When Eternity Lies In The BalanceBy Jericho TGF
Chapter Thirteen
“Umm. Giles. What is that?”
Xander had been thrown forcibly back through the doorway when he tried to follow after Dawn. What was left of the Scooby gang rushed to where he landed, half in, half out of the family room, a good ten feet from where his impromptu tumble through the air began.
They were so focused on the young man that they didn’t notice what was going on in the living room behind them. Xander saw it as he sat up, clutching his right arm and wincing in pain. At his question, the group glanced back at noticed for the first time the effect Dawn’s contact with Willow had on the room.
And what they now all saw had Anya breaking off in mid-rant her fear motivated, angry comments about Xander’s decided lack of intelligence at such a foolish endeavor as following after Dawn, and had Giles whipping the glasses off his face. Tara just stood with her mouth slightly agape.
“Anyone?” Xander questioned again, unable to break his eyes away from it. “Giles? What IS that?”
Under his breath, in hardly more than a whisper, Giles muttered, “Oh, dear Lord.”
What had been only a relatively small vortex of wind and magickal energy - bad enough at the time - had grown into a swirling, floor to ceiling wall of cyclonic crackling color. And it was expanding. Rapidly.
Not bothering to question what his gut was screaming at him, Giles turned back to Xander and grabbed him by the shoulders, heaving him up to his feet with surprising strength.
“Move!” He yelled to the transfixed young people around him. “Bloody hell, Go!! Out of the house, NOW!”
Pushing them all along in front of him like a human bulldozer, Giles forced the confused and horrified gang out the front door and onto the lawn. He had only hope that it was to safety.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It was so dark, and for the first few seconds Dawn was really questioning the wisdom of her rash actions. Here she was a stranger in a strange land. The nether realm.
Once the pulling feeling let go of her she got the first chance to try to examine her surroundings, but it was so pitch black there was nothing to see. It scared her.
Great plan you had there, Dawn. Nothing terrifying about this at all...nope...no sir. So now what?
Spinning around in confusion and concern, she caught a glimmer of light out of the corner of her eye. She tried to find it again, squinting against the inky blackness. Yes. There it was.
Once she’d locked onto it, Dawn started stepping cautiously forward, desperately hoping there were no obstacles in her way to run into or trip over - she wouldn’t be able to see them if there were.
The glimmer of light got stronger as she made her way through the almost palpable darkness, increasing Dawn’s confidence and speeding her steps. She smiled in triumph when she finally got up next to the source of the light. A thread...a cable, if you will, of coppery iridescence with just the tiniest trickle of green running through it, pulsing with energy and lighting a small path through the abyss on her right. Spike.
It was his aura trail. Dawn knew it. She mentally patted herself on the back - choosing to ignore that little bout of abject fear and self-doubt she’d had - and leaned over to take a closer look at the cause of all the hubbub in her own dimension.
No bigger than the width of her forearm, it appeared cohesive, if not solid. She reached out a mental ‘hand’ and brushed her fingers gently along one side. And giggled.
It tickled, but it also felt cool and comforting. And no sooner did she come in contact with Spike’s aura then the coppery colors separated from the swirling green as if drawn to her touch. Instead of being mixed, it pulled away just slightly, leaving the traces of green to pool off to one side, furthest away from her fingers.
It didn’t take a genius to figure that the coppery shimmer was Spike. That left Willow as the green. Dawn made a mental note and grinned. She’d been right. She’d been right all along.
That was a very good thing.
And there had been no nasty surprises. Both her essence and her aura had remained firmly rooted in their own realm. Fear that they wouldn’t - that what had happened to Willow would happen to her - had been the cause of some minor trepidation. It had itched at Dawn’s mind as a potential problem, but she’d been betting that whatever emotions Spike was feeling in this section of his trail, they would have nothing to gain by forcing her into merging with him. He was her protector, and his aura may have instinctively recognized Willow’s power as a tool to be used and pulled it in as a means of better protecting her.
