Chapter 2:  Paved with Good Intentions

The short walk to Giles’ house was silent and strained.  Tension hung thickly in the air as both girls walked side by side.  Buffy was careful to walk on the grass a little bit so as not to brush up against her silent companion.  So many emotions were running rampant thought her body.  Anger, fear, love, hate, hurt. . .love.  She did love the redhead next to her with all her heart, and then more besides. . .so why did she have such a bad reaction to seeing her after over 4 months?  She’d felt abandoned and left to her own devices.  She and Willow hardly had a chance to settle in and get used to this new relationship, then Willow was off to England and Buffy was left in the dust.

They arrived at the door and walked in.  Giles was standing by the bookshelf and Spike was watching TV.  Neither of them noticed the girls walk in.  Willow cleared her throat.  “Some things never change.  MTV Spike?”

Both British heads shot up at the sound of her voice.  Giles smiled.  “Willow.  It’s so nice to see you again.”

She walked over to him and gave him an awkward but warm hug.  “Giles.  It’s nice to see you too.”

”Welcome home Red.  Sorry to call so late but business as usual doesn’t wait for love.  Or something like that.”

She turned to him and smiled.  “Nice to see you too Spike.”

Buffy observed their little reunion still standing in the doorway.  She was trying to get her emotions under control.    She breathed deeply and walked over to the couch.  <Time to put on the brave face.>  “Hey guys.”  She sat down.  “So what’s so important you dragged us here at 1am?”

The slight anger wasn’t lost on Giles.  “How was patrol?”

She shrugged.  “Fine.  I came, I saw, I plunged.”

Very loud boot-clad footsteps could be heard coming down from the staircase.  “Hey, G-Man!  You have a t-shirt I could borrow?  Billy Idol ripped mine when he. . .”  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs dumbfounded.  “Oh, dear.”

Buffy scrambled to her feet.  “Xander?”  She couldn’t believe her eyes.

He tensed.  Giles didn’t tell him they were coming – he simply sent him upstairs to shower saying in not too many words that he stunk big time.

“Oh my God.”  Willow finally found her voice.

He blushed.  “Willow.”  She crossed the room and crashed into his arms.

He picked her up off the ground with easy and swung her around.  His mind was spinning too.  This was good, it felt good to have his best friend back in his arms. . .and bad, very bad.  She’ll never forgive him for what he did, neither would Buffy.   Guilt took up residence in his throat and he had trouble speaking.  “It’s good to see you.  So good.”  He put her down and looked at her before sending his gaze to Buffy.  “What?  No hug?”  She remained firmly in place, shock carved deeply into her features.  He knew that look.  Slowly he crossed the room and stood in front of her.  He reached a tentative hand up and touched her cheek.  “Hey there roomie.”

“You left.  Without saying goodbye, you just left.”  She whispered.  She glanced at Willow then looked down at the ground.

He reached out to her and pulled her into his arms.  She resisted at first but sunk in slowly and returned the hug.  “I’ve missed you.  You big oaf, where have you been?”

“I took care of my uncle the first year.  He got better so I moved back in with my parents and started working the door at the Bronze.  Anya blew back into town.”  He gestured for them both to take a seat before he continued.  “And blew right back into my basement.  I’ll spare you the details.”

”Thanks.”  Buffy and Willow said at the same time.

“You guys did get my letters, right?”

“But where have you been for the past year and a half?”  Willow asked.

He shrugged.  “Around.  I tried the whole cross country thing again after Anya left. . .again.”  He ran his fingers needlessly through his hair.  They both stared at him.  “This?  I went incognito for a while.  I made the wrong people mad. . .got a little scared to death, but I survived.”  He smiled but could tell it was forced.   He noted their worried expressions.  “I’m fine, really.  Giles here sent Spike after me