Title: Judgment
Author: Medea
Email: medealives@hotmail.com
Pairing: Willow/Angel friendship, Buffy/Spike
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Willow's joyride in 'Wrecked' was only the beginning of her downward spiral.
Spoilers: Through BtVS "Smashed" and "Wrecked"; and AtS "Lullaby"
Archive: Please do.
Disclaimer: Joss created. I am not Joss. Therefore, not mine, never will be. Pity, that.
Note: A response to Kendra A's challenge to "fix" Wrecked, although I don't really feel that the ep needed fixing. There's nothing wrong with taking a character through the moral gray zone. I kinda thought it gave Willow some interesting nuances.
Note 2: This is not part of the Masters and Minions universe -- Willow is human. For Willow/Angel fans -- it comes later in the story, but it *will* come.
Feedback: Much appreciated: medealives@hotmail.com

~Part: 13~


Had it really been only a few months? That couldn't be right. A lifetime of changes was etched on the children he'd watched over not so long ago.

Children no longer.

Giles blinked amid the chaos. Willow's scream had brought them all running and his heart was still hammering against his chest. Yet for all the confusion around him and the frenzied thrust of his pulse, the world seemed to move in slow motion.

Angel and Cordelia had apparently arrived first. Angel knelt beside the bed where Willow huddled in terror. He gripped her by the shoulders and murmured words too soft for Giles to discern. Spike brusquely shoved Cordelia away from Dawn as Buffy stepped in to scrutinize her sister for signs of harm. The blond vampire hovered close, eyes narrowed, as Buffy forcefully shook her younger sister.

Dawn swayed, her expression radiant with bliss. Slowly, she responded to Buffy's urgent attempts to jar her out of her trance, stiffening and blinking her eyes.

It was only at this moment that Willow quieted and collapsed against Angel.

In a moment of clarity, he recognized the situation for what it was.

Dear God...how could he have missed it?

Willow. How he'd failed her! He should have seen the signs; should have anticipated something like this, especially after their prolonged battle with Glory. Even in his anger over her reckless venture with the resurrection spell, he should have had the presence of mind to question how she had managed such a difficult feat. But he hadn't. He'd been too close to see it.

He'd been too afraid that his prodigy would make the same mistakes he had.

"Dawnie? Dawn! Are you okay?!" Buffy demanded frantically, almost choking on the words.

Still somewhat dazed, Dawn nodded and murmured, "Uh huh..."

"You're sure she didn't hurt you? What happened?" Buffy pressed, eyes flaring urgently.

Dawn shook her head and her eyes focused more clearly. "No, I'm good. Buffy, it's okay, I'm all right. I don't know what happened. It was kinda freaky, though. One minute, I was leaving Angel's suite; the next, I felt this...pull..."

Giles might have been gone for several months, but there were some memories that would never fade. After years spent at Buffy's side, patiently guiding and training his young charge, her Battle Face was forever burned in his mind. It was a look of pure determination, from hardened eyes to firmly set jaw, and one he'd seen countless times as Buffy had prepared for mortal combat. He saw that look now as she spun around to confront Willow, who lay prone against Angel's side.

Quickly, Giles intervened.

"It's known as sending out a call."

"What?" Buffy stopped short and looked expectantly at him. "What kind of call?"

"Oh, God...I can't believe I didn't recognize it," Tara breathed from the doorway behind him.

"A call for a familiar," Giles continued, observing with interest as Spike brushed Dawn reassuringly on the cheek, then rested his hand on Buffy's shoulder. "Beings who provide guidance and enhanced power for a witch -- usually a small animal, such as a cat, but there have been instances of supernatural entities acting as familiars. It is possible for a call to be sent out unconsciously, although more often an intentional appeal is made."

Giles had hoped to calm Buffy's fury, but at her tense posture and wide, alarmed eyes, he realized he'd fallen short of the mark. She lurched at Willow and was held back only by Spike's firm grip.

Angel, too, tried his hand at soothing her. "Buffy, I don't think Willow meant to do this. Whatever this was, it terrified her."

But it wasn't Angel who succeeded in easing Buffy's hostile stance.