It had been risky, betting on that, and more than a little foolhardy, but Dawn just tried to think what Buffy would have done in the same circumstances. She’d have been all, “Damn the consequences, I’m going in,” so that’s just what Dawn did. Action. It was about taking action to get the job done. Dawn was all about that.
Straightening up from her mentally crouched position, she peered down the long trail stretching out in front of her. With determination and a small smile of pride, she started following along the lit path. She still had a way to go in actually getting Willow back, but she felt a renewed sense of confidence in herself.
Maybe this will finally show them. Show all of them. I’m NOT just a kid. And when I have good ideas - which is, like, always - they should listen to me, sheesh.
~*~*~*~*~*~
“What the hell was she thinking?” Giles was terrified, for Dawn, for all of them - truly terrified. And it came out as anger.
The group stood in the yard and watched through the open front door as the wall of energy expanded past where they had been standing before the blinding colors blocked out their view. It didn’t expand past the walls of the house, which had everyone breathing a sigh of relief, but it had effectively cut off any hope of entering beyond the doorway. The house, for all intents and purposes, was sealed off to them.
“I mean, really. Would someone please tell me just what in the hell the girl was thinking?” Giles’ voice was quickly rising as anger mixed with a type of hysteria that was quite unattractive for someone of his age and normally staunch and stoic character.
“She’s a child. When will she get that through her head? Did I not make myself perfectly clear? I believe I was speaking English in there earlier. She is not to be taking such foolhardy chances with her safety in such a manner. And now look what she’s done!” Giles gestured wildly to the house.
Had the circumstances been a little less dire, it would have been vastly amusing for the gang, seeing someone they all knew to be calm and reserved going off the deep end so effectively. But because they were so dire, and because everyone else happened to be sharing his thoughts, if not expressing them, they weren’t feeling terribly inclined to find much humor in the situation at all.
“Honestly, I was pleasantly enjoying the delusion that life with a strong willed Slayer that had a tendency to not follow proper procedures and protocols was as difficult as I would have it. I really had no idea, did I? This...this is just too much! Please explain to me what in the bloody hell she was thinking?!”
The silence that slammed down on the night when Giles drew his words to an abrupt halt weighed heavily on all of them. Xander, Anya, and Tara exchanged nervous glances, not wanting to say anything that would get him going again - especially if he started directing that anger their way.
Giles turned his back on the house and stared into the night sky. He was struggling desperately for some control, but fear of losing another child - and that’s what she was to him, his other child - had stripped away even the illusion of control. He didn’t know if he could survive another loss like the one he had sustained the night Buffy died. And he was devastated because he had no idea how to prevent it. He felt...old...worn down by a life that normally gave him great comfort.
Xander watched the Watcher as he dealt with his own issues - issues like his deep seeded hatred of the bleached blonde vampire that caused all this mess to begin with - but he knew they would need Giles to get it together if they had any hope of fixing this.
I swear to God, Spike. If I ever see your pale, bloodsucking ass again I’m going to stick a stake into your chest and cheerily wave you on your way to a dusty hell.
After waiting for the man to calm down enough not to take his head off, Xander reached out and laid a reassuring hand on Giles’ shoulder. “Come on, Giles. We’ll fix this. Willow and Dawn will be fine. But you need to stop going all raving lunatic on us, now, okay?”
When Giles’ head snapped around and pinned him with an icy glare, Xander thought he hadn’t waited quite long enough and prepared to get blasted with some British venom, but the man’s eyes softened slightly before he snapped out anything damaging. The fear in those eyes, eyes not known for showing fear - derision, sardonic amusement, wisdom, yes; fear, no - clutched Xander’s heart in a tight fist but he smiled a reassuring smile.
“You know,” Anya’s voice pulled their attention away from what was quickly becoming an uncomfortable mushy man moment - a thing to be avoided at all costs - and they gratefully turned and looked at the ex-demon. “I have to say that I am not emotionally equipped to handle another funeral right now. So, I would appreciate it if you would tell us what we need to do to stop all this nether realm jumping, energy wall attacking madness so I can go home instead of visiting a morgue.”
