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Willow was cold. Not the Sunnydale kind of cold, not "ooh, there's a draft, better get my cardigan" kind of cold, but bone-numbing, brittle-limbed, possibly-losing-toes kind of cold. It wasn't right. They had to be in California, still. It didn't get this cold in California, did it?
She was also tired. Sleeping seemed so distant, something that used to happen, that she could almost remember the feel of, but not quite. Far away as high school, or life before magic, or heterosexuality. Out here in the woods sleep wasn't a part of life.
Hungry. She was starving. Which meant they had to have been walking for at least a few hours. Felt more like days, and could well have been for all she knew. There was no way to tell without the sun. Or a watch. Why the heck hadn't she worn a watch? Who doesn't wear a watch to the apocalypse?
She supposed it didn't really matter. Time was meaningless when you didn't know where you were going, how long it took to get there, or if you even wanted to arrive, ever.
A very long time ago, Spike had asked Angel where they were going. Angel seemed to know. He'd been walking quickly, in a very definite direction, and Willow and Spike had been straggling uncertainly a few steps behind.
"North," Angel said, cryptically "And East."
"Well, that's just swell, mate, but I believe I'd fancy 'out of the bleeding woods' just a bit more, far as answers go," Spike said, and Willow couldn't argue with that sentiment. The woods were bad. Dense and dark and creepy. Her face was scraped up from continual contact with twigs and branches, and her shoes were caked in soil and possibly worm guts from the forest floor. And there were animals out here with them. She heard animal noises, every now and then. Maybe even bears.
But Angel had grunted in lieu of an actual reply, and he kept walking in the same direction. It seemed to Willow that his speed and vigor actually picked up in response to Spike's questioning. She followed him, because his certainty was really all they had, and Spike did too, though he seemed pretty put out about it. She heard him grumble once or twice, words like "stupid, flaming wanker" and "arrogant ponce", but he didn't offer any better ideas.
Willow figured she might be able to guide them out through magic, but with her luck she'd lead them straight into another hellmouth, or something even worse. Better to let someone else take the lead, even if things were starting to take a Blair Witchy turn. So she trudged on in silence, trying to keep up with big, determined vampire legs, even though her little, depressed human ones were about ready to call it quits.
And she was quiet, absolutely silent, until Angel looked over his shoulder and said, "You're probably hungry again."
She tried to ignore the ache in her belly. There was no point whining about it. The food was gone. Everything was gone. Everything from before, and everything she'd gotten to replace the everything. Her bananas were gone. The water was gone. The toilet paper was gone, just when she needed it. The whole freaking truck was gone, and what did it really matter? They were doomed.
Spike still had his cigarettes, though. He was smoking one, and she figured maybe that was an accomplishment.
"I'm hungry," she said, "But I'll live."
"Not if you don't eat," Angel told her, which, duh, but what was she supposed to do about that? Eat dirt?
"I'm hungry," Spike announced, and sat down resolutely on a fallen log. "This sucks."
It was, Willow thought, probably the understatement of the twenty-first century. At least he wasn't whimpering incoherently anymore.
"Shut up, Spike," Angel growled, sort of harshly, it seemed, for the circumstance. Spike seemed to think so too, and he started to say something back, but Angel put his finger up to his lips. "Shh. You hear that?" he whispered.
"Hear what?" Willow asked, and they both shushed her, which was really annoying. She turned in a circle, trying to spot the source of whatever noise they were hearing, but she didn't have super-senses. She couldn't see or hear or smell anything other than trees. And trees didn't make any noise, so she didn't know what the heck they were listening to.
When she turned herself back around, Spike was gone. Just...gone.
"Where did he go?" she whispered frantically to Angel.
"He'll be back. Let's build a fire."
That was the best idea she'd heard in a long time.
They gathered some wood together- well, he gathered, she mostly crept around behind him, trying not to make a sound, though she wasn't sure why- and when they had enough Angel arranged it in a tall, triangle-type formation. Willow wished she'd joined the Girl scouts when she was younger. Or at least gone camping. She had no idea how to survive in the wilderness, and could only hope Spike and Angel knew what they were doing.
Sure enough, when Angel lit the pile with his Zippo, it went up in flames. She sat as close as she could get without scorching something vital. Angel sat next to her and periodically poked at the fire with a big twig.
