer yelling at her, felt herself being dragged backwards through the snow, saw the other women quietly following, and out of the corner of her eye, a familiar figure passively standing by.
The young man was leaning against a building, arms crossed over his chest, a cigarette casually dangling from his full lips. Willow's eyes widened in recognition.
"Spike! Help me, Spike!"
A momentary light flared in Spike's eyes, but it quickly vanished and her plea went unanswered as she continued to be dragged away until the vampire was out of sight.
~Part: 2~
Willow lay curled up on the hard, thin cot for what seemed like hours. The room was dark, but all around her she could hear the sounds of the other women, at least two dozen shared the cold, damp barracks with her. There were snores, whimpers, whispered prayers.
She tried to speak to the woman in the bunk next to hers, but the woman quickly hushed her.
"Be quiet, you are going to get us all killed!" She whispered.
Willow laid quietly on her cot, her body shaking from the cold. Next thing she knew, she was startled awake by a bustle of activity around her.
"Well, lookie here. Sleeping Beauty has decided to join us!"
Willow looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice in the predawn darkness. All the other women were already awake and on their feet. Some were still busy making their beds, but most stood rigidly next to their neatly made bunks. Willow's eyes came to rest on the woman standing next to her. A misleading smile twisted the blonde's pretty face.
"Buffy!"
Willow took in her friend's strange appearance. She was dressed in an austere cream colored uniform, her hair pulled back into a severe bun.
"What are you doing here? Where is here? What's going on?"
Buffy's leg came up and before Willow could guess her intention, she was unceremoniously kicked off the bed.
"Playing crazy again, I see. Get up and make your bed! Oh, and take your time, you don't have to worry about breakfast this morning. You will meet with the others at the site."
Willow watched aghast as Buffy turned on her heels and walked out of the barracks without a backward glance, followed closely in line by the other women. Willow pulled herself off the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. Buffy had said she didn't need to hurry, so Willow took her time while trying to clear her head. This had to be the strangest, most realistic, longest lasting dream she had ever had. So much so that she was starting to wonder if it was a dream at all. "Of course it's a dream, you ninny. What else could it be?" she said to herself. "A stupid, stupid dream! Any second now, you're going to wake up in your bed, next to Tara. And you're going to get up and have breakfast, and by this afternoon you'll be laughing at the absurdity of your own mind ."
A soft cough startled her and Willow jumped to her feet. A young woman stood next to the door.
"Uh, hi. I didn't see you there. I was just, uh, just talking to myself, you know, reminding myself that none of this is real, that you are not real. Of course you're probably wondering if you're not real, then why am I talking to you. Well, I guess I'm talking to you because it's the polite thing to do, you being a part of my subconscious and all. So, hi, figment of my imagination!"
The woman did not respond but only stared sadly at Willow as she approached, holding out her hand. Willow looked down and saw that she was been offered a piece of bread.
"Oh, no thank you, I'm not hungry. I think I'm going to wait until I wake up and then I'll eat."
The woman shoved the piece of bread insistently into Willow's hand.
"Take it, it's all you're going to get today. Mistress Bernice is furious with you for keeping up all this crazy talk about us not being real."
"Who? Oh, you mean Buffy!"
"Hush! Her name is Mistress Bernice. Her family calls her Bunny, not Buffy, but we are not allowed to call her that, only Mistress Bernice. Please try to remember that."
Willow didn't see any harm in going along with what the woman was saying. Although maybe when she told Buffy about this dream, she would leave out the part about her name being Bernice.
She smiled at the girl. "I'll remember," she reassured her as she stuffed the piece of bread into the pocket of her skirt.
"I mean it, Willa; you have to give up all this crazy talk. If the guards start to think that you're too crazy to work." The girl let her words trail off, but the implication was clear.
Willow nodded emphatically. "No crazy talk about dreams, Buffy's name is Bernice, and my name is Willa, not Willow. Got it!"
The girl shook her head sadly as she turned away. "I have to get back before they notice I'm gone and I get in trouble," she mumble.
Willow watched her walk to the door before she remembered that she didn't know where she was supposed to go after she was done making the bed.
"Wait! Where do I go after here? And, what's your name?"
"You go around the building, follow the road past the guard's quarters and then make a left. Follow that road all the way down and it will take you to the site. And my name is Beatrice; call me Beah," the girl answered with a sigh and a shake of her head before disappearing out the door.
The moment the girl walked out, Willow collapsed back onto the cot. She could no longer ignore the stinging pain on the bottom of her feet. She carefully removed her shoes and looked at her soles. It was not as bad as she had first thought. Mostly bruising with only a couple of small gashes, still, she didn't think she could stand for long on her feet as they were. The only thing handy was the thin sheet on her bed, and so she ripped off a strip of the threadbare fabric and made a couple of makeshift bandages. If nothing else, it would provide some cushion for her to walk on.
Outside the barracks the air was fresh and crisp. Willow started slowly toward the work site, following Beah's directions. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, dispersing some of the coldness, but the ground was wet and slippery and water was soon seeping into her worn shoes. Her misery increased with every passing moment and she kept her eyes downcast, concentrating on each painful step. She was just walking past what she assumed were the officers' quarters when she looked up and saw a group of men moving slowly in a huddled mass just on the other side of a fence. They shuffled along awkwardly, herded like animals by a small group of uniformed guards. She immediately picked out from the group the tall, dark form that seemed to stand out against the others.