It was completely inappropriate, what she said. It was crass and unfeeling and cold. And it was so completely Anya that for a minute, no one knew what to say.
Giles was at a loss. He wanted to walk up to the girl and smack her, he really did. But how was that different from any other time she opened her mouth? Oddly enough, that struck Giles as funny. I mean, really, what can you expect? A chuckle started in his stomach and rolled out of him before he could stop it. Xander heard it and shot him a weird look, and that just made Giles laugh harder. Soon, he was clutching his side with his right hand and rubbing his face with the left - wiping at the tears the laughter brought out.
Anya frowned at him, “I really don’t think this is the time for inappropriate humor. I want to go home. But I know Xander. He won’t go until everything is back to normal so we need to know what to do to make that happen. You can stop laughing now.”
And with that pretentiously spoken demand, Tara giggled. Her eyes widened in surprise and she slapped a hand over her mouth. The expression set Giles off again and he gave a deep, barking, belly laugh. It turned out to be contagious. Soon all three of them, Xander, Giles, and Tara, were struggling to bring themselves under control. They weren’t helped by the crossed arms and monumentally irritated expression on Anya’s face. Every time one of them looked at her, it all started again.
“People!” Anya finally cried, when it looked like they were never going to stop. “I highly doubt your amusement is an effective tool to prevent Willow and Dawn’s death.”
It was a torrent of cold water on a fire. Their hysteria-borne laughter died quickly and painfully as reality intruded.
Anya nodded with satisfaction, “Alright, then. Now. Any ideas as to what would be an effective tool?”
Side hurting, arm hurting, heart hurting, Xander looked at Giles and asked, “Are you sure we can’t get in there to them? I mean...there has to be a way, right?”
Giles didn’t answer him. He looked back at the energy in the doorway and then bent over and picked up a small pebble lying on the nearby sidewalk, tossing it into the blocked opening of the house.
When it came in contact with the energy barrier, light flared and there was a crack of sound. They had to shield their eyes so they didn’t see what happened to the stone, but they heard it. And they heard what was left of it as it dropped to the porch in crumbled pieces.
“Okay, then,” mumbled Xander sheepishly, “guess that’s a big no on the frontal attack. What is that, anyway, Giles? I mean...what happened? Is this just another tasty bonus of Dawn being The Key?”
Giles was quick to reassure them all that he didn’t believe that to be the case. “Quite frankly, I believe that what we’re seeing is exactly what we have been seeing all along.”
When the three of them looked at him in confusion and disbelief, he sighed and tried to explain his theory. “Working on the assumption that what we were seeing before was a subconsciously controlled physical manifestation of the magickal energy Willow has access to, and assuming again that the energy was feeding off of Willow to sustain itself, what we’re seeing now is quite probably the exact same thing. With Dawn acting like a kind of super battery, providing more natural energy than we’d witnessed previously.”
“And again I’m with the ‘huh?’” Xander looked confused and scared. “Wait...energy? But you said this wasn’t Key related! And Dawn, she’s all ancient energy transformed. Couldn’t that be why we’ve got the front row seats for this nifty light show?”
Giles stared at the boy seriously, “I don’t believe it is. Dawn is young. And a young girl going through her particular stage of physical development is just one walking ball of energy in her own right. It isn’t necessary to be The Key to cause such a rise in phenomenon.”
“Okay,” piped up Anya again, “information is all well and good, but not very helpful in the solutions department. How do we unplug the power source?”
No one answered her. No one knew what to say.
Tara’s mind was racing. She had an idea, but it went against every fiber of her being to even entertain such a dramatically dangerous course of action. The risk was immense. If she was wrong, both Willow and Dawn could die. But what if she’s right?
Even if she was, she had no idea if she could convince Giles and Xander to go along with it.