"Where did Spike go?" she asked again.
"He went to get dinner," Angel said, and she didn't really understand how that was possible until he appeared, several minutes later, carrying a very large fox. Carcass. Carcass of fox.
Oh God, he was carrying a dead fox.
He was still in vamp face, too, and there was blood smeared on his chin. He held the body like an offering. She looked him up and down in the firelight, and shuddered.
"Still warm," he said, and handed the poor, bloodied thing over to Angel. Angel took it, and carried it away from her. He turned his back to her when he fed, which would have been nice if she hadn't been able to hear him slurping.
She was being silly, she knew. They had to eat, and better a fox than a person. Certainly better a fox than her, and she was glad they were getting nourishment, but it was just...ew. Creepy. And it got worse.
When Angel was done, Spike took the knife from his boot strap and the two of them began dissecting the thing- cutting away the pelt, and chopping the body into pieces.
"Um...what're you guys doing?" she asked, even though she kind of knew. She was hoping she was wrong, hoping against hope that they weren't going to make her eat that mess.
But Spike had cut four disgusting, fleshy cubes and he was impaling them on a pointy stick, then holding them over the fire.
"Making shish kabob," he said, and smiled. His human features were back, but the blood was still there. She itched to wipe it off.
"I...I'm not really h-hungry," she tried, unconvincingly.
"Of course you are," Angel insisted, and she saw that he was cutting his own little cubes for her.
"No, I-I think I'll, you know, pass on the um...shishkathingies."
"What are you a vegetarian?" Spike asked, and she had to shake her head. No, she wasn't, and even if she was, this was hardly the time for a moral stance on food. It was hardly the time to be picky. She was being a dope. But she kept looking back to the pile of carcass bits on the ground, and staring into the little dead face that was still completely whole, and it was just really freaking gross.
"I just um, don't care for...fox."
"Nonsense. It's full of...foxy goodness." Spike knelt down next to her and handed her the stick. The cubes were practically blackened on the outside, and she had a feeling they were probably squishy and wet on the inside, and she tasted bile rising in her throat.
"It smells...not good."
"Just hold your nose and swallow," he told her. And she did. Not because she was hungry- she barely even felt that anymore, over the nausea- but because Spike had killed a fox so they could eat, and damned if she was going to let that effort go to waste. Or that fox's life.
It was the worst thing she'd ever tasted in her life, and it took a Herculean effort not to spit it all back up, but she swallowed every cube Spike had cooked for her.
"What do you think happened to all the pets?" she asked him when she was through. "Did they disappear like the people, or do you think they're all stuck in their houses just...starving to death all alone?"
The thought made her want to weep.
Spike gazed at her with kindness and touched her hair, so briefly she might have imagined it. "I'm sure they're fine, love," he said. "Just fine."
She tried really hard to believe him.
Angel's cubes tasted even worse than Spike's, but she wound up eating those too. Found it actually got easier after the first few bites. After awhile she managed to eat enough to feel somewhat sated, which was a nice surprise. Only problem was, she was absolutely exhausted now. Rest and warmth and food in her system brought it to the forefront of her mind, and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep.
Angel seemed to read her mind. He pulled off his sweater, curled it into a ball and handed it to her. "Try to get some rest. You can use this as a pillow."
She took it from him with a grateful nod, and lay down close to the fire. Not to be outdone in gentlemanliness, Spike knelt next to her and draped his jacket over her torso. She felt safe, for the first time in a long time, and after awhile she did manage to fall asleep. She dreamt only of the forest.
She slept four more times, and ate three more peculiar woodland creatures, before she finally started getting used to it all. A person could get used to anything, she figured. People had survived under much worse conditions, for weeks, months, years even, and she could too. The longer they spent in the woods, the easier it got.
Her memories began to fade. She knew that she missed certain things. Things like shower and toothpaste and bed, but she couldn't remember what they felt like, really.
And her friends. She missed her friends, but the more time passed, the more they began to seem like ghosts. She remembered what Giles told her, after Tara died, about not skipping over the grieving process, about allowing herself to mourn, and she was trying. It was just so much to mourn that it almost amounted to nothing.