"Shh, luv," Spike urged in a rich, purring baritone, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Bit's fine. Best get her away from the witch and figure out what's goin' on. Remember: Red may look weak, but her magic's still there. Don't pick a fight until you're sure you're ready."

Buffy yielded. Giles saw that he was not the only one who had read the subtle text of their exchange. Angel's eyes, too, were frozen in a stare of disbelief.

At some point while Giles had been away, Spike had replaced them both.

Confidant. Touchstone. Ally.

Lover? Giles opted not to consider that possibility just yet, but he knew his Slayer's heart, and feared he saw the signs.

Had it really been only a few months?

A lifetime of changes, indeed.

In her terror to flee before she could hurt Dawn again, Willow thrust herself deep into her mind--

--and found herself in the forest glade where Poydras had trained with old Garat.

Sunlight streamed through the trees and dappled the low, gnarled vegetation that carpeted the glade. She stood in the rays, bathed in warmth, resting slightly against the heavy quarter-staff in her right hand.

Once again, she was in the athletic, masculine body of a warrior.

Or, at this stage, a much younger warrior-in-training.

She remembered vividly every practice bout Poydras had experienced here. Sometimes he'd sparred with other novices, sometimes with seasoned warriors, and sometimes against phantasms conjured by Garat. For six years, not a night had gone by that Poydras hadn't collapsed on his sleep mat, aching, sore, and too tired to eat. Of course, the few times his wearied sinews had tempted him to refuse supper, Garat had taught him that it was possible for a body to feel even worse, rousing him with lashes from his switch. The old master never let him miss a meal.

Those years had blurred together as one, long, fatiguing period of intensive training, patient lectures, frustrating tests of will, trials of intelligence, and strained muscles.

They had been among the happiest of Willow's long, torturous travels.

Willow relaxed in the pleasure of this fond memory, escaping her troubles for a moment by daydreaming...

No! Wait! What had Garat said about dayd--- oof!

The sharp blow of a clawed foot against his back sent Poydras stumbling forward. Raw, bleeding stripes throbbed as a reminder that losing focus would get him hurt -- or killed.

Willow receded to the back of Poydras' mind and observed fondly as he went through a vigorous routine with one of Garat's phantasms. This time it was a simulated Tracker. Willow remembered these sessions and would have grinned if she'd been in control of her host's body. The youth had found them humiliating; the veteran fighter looked back, years later, and recognized them as some of his most important lessons.

Poydras crouched and swung his quarter-staff in a powerful arc to his right and behind him, following the staff with his body. He struck the phantom Tracker hard across the knees, eliciting the familiar, unearthly howl that even fully-trained Guardians dreaded. Its mouth pulled back in a menacing snarl over red gums and jagged, obsidian teeth. The silver-grey tentacles that cascaded mane-like from its head grew agitated.

Moaning inwardly, Willow braced herself for the sting of those tentacles on Poydras' skin. It would still be several years before he learned what Garat had been trying to teach him with this test: if you worry too much about how your opponent can hurt you, you'll overlook weaknesses that you can use to your advantage. At this age, only a few years since the elders of his village had offered him to Garat as a novice, Poydras was still easily thrown by the instinctive fear of his people's deadliest enemy.

Through her host's eyes, Willow saw the weakness that Garat would point out later, when Poydras was writhing in pain. The Tracker's head had reared back in preparation for whipping its poisoned tentacles at him -- leaving its neck exposed and vulnerable. Oooooh, this was going to hurt. Willow wished there was some way to warn him.

She was stunned when Poydras thrust his quarter-staff at the Tracker's neck and speared it brutally through the throat.

It hadn't happened this way!

Poydras' reflexes were still too untrained, his mind still too prone to react in fear, for him to pull off such a maneuver.

But....he had.

The killing blow ended Garat's spell and the hideous phantasm dissolved in a hiss of smoke.

As Willow gaped incredulously along with Poydras at the empty space where the Tracker had been, Garat's gruff, amused voice broke the silence.

"So, young novice. How did you manage that?"

"I...I..." stammered Poydras uncertainly. Speechless, he dropped to his knees, shifting his wide-eyed stare from the ground to his stunted, grizzled mentor.