The problem was if Giles and Xander tried anything else, they risked themselves as well as Willow and Dawn. She knew how powerful that magickal wall was. There was absolutely no way she could even hope to manipulate that kind of raw energy and not get burned to a crisp. And she was a witch. If they tried, it would kill them. Period. And there would be nothing left of them but ashes.
“I-I think w-we may have to l-leave them al-lone.” She hated the stutter; she always had, but couldn’t keep it from happening when she was nervous, or uptight. Right now she was both. But she was also determined.
No one heard her at first, and she realized she hadn’t done more than whisper the words under her breath. She screwed up her courage and tried again in a more forceful tone. “I think we may have to leave them alone.”
Xander and Giles both spun around and stared at her like she’d lost her mind. Giles opened his mouth, prepared to disagree vehemently with the ludicrous idea, and was surprised when Tara met his eyes. She wasn’t one for a lot of eye contact. He could see the fear there, and the determination, and under all that was hope. It was the hope that held him silent.
“Giles, I think I know what Dawn was thinking. I think I may know why she believed she was the only one who could do it. And I think she may just be right.”
Giles looked skeptical. “Tara, forgive me for saying so, but that is quite a lot of ‘I thinks’.”
She looked down at the ground nervously. Giles always had the ability to intimidate her, and the accent made everything he said sound just that much more...well, intimidating. Come on, she thought to herself, if you’re ever going to, this is the time to assert yourself. It’s about time you started earning your Scooby gang membership.
She raised her head again and tried to appear much more confidant than she felt.
“Dawn knew that Spike would never hurt her. He would do anything to protect her. She accepts that as fact, and even though we don’t understand why it’s true, it is true. We’ve all seen it. Since Dawn used the connection already in place to enter the nether realm, she would have been pulled in close enough to the aura trail to be able to see it. And she’s smart enough to follow it to wherever Willow is along that trail. We were talking about how one of us would need to pull Willow out of the merging, but Dawn probably realized something we didn’t. She can get Spike’s aura to let her go. Just by being there, she can get his aura to let go enough for Willow to break free. All she needs is time.”
Xander looked back and forth from Giles to Tara. He watched Giles becoming more and more interested in what she was saying and he gritted his teeth, anger bubbling painfully in his stomach. He liked Tara, he really did, but there was no way he was going to sit by and do nothing while Spike’s ‘unconscious’ will drained dry two of the most important people in his life. No how, no way.
“Time,” he snorted, “yeah - and while we’re giving Dawn the time, what’s Evil Dead’s ghost gonna be doing? Gotta give him credit, he’s always working the vamp angle. He can’t drain our blood but he’s still managing to suck the life right out of the two of them.”
Giles frowned at the level of anger he heard in Xander’s voice. There was real venom in it and it bothered him. Giles wasn’t fond of Spike, either, he’d be the first to admit it, but the vampire was important to Dawn, and she had convinced him earlier that night that Spike had a purpose among them. Things were bound to get difficult if and when they got Spike back if he didn’t say something now.
“As much as I hate defending Spike, and believe me, that’s quite a lot, this isn’t something he’s doing purposely, Xander. It’s not a conscious attack.”
The hostile young man glared at the energy pulsing in the doorway and said, “And yet somehow I can’t seem to care.” He caught the look Giles gave him out of the corner of his eye. He finally conceded. “Fine. We give Dawn time. How much time? And what do we do while we’re waiting? Develop an interesting hobby like, oh, I don’t know...knitting doilies?”
“Um...” Tara mumbled, “I th-think you crochet doilies, actually.”
When he just stared hard at her she flushed bright pink and stammered, “S-sorry. N-Not important.”
Giles reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys, handing them to Xander. “We give her all the time that she needs right up until the energy shows signs of weakening. I want you to take Tara and Anya to the shop and pick up some supplies. If it looks like they are starting be drained to dangerous levels it might lessen the strength of the barrier enough for us to break through - but we’ll need Tara’s expertise to do it.”
He glanced over at the young witch, who was blushing faintly at the praise and the acceptance of her plan. “Tara, you know what you’ll need, right?”