"Xander!"
Her friend glanced up, but quickly averted his eyes and continued on his way.
She would have walked to the fence, but the sound of approaching footsteps alerted her to the presence of someone close by. It was Buffy, or rather Mistress Bernice, and the other women. After the experience of the previous night Willow opted for discretion and she quietly joined the rank of the women as they marched toward the work site.
By mid-day Willow was already feeling the effects of the cold, hunger
and physically demanding work. Snow had long seeped into her shoes, numbing
her feet. Her muscles ached and burned as she carried yet another large
brick to the makeshift scaffold. The "site" had turned out to be a construction
site. They were building some kind of high brick wall that seemed to go
on for miles around the perimeter of the camp. The women stood side by
side, forming a human conveyor-belt as each brick was un-loaded from a
wagon and passed from woman to woman until it reached the end of the line,
about ten feet away from a bucket that sat at the foot of the scaffold.
Every six bricks or so, the full bucket would be raised by the workers
at the top as they pulled on a rope. Willow was at the end of the line,
just next to the bucket, so that she had to bend down to deposit each brick
handed to her. After a few hours and several dozen bricks, each small movement
was agony and Willow was starting to
think of Buffy as the most evil foreman on earth.
To pass the time, Willow talked to herself, mumbling low under her breath.
"Of all the stupid dreams that a person could dream, this has to be the worst! Other people have dreams about being chased through dark streets by angry demons, or being burnt alive at the stake, or silly little dreams about going to school or eating breakfast; but not me. No, I have to dream that my best friend forces me to carry brick after brick, for hours and hours, with no other purpose than to build a long, long, long wall. I wonder what Freud would have to say about this one."
As Willow pondered the symbolism behind her strange dream, she was unaware of Buffy standing close by, watching her with interest. It wasn't until she felt a sharp tap to the back of her head that she became conscious of the other woman's presence.
"Ouch, what was that for?" she protested.
"I told you to stop the crazy talk! What exactly is it you're trying to do?"
"Buff. I mean Bernice, Mistress Bernice. I'm not trying to do anything, really! I just wish I could wake up," she added under her breath.
Willow had stopped working while she talked, and now the long line of women stood, each holding a brick in her hand, watching her. Buffy stepped closer to Willow, until her lips were brushing against her ear. Willow caught a whiff of cigarettes, sweat and cheap cologne. It was a strange smell, nothing like her friend's.
"Whatever you're up to, it won't work. All you're going to do is get yourself killed, or worse. This isn't high school any more, Willa. Maybe back then you were the smart one of the two, but not here; here, you are nothing!"
Buffy stepped back and Willow was surprised at the sad, bitter expression on her friend's face as she continued to talk.
"Do you think I've forgotten what it was like back in school? You think I never noticed how you and your smart friends sneered at me behind my back. 'Oh, look, there goes Bunny! They say that if you put your ear against hers, you can hear the ocean!'" Buffy shook her head sadly, almost regretfully. "Look where all your smarts got you!"
Willow had had enough. With a defiant huff, she tossed aside the brick she held and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "What you are saying is not true! I've never made fun of anyone in my life! And, sure, I was smarter than you in high school, but you weren't that dumb, not as dumb as Cordelia, anyway. And besides, you are the slayer! Who can compete with that?"
For a moment, Buffy seemed genuinely confused. "I'm the what?"
"The slayer! You are the slayer! Your name is Buffy, and you slay vampires! I'm a witch; and I'm gay; and I'm your best friend! We live in Sunnydale and all this is nothing but a figment of my imagination!"
The other women, who had been staring dumfounded at the exchange, now fidgeted nervously and averted their eyes. Buffy blanched and looked around nervously. A tall, familiar looking man chose that moment to appear from behind the wagon. It took Willow a moment to recognize him as Riley. His hair was much shorter and he wore a tight fitting black uniform.
"What's the hold up?" He asked as he approached.
Buffy seemed to regain her composure and sneered contemptuously at Willow before producing a whistle from her pocket and blowing it loudly. Two male guards, dressed in the same uniform as Riley, appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
Taking a step back, Buffy pointed an accusing finger at a shaking Willow.
"This woman has not been reformed. She defies me and blatantly flaunts her deviant sexual practices. Take her to detention!"
Willow's mouth dropped. "What? No, wait! That's not what I said!" Willow yelled as the two soldiers seized her and began to drag her away.
"Wait!" Riley yelled.
"Finally, a voice of reason," Willow thought.
"Take her to the crypt instead!"
Willow wasn't sure what 'the crypt' was, but she didn't like the sound of it. She fought and screamed as the soldiers pulled her by the arms, nearly dragging her on the ground. They reached a small building and Willow stumbled down a short flight of stairs. A door slammed shut behind her, robbing her of the only light in the room. The room was pitch-black. She stood up slowly and waited for her eyes to adjust. Shadows came into focus and Willow soon realized that she wasn't alone in the room. She felt more than saw several figures moving furtively about the room.
"Who is there?" she asked weakly.
For a minute there was no answer and Willow stood trembling, too afraid to move. There was a strange and forbidding feeling about the room. Something brushed against her shirt-sleeve and Willow gave a small, startled cry.
A voice she didn't recognize whispered in her ear. "Shhh. Don't worry, we are going to have a good time."
next | back