Garat's face wrinkled in irritation, causing the long quills on his chin to twitch. "What have I told you, hmm?" he chided, cracking his switch against Poydras' arm.

Poydras yelped and clutched at his arm, where an angry welt had been raised against green skin. However, he was still too confused to answer his mentor's question.

"Combat is more than fighting, more than just reacting. Use your mind. Thought and action should be one," Garat lectured. "So, if you did it, you must know how you did it. Tell me."

"A...I...his neck. There was...in my mind...something," Poydras frowned as he stumbled over his words. "It told me...somehow I knew to strike the neck."

"Voices in your head, eh?" Garat poked beneath Poydras' chin with his switch, unimpressed. He peered intently into the youth's eyes, and Willow had the uneasy, surreal sensation that he was looking directly at her. "Who's in there, then? Hmm? Know this now: if you are to accomplish what must be done, all must be brought forward. Can't work with voices in your *head* -- you aren't pieces, you aren't parts, you're a whole. Embrace what you are -- and let's go again."

Willow was shaken. This hadn't happened! Not like this.

However, she had no time to wonder at the strange turn of events. The world was shifting again, fragmenting into a myriad of images. Bursts of light, shapes, shadows all spun around her at a dizzying pace until Willow found herself back in her room at the Hyperion.

It was oddly quiet.

She remembered that she'd been screaming before. Dawn had been there, as had Angel and the others. Now only Angel remained.

His posture, tense and watchful, eased with relief. "You're back."

Willow nodded, taking deep, gulping breaths to steady herself as a disorienting stream of memories flooded her mind and grafted onto the ones that she knew as her 'true' experiences. She couldn't stop herself from trembling. Her brain was already filled to the bursting point, but alongside her established memory of Poydras' life, there now stretched a second history of events, equally authentic.

Two paths.

Both real.

Each ended the same way, with Poydras staring up at a blade that would cut out his heart. But in the second, he'd been able to prevent Garat's death.

Through her astonished stupor, Willow felt Angel rest his hand on her arm and heard him ask, "Willow? Willow, are you all right?"

Suddenly, she snapped to attention and clapped her hand urgently over Angel's. Clinging to him almost desperately, she riveted him with an excited gaze and babbled, "Angel, something changed! It was different...I mean, it didn't happen like the first time -- I think he heard me! I changed something! Or...or do I just want to think I did? Am I just remembering things the way I want to?"

"Easy, Willow. Slow down," Angel hushed, steadying her with a firm but gentle grip. "Tell me what happened, from the beginning."

"Like she said: she changed something."

An unfamiliar voice drew Willow's attention to the doorway. She saw a somewhat homely man smirking back at both of them. His clothes were nondescript, although they looked vaguely like what a blue-collar worker might have worn after hours in the 1950s. Maybe it was the rumpled Stetson on his head that did it.

Willow frowned in confusion. Who was this guy?

"Whistler?" Angel murmured.

Spike gave the softly lit tables, polished bar and row upon row of exotic bottles, urns, and jars an appreciative once-over.

Pretty posh, for a demon bar. Maybe he could convince Buffy to stay for a drink, once they got the Niblet settled in Liberace's private suite.

The green bloke'd pitched quite a fit when Angel had asked him if they could bring Dawn over for safe keeping. The Poof'd had to hold the phone away from his ear, and Spike had caught a few angry shouts about convertibles, bombs, hoodlum vigilantes and the high cost of renovations.

But as poncy as he was, Angel still knew how to negotiate. Angelus always had been a master of coercion.

So here he stood, with Buffy, Dawn, and a horned nightclub owner, perusing one of the most motley assortment of demons he'd seen in a long time. Oblivious to his curious stare, the bar's patrons sipped various spiritous beverages or bodily fluids and listened to a really bad karaoke rendition of Patsy Cline.

"Come on, princess, your palace awaits you...well, actually, it's still more of a construction zone than a palace, but I call it home," Lorne commented amiably. "You'd be amazed what you can do with a few throw pillows."

"I'm not a princess," Dawn sulked, eyes downcast. She was faking indifference in that adorable way she had, but Spike saw how clearly she was hurting. "I'm nothing but a cosmic power source."