When she nodded at him he smiled slightly. “Good. Anya, go with them. If there’s anything that Tara requires that’s not on the shelves, get it out of the inventory.”
“Right,” the relatively recent human girl nodded enthusiastically. “This is what I like to see. A workable plan. Very good. And what are you going to do?”
Giles looked once more at the house, worry plainly etched in his face and weighing down his shoulders. “What else? Crochet a doily.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
It had taken awhile, Dawn was mentally exhausted, but she’d gotten there. Even with the light from Spike’s aura as a guide, the darkness and silence of the nether realm gave Dawn a big case of the heeby geeby’s. She really wouldn’t mind seeing the end of it any time soon and she had no intention of ever visiting again.
But she’d made it.
Staring down at the end of Spike’s trail she noticed that Willow had been quite literal in her explanation of it. It did quite abruptly cut off. It just hung there, in midair, the end touching some kind of wall or barrier. The wall to the realm that Spike had disappeared into.
And this was where she’d followed the slivers of green, also. Dawn was relieved. Willow had made it. There was a lot of green here. It danced and swirled frenetically over and through the coppery color, more prominent than at any other point. Willow’s essence and mental self had traveled the whole distance. Hopefully she’d gotten a look into the other dimension so all of this badness had a chance for a happy ending.
While she was traveling, Dawn had tested the reaction of Spike’s aura with her touch several times along the way. Each time she’d felt the comforting coolness and each time the copper had gravitated toward her outstretched mental hand. This time should be no different.
She reached out one more time, knowing this was the real deal, and prayed that Willow had enough of herself left to recognize the lessened hold on her as a means of escape. She made contact and waited breathlessly to see what would happen.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Bashing, pounding, slashing, slamming, Willow - the last thread of Willow - threw herself, threw Spike’s aura and everything that was left of her against the barrier over and over.
She was beyond rational thought - driven by her own horror at the resignation and determination that had pushed Spike into actions that had him stepping into hell without railing, fighting, clawing against such an obscenity.
Overloaded by emotions she had no control over and no known reason for.
Willow wailed against the not knowing why, but she pulsed and shook with the emotional fallout. The torment of a vampire.
Motion. Something not there before. And whispers. Buggish whispers of cockroaches crawling behind a wall and the feeling of a presence sneaking up on her had Willow’s mind pulling back from another attack on the barrier.
She was buffeted by emotions that made no sense given where they were. Emotions so tragically misplaced yet profoundly intense that it buzzed like electrical currents of nastiness through her essence and aura - tickling her mind with painful tips of shark’s teeth.
Something recognizable but unknown to the cobweb of Willow’s mind. And a tsunami-sized tidal wave of...surprise? Pleasure? No sense. Made no sense. Wrong. The witch that was the vampire balked at the feelings.
Tricks, they’re nasty tricks, don’t give in. Don’t feel this joy. It’s a lie that will be stripped away from you like a warm blanket on an icy night and all that will be left is the agony. Willow knew agony. She knew Spike’s agony. It was so powerful, acid burning, eating - gorging on her until sanity fled.
Fight. Damn it, fight. Rage against the perpetrator of such harsh cruelty.
Slipping away, the emotions, slipping away and hiding where Willow couldn’t go. Pooling her to one side as if she were no longer of any importance to the equation. Blocked from that part of her. Couldn’t let that happen. Wouldn’t let them fall for it. Call back the trail. Call back the aura. Protect it from grotesque disillusionment. Attack.
Attack the interloper. The thief in the night. The warrior sent to destroy. Crush, bash, tear, rip him away from the two that were now one as you had been ripped away to become one out of two. Pain. Give pain. Inflict scalpel blades of cold, fiery, split-open badness. The time was now.
Blocked by this different kind of barrier, Willow’s mind tried to rise above the walls and smite the creature capable of such allure that Spike’s aura gravitated towards it with the innocent trust of a swaddling, bawling babe.
