Rating: R for violence
Pairing: none this part
Summary: Willow is ready to share her knowledge of pain.
Spoilers: Series begins just after ‘Lover’s Walk’, now a couple of years have passed, and we’re just at the beginning of season six now.
Disclaimer: I did not build the Buffyverse that would be Joss, it is merely my playground.
Distribution: If you want it, fine by me, just drop me a line first.
Special Thanks: Kat for checking over my ramblings and Aden for always being happy to see me.
Feedback: Pretty please with sugar on top!
Author’s Note: Sorry it’s been taking so long to get this finished, but I graduate in two weeks, and I’ve just been crazy busy.
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Willow paced back and forth outside the small utility closet. She had shut the door, unable to look at her mother, bound and gagged within. Her mind was reeling. She had wanted her to suffer; wanted her to pay for all the pain she had caused. Yet at that moment, looking down on her, something had broken inside. Memories came flooding back to her of when she was little, small things like the time she learned to roller skate, and had fallen, skinning her knees. Her mother had been there like a sweet smelling security blanket, wrapping her arms around Willow’s tiny form, putting Snoopy band-aids on her knees. She remembered how her mother used to sing her to sleep at night. The tune came floating back to her, and without realizing it, she began to hum the little song that Gonzo had sung in the Muppet Movie, the one about flying. Tears began to roll down her cheeks in heavy fat drops. A trip down memory lane was the last thing she wanted right now.
Angelus stared at her in confusion. He had been watching her pace for some time now. He thought she would have been happy, but she wasn’t. Willow had wanted to kill her mother for the things she had done, and here he had delivered her to his new playmate on a silver platter, and all she could do was cry. Drusilla danced her way slowly over to him, and circled his waist with her arms. She knew what Willow’s problem was, but wasn’t sure if she could explain it so that Angelus would understand. She had felt the same thing when her daddy had left her all those years ago, betrayal. There had been many times when she had wanted nothing more than to bathe Angelus in holy water, especially after he had set her and Darla on fire. Yet, the moment he came back, she just couldn’t do it. She hoped Willow was made of steelier stuff than she was. Sheila Rosenberg deserved to suffer.
Willow finally made up her mind, placing her resolve face firmly on. She ordered the minions to take her mother to the room where she had recently tortured Dr. Scholten to death. After a few minutes of confused translation from Drusilla, the minions did as they were told, hanging the flailing woman from the dangling hook in the center of the room. And then the torture began. This time however, the torment was not as much physical, but psychological. It was true that she had let the minions take turns raping the terrified woman, wearing their demon faces the whole time, but she did not allow them to feed or cause her physical injury. As it was, she couldn’t even stand to watch them violate her mother. Finally she just left the room until it was over, but she didn’t try to stop it. This was her justice.
Hours had passed. All good little vampires were huddled together in a room with no windows, fast asleep, and Willow took a moment to wonder why no one had come to open the plant for the day yet. The thought didn’t concern her, she assumed Angelus had picked a place where they could have privacy for a while or else he would have said something. Willow found a dirty coffee cup by an even dirtier sink, and rinsed it out several times before bringing the cool water to her lips. Then, looking over at her mother’s crumpled form in the corner; she sighed and brought the newly filled cup over to offer the naked woman a drink.
The redhead pulled Sheila Rosenberg half into her lap, setting the cup down long enough to remove her gag. She held her mother’s head, brushing back the woman’s long red tresses, before lifting the cup to her lips. Her mother gulped at the water greedily, before choking on it and coughing violently. Willow knew what she was doing should make her feel bad, feel something, but so far she just felt tired and numb. She had made up her mind that she would do this, and it was too late to turn back now.
“Willow? You cut your hair again,” Sheila said softly, clearly in shock.
“Yes, mother,” she said, heaving another great sigh.
“I had the most horrible dream. There were these men, no, monsters, and they were hurting me. We were in this awful place…” then glancing around, she realized where she was and that it had been no dream. Her eyes grew very wide, her face paling. “Willow, I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“What’s happening, mother, is known as revenge.”
“What are you talking about? What’s happening!?” her voice had become high and shrill with panic. But Willow was beyond whatever concern she had been feeling a moment before. She was rediscovering her anger, and it was growing quickly. She leapt to her feet, dropping her mother like a hot potato, and began to pace in front of her.
“What’s happening is payback for leaving me in that loony bin when I wasn’t crazy. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me!? Do you know the things they did to me in that place!? Being drugged, and locked away in restraints for days on end, not to mention being raped repeatedly by that scum bag orderly. Although, I guess you got a taste of what that’s like, didn’t you?” Willow paused long enough to give her a maniacal grin before continuing her ranting, “I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that you and daddy left me there though, I mean that’s what you do best, isn’t it? You leave, you always leave. Hell, I’ve been raising myself since I was twelve. And what’s the deal with that anyway? You just woke up one morning and were gone. I mean before that you and daddy were always there. Hell, you were like the damn Cleavers, and then all of a sudden, nothing! So what gives!?”
Sheila Rosenberg stared up at her daughter, her eyes showing too much white. Was she supposed to respond? She still didn’t understand what was happening, but the shock was starting to seep away just a little, leaving her aware of just how much danger she was really in. Her daughter wasn’t here to save her, Willow was the reason she was being held in the first place. The enraged redhead had stopped her pacing and was staring down at her mother expectantly.
“Well mother, I’m waiting?”
“I-I-I don’t understand. What do you want from me?” she asked, trying to make herself smaller.