"Here now," Spike scolded, chucking her beneath the chin and forcing her eyes to meet his. "No pity parties, they're boring. You're a normal, teenage girl, pet. No doubt there. You bloody whine enough, couldn't be anything but."

Dawn scowled at him and brushed his hand away. Good. Irritated was better than sniveling.

"Dawn, be nice. Lorne is doing us a favor, and from what Wesley told us about everything that's happened in the past year, a really BIG favor," Buffy added. Smiling hesitantly, she rested her hand on Dawn's shoulder. "Besides, you'll be okay here. Willow won't be able to reach you. Remember, no matter what she's done to you, she doesn't define who you are. You're *you*."

"Easy for you to say," Dawn huffed. "At least you have some control over your life. I'm just a Key, a tool for someone else to control. Willow proved that."

With that, she stomped petulantly over to the far side of the bar, jostling a walrus-faced demon as she brushed past. Disgruntled, it snorted at her, then went back to sipping a bright chartreuse concoction.

Lorne sighed. "Kids. I shudder to think what Connor will be like when he's this age, considering who his daddy is. Why don't you two sit down and have a drink. I'll turn on the charm and get her settled in."

Buffy looked uncomfortable with the suggestion. She was poised to stalk after her sister, but Spike stayed her, gently shaking his head. "She doesn't want us around right now, luv. Let her cool down."

After a long pause, Buffy relented, although the frustration was visible on her face. She let Spike escort her over to a candlelit table in the corner. They sat in silence for several moments. On an impulse, Spike reached across the table and took Buffy's hand, stroking his fingers over her soft skin but saying nothing.

With a wistful smile, Buffy dropped her gaze to their hands and murmured, "Thanks. Lately, you always seem to know what I need."

"Only lately?" Spike retorted with a cocky arch of his brow. "Slayer, I've had just what you *need* for years now."

She curled her fingers against his hand and dug her fingernails into his pale flesh.

"Ow! That smarts!" he protested. Buffy grinned.

A waiter -- or waitress, Spike couldn't tell -- came over and took their drink order, and they lapsed into silence. The drinks were delivered, but sat ignored as Spike watched Buffy stare thoughtfully into the distance.

"It never ends," Buffy observed at last. "I keep hoping that, someday, it will all be over. But as soon as we get over one hurdle, five more spring up in its place."

" 's how it goes, yeah," Spike agreed. Then, narrowing his eyes in concern over her fatalistic tone, he demanded, "You're not havin' regrets about bein' back again, are you? Not thinkin' of...endin' it...?"

"No," Buffy reassured him. She brought her gaze to his, and the emotion in her eyes nearly knocked him out of his seat. "I don't think about that any more....thanks to you. I don't know how I would have made it through all this without you."

Spike gaped at her, speechless.

Blushing, Buffy glanced away for several moments, swallowed, then looked at him pointedly and said, "I...don't love you...yet. But I trust you. Thank you for letting me trust you."

Borrowed blood pounded hot and furious through his veins, as Buffy's confession echoed in his ears. Especially one word: yet.

Yet.

Evidently, Buffy's emotions were just as turbulent. A pretty pink flush deepened in her cheeks as her blood screamed close to the surface of her skin. Her voice shaking nervously, she teased, "Come on, isn't this the point where you point and laugh? Or at least gloat? Tell me 'I told you so'?"

So beautiful. So fucking beautiful.

Spike simply stared at her as she squirmed across from him, all flustered. Her hazel eyes enchanted him. Her soft lips trembled so shyly.

He closed his eyes, drinking in the moment just a little longer, before he opened them again and answered her from the very depths of his soulless yet sentimental heart.


"She comes not when Noon is on the roses--
Too bright is Day.
She comes not to the Soul till it reposes
From work and play.

But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices
Roll in from Sea,
By starlight and candle-light and dreamlight
She comes to me."


Buffy's mouth dropped open slightly. His response clearly wasn't what she'd expected. But when Spike saw a tiny glimmer at the corner of her eyes, he knew his words were far from unwelcome.

He nodded in the direction that Lorne had taken Dawn. "Come on, luv, let's go say good night to the Niblet."




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