There was no vision, no sight but the opening, gaping, maw of the hell Spike had entered. It played an endlessly vicious cycle in the crippled, decrepit mental mind of a girl. Even after the emotions pulled back. Left with only herself, twirling less tightly knit, Willow could force action. Protect him. Don’t allow him to be subjected to more.
She gathered her broken mind, an essence that had lived millennia of emotion in hours, an aura bleached by pain and misuse. She attacked. Protect him. Kill. Rip. Tear. Punish. Mutilate. Evil. This is evil. Stop it.
Like a phoenix out of the ashes, Willow rose over the partition separating her from Spike’s aura, blind to the visual input of what she was preparing to attack. Knowing nothing but the picture of hell in her mind. Fighting perhaps that.
But the aura responded. Spike’s aura rose to meet the challenge. What had been a companion, a confidant of vile, unspeakable horror, a partner in a crime against inhumanity - inflicting damage but leading the way down an enforced, twisted, evil path towards hell - was now an avenging angel of demanding intensity. A wounded lion warring to defend its own.
Willow didn’t understand. She was attacking for him and he turned on her with surprising viciousness. They merged again, in battle.
Again came torrents of emotion, his emotions. Defend. Protect. Destroy.
Willow knew it was she, not the intruder, who was to be destroyed. And she trembled under the assault from the vampire’s aura.
Pushed, ripped from her new home. Painfully stripped away from the merging, Willow was cast out. Thrown away from the path that she had been on. Screaming mentally at the agony of it. Lost and blind in the darkness, Willow screeched in defeat and pain.
Alone for the first time in a long time and out of Spike’s trail, she was lost in solitude. Lost in aloneness. Lost to the insanity that had sucked her down into her own hell. No longer sharing his.
Falling hard, she stared at the absence of light and feeling, screaming still.
But this time, her screams were heard.
Dawn had touched the stream of merged auras like she had all the other times. And she had thought, at first, that everything was just the same as it had been before. But this time, when the larger pool of green that was Willow had separated from the coppery color of Spike, it seemed to almost resist the split instead of taking the escape she offered and pulling away.
She watched, not knowing what was going on, as Willow seemed to draw herself, her elements, up and over the space opened by Spike’s drawing near her hand. Tendrils of jade green snaked out towards her.
It hadn’t frightened her, she just thought Willow knew she was here and didn’t understand that she was being given a means of escape. It wasn’t until Spike’s aura turned away from her touch and rose to slam into the green, squeezing the tendrils back and preventing them from coming any closer that she thought something may be wrong.
And her jaw dropped at the obvious signs of struggle between the two colors. Not that she hadn’t expected a struggle of some kind, but she’d expected Spike not want to let Willow go. She never thought that Willow would fight to stay with him. But that’s what it looked like to Dawn. The green was clinging to the copper. Then it shimmered and swirled under what was an obvious attack.
It made no sense.
And when, finally, the green had been thrown out of the stream, when it broke away and landed mostly cloaked in darkness just a few steps away - no longer a green swirling of color but the ‘mental’ figure of the girl that Dawn had come to retrieve - Dawn went from confused to horrified as Willow’s scream, a scream of anguish and futility, rent the air and echoed through the nether realm over and over.
Her hand dropped to her side, out of the aura trail, and she rushed over to the screaming madness that was her friend.
“Willow?”
Dawn’s ears were ringing under barrage of shrieking sound. She knelt down to the cowering figure in front of her, terror etched hauntingly on her face. She didn’t know what to do.
Wanting to comfort, needing to do something, anything to halt that echoing scream, she reached down and gently touched Willow’s shoulder. Under her hand, she felt the instinctive flinch. Willow pulled away and mindlessly pushed herself back, away from her touch.
Her screams became whimpers.
Dawn patiently followed after her and tried again, more forcefully.
“Willow!”
Instead of just gently touching her shoulder, Dawn grabbed the girl firmly by the shoulders and gave her a quick shake. Willow’s sightless and unfocused eyes stared off into the abyss behind Dawn. She reached a hand up to Willow’s chin and gently turned her face so she could look into those eyes.