“I want to know why you and daddy suddenly just dropped out of my life, why you left me in that awful place!”
“I…I mean we…we didn’t mean to. I mean we did the best we could.”
“Liar!!! You fucking liar!!! Tell me the truth!!!” As Willow screamed in rage, blue white lightening shot out of her hands, causing her mother’s body to convulse in agonizing pain. When it finally stopped, she was unable to speak for a few moments; she just shook uncontrollably, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t know how her daughter had just done what she had, her logic telling her she must have some sort of taser, but one thing she knew for sure, she didn’t want her to do it again.
“Willow, baby, we put you in that place because you were sick, and I’m sorry if your father and I weren’t around enough, but we had to work. If we knew how hard it was on you, we never would have stayed away so much.”
“Stop lying to me!!!” her hands shot out another spine racking jolt of energy, as her eyes turned inky black. When the pain subsided, Sheila looked at her daughter and her magic filled eyes, and a new flood of terror washed over her.
“All right,” she said her voice heavy with defeat, “it was because of your father. Because of the way he looked at you.”
“What are you talking about?” Willow asked her voice cold as ice.
“You were right. When you were little, things were good, were perfect. But as you got older, your father started to look at you in a way that wasn’t natural. He’d look at you like a man looks at a woman,” she risked a glance up then to see if she understood, but she couldn’t read her daughter’s expression, so she simply continued, “Anyway, I confronted him. At first he denied it, told me I was imagining things. But in the end he admitted it. That’s when he started going on all those business trips, lecturing overseas mostly. You were about ten then. For a couple of years it was just the two of us mostly, maybe you don’t remember that part. But the truth is I started to resent you for stealing my husband away from me. I know you were just a child, and didn’t realize what was happening, but still I hated you for it. So I did the only thing I could at the time, I left. I guess I never really thought about how it all affected you.”
It was Willow’s turn to go into shock. She leaned heavily against the wall, sliding down onto her butt. She knew there were issues in her family that no one wanted to talk about, but she had no idea. Her whole life was a lie; she didn’t even know this woman huddled on the floor next to her. She certainly wasn’t her mother. If she was, she never would have left her like that. It was all too twisted. She wished now that she could turn back the clock and never learn the truth, but it was too late. Her father had wanted to sleep with her since she was a child, and her mother had driven him away and then left herself out of jealousy. It was all so surreal, like some sort of Greek tragedy. That thought struck her as funny, and before she knew it, she was doubled over with laughter. The sound of it made her mother flinch repeatedly, drawing Willow’s attention back to her.
“All right, mother,” she started, as the last of her giggles trailed away, “because you were so honest with me, I’m going to give you a chance, one chance, to save your life. So I want you to listen very carefully. Where is my son?”
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As the sun started to set, the little vampire entourage roused from their slumber. Angelus and Drusilla went seeking their redheaded companion, and found her where they had left her, in the ‘torture chamber’ with her mother. The older woman was rocking like a neurotic monkey, and humming a lullaby to herself. Long scratches covered her face and arms where she had tried to scratch away the invisible bugs she could feel crawling along her skin. True to her word, Willow had left her alive, but she had broken her mind completely. She had contemplated casting a spell on her, where everyone would only think she was insane, when really she was lucid. As revenge went, it was a rather poetic, but even she was not that cruel. In the end, she decided that if she were condemning this woman to spend the rest of her life in a mental institution, it would be more compassionate to actually take her sanity. Some of the more severe side effects, such as the sensation of crawling flesh, would subside in a few weeks, leaving her pleasantly delirious for the rest of her days, almost child like even. All that was left now was to find somewhere to put her.
Willow wanted her somewhere a bit closer to home, where she could keep an eye on her. As strange as it sounded, after everything she had done to this woman, she felt responsible for her now, and wanted her somewhere where she would be well cared for and where she could check in on her from time to time. She was sure Vienna probably had some fine institutions, but it was just too far from home, wherever that was. Then a thought occurred to her. After she leveled Marion, all the patients had to be moved to a new facility. She had checked it out, just to be sure that those people were receiving decent care finally, and had been content with the results. It was perfect.
As Angelus and Drusilla looked on, Willow drew together the last of her power. She began to chant in Latin as she circled her mother. Her eyes again flooded with black, and Sheila looked on in fear, like a deer frozen in headlights. As her spell reached its crescendo, there was a loud popping noise, and her mother simply disappeared as Willow collapsed unconscious.
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Patient log: Sheila Louise Rosenberg Date: 10/04/01
Patient was admitted today by the state. We are attempting to assess her family situation, although we were able to track down her husband, a Mr. Ira Rosenberg, in Sunnydale, CA. He informed us that he would take the next possible flight out to verify that the patient is indeed his wife. Apparently he hasn’t spoken to her for several days, and had been under the impression that she was overseas at a convention.
As for her condition, it is still very early, but at this time the patient seems to be in a constant delusional state. She is unable to communicate in an effective manner, often spouting out gibberish, or bursting into song. She fluctuates between despondency and extremely volatile moods, at times with violent outbursts. However, she seems to mostly be a danger to herself, and it was necessary to place her in five point restraints almost immediately after her arrival to prevent her from further harming herself or anyone else. It was also necessary to give her a heavy dose of Alprazolam to calm her.
At this time I am placing her on 6 mg of Haloperidol, three times daily to start, given the severity of her outbursts, and will monitor any necessary dosage changes from there.
Jacob Andersen MD., Attending Physician