She tried to go over things in her mind, to remember the end and maybe force herself to cry over it again, but strangely she found that she couldn't recall much of anything with clarity. There were huge blank spots where she knew terrible things existed. Buffy's death- she knew Buffy was dead, knew it with absolute certainty, but she couldn't remember how it had happened, or when. Same for Xander, and Giles, and Dawn. She couldn't even remember if she'd remembered before, when they were in Xander's car, or if the whole event had caused some kind of instant, trauma-induced amnesia.
She wanted to ask Angel and Spike what they remembered, if anything, but she was afraid it might upset them. She was afraid their answers might upset her, so she said nothing.
None of them really said much of anything. That was another thing she missed- talking. It just seemed to be more effort than it was worth in their situation. What was there to talk about, anyway? She tried to think of topics, as they walked along, but her thoughts had been reduced, more or less, to "hungry", "sleep now", and "me go pee-pee." She wondered how long it would be before those words were replaced with incoherent grunts. She never got a chance to find out.
The "morning" after her fourth "night" of sleep, as they were walking through a particularly muddy patch of soil, Spike took hold of her shoulder with a small gasp.
"Do you see that? Am I hallucinating?" he asked her. She looked up, and followed his pointing finger into the distance, and she did see it. Lights. Beautiful, artificial, man-made lights. A building, on top of a small hill, and it didn't even look that far away.
"I see it! I see it!" she grabbed Spike's arm with both hands and jumped in excitement. The relief was so overwhelming she almost cried from it. Maybe she wasn't used to the woods after all. The thought of being indoors, of possibly showering, maybe even sleeping in a real bed, or eating pre-packaged food, it was enough to make her delirious.
"Well, don't get too excited, love," Spike warned her, glaring briefly at Angel. "Old Yeller here's probably leading us in the opposite direction."
"No," Angel said, calmly. "That's where we're going."
"Oh, what, you gonna' tell us you knew it was there all along?" Spike snorted.
"Knew we'd find something, eventually."
"You did not! You're just..."
"Guys!" Willow interrupted. "Who cares? Let's go!" She felt a renewed energy, pulsing through her whole body. She wanted to run.
"Race you," Spike said, and they both took off at once. She knew he'd win, of course, but it didn't matter. They were getting out of the woods!
She dimly heard Angel calling after them, something about not wasting all their energy and there's no point in running, but she didn't care. Didn't stop. And eventually she felt Angel brushing past her, running faster than any of them. It made her laugh. By the time they'd all made it up the hill, she was panting and wheezing, but still smiling.
Pavement. She was standing on pavement. It was hard and dry and pavementy as pavement could be. A parking lot. And there were cars! Lots and lots of them. And the parking lot led to a road, which wound down the other side of the hill, and surely led to another, bigger road.
The building was tall- at least ten stories- and there were tons of lights on inside. It looked to Willow like a beautiful castle. A beautiful castle emblazoned with the word "PlethoCorp" in giant, glowing white letters.
"What the hell's a PlethoCorp?" Spike asked.
"It's an office building, idiot," Angel said. He walked to the glass door and jumped back a little when it opened by itself.
"Ooh, electricity," Spike smirked.
Angel glowered at him. "Why do they have to make doors that open by themselves? Is it so hard to open a door?"
Willow wanted to ask if they thought there might be people inside, but she figured even daring to wonder was just asking to be disappointed. The most she could probably hope for was running water.
"Can we go in?" she asked.
"Hold on. Let me just..." Angel stuck his head in the door and sniffed. Then he took two steps in and glanced around, all stealthy-like. He seemed to be reading the air with his senses, trying to figure out if they were alone. It was a little bit creepy. Willow started to get nervous, wondering if there might be not-people inside. Vampires, or worse.
"Bugger this," Spike grumbled, and pushed right in, past Angel. "There's nobody here. C'mon."
Willow took a tentative step inside, waiting for Angel's approval before venturing further. The harsh fluorescent light hurt her eyes. After so long in darkness, it was almost unbearable.
"Spike's right," Angel said, and it seemed to pain him to admit it, even thought it was a relatively positive outcome. "This place is a tomb."
He placed a reassuring hand on the small of her back and led her through the deserted lobby. It was warm inside, and it smelled nice and clean and disinfecty. Willow fell in love with it instantly. If she could find a bathroom and a couch, it just might be home.