“Willow?”
Dawn could do nothing but watch and hope for a glimmer of recognition. Just when it looked like she was never going to see it, when her own terror and worry were choking her, Willow’s eyes seemed to slowly come back into focus. Dawn felt the tears building in her own eyes and she tried to blink them back. Finally, Willow’s whimpers tailed off and she seemed to really see Dawn for the first time.
As if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, Willow raised her mental hand up to Dawn’s cheek and brushed it gently.
“Dawnie?”
Dawn smiled through her tears and nodded, relief making her knees weak.
Willow choked out a sob and fell into Dawn’s comforting embrace, crying out her pain and fear. Slowly, the longer she was out of Spike’s trail, the more her mind came back to her and her sobs turned from fear to relief. Dawn held her, stroking her back soothingly, and let her cry.
“Oh God, Dawnie,” Willow said when she could finally speak again, “I was so scared. It was so horrible. I never knew. How could anyone know?”
Dawn didn’t know what she meant, but she knew Willow needed to get it all out and she remained silent. Questions could come later.
“He felt so much pain. I can’t even describe it. I never knew that someone could feel that much anguish. And he was...hurt...physically...and then, fixed. But I didn’t see what happened. Oh, God, all I saw were demons and creatures and...and...”
Willow pulled back, choking on her words, needing to purge herself of the emotions still swamping her - memories of emotions that were still razor sharp and slicing into her. Making her bleed.
She reached up and took Dawn’s arms in her hands and stared into her eyes.
“He loved her so much. I felt it. The loss. It was killing him, ripping him apart. He loved her so much, Dawnie, and we never knew it. We didn’t believe it was possible but he did. And he loves you, too. I can’t even tell you how much. It was in me, the love for her...for you. It was a part of me and it was huge. Protective and blinding.”
Dawn smiled tenderly at the frantic telling; it was as if Willow were trying to convince her. She didn’t need to. Dawn nodded at her friend’s words.
“I know, Willow. I’ve always known.”
That stopped the young witch. She searched Dawn’s face and saw the truth there. Dawn had never questioned it because she had always seen it. She would. It centered Willow, strengthened her as she saw Dawn’s confidence in such an immense thing. She would need the strength. She had something else to tell Dawn and she’d need all the strength she had to do it.
“I saw where he went. I saw what he saw when the doorway opened. We’re going to get him back. I swear to you, I will get him back.”
Dawn was relieved. More than relieved, she was giddy. “Where is he? Where did he go?”
Willow slid her hands down Dawn’s arms and clutched desperately at her hands. The look on her face made Dawn’s stomach tighten and she prepared herself for what looked to be bad news.
“It was hell, Dawnie, they sent him to hell.”
Stricken, Dawn could only stare at the girl. Willow saw it and rushed to explain all that she knew.
“Two creatures. Weird looking. They showed him something in the ground...I know I’m not explaining this well, but I didn’t see much until the end - then I saw way too much. It was something out of a nightmare, it made him sick - despair, I felt his despair - and then they opened the door for him and it was horrible. Worse than the picture in the ground. It was hell. I don’t know why he went in, he was resigned to something. Determined. There was such a flood of feelings I can’t explain them all. He just walked in and the doors closed. That’s all I saw.”
Dawn’s lower lip was trembling and her eyes were flooded with tears. The tables turned and Willow moved to comfort the teen, wrapping her arms around her and holding her close.
“We’ll get him back. I swear to you. We can get him back now that we know where he is. I’m not giving up until I bring him back.”
No sooner had the words been spoken then the ground beneath them bucked once and started to tilt. Willow and Dawn broke apart and stared at each other, not comprehending what was happening, as they slid slightly along with it. Wide eyed and confused, they tried to stand, to gain purchase on the slick surface.
Just when Dawn made it to her feet and reached over to help Willow up, the tilting pitched back the other way...and everything in and of the nether realm started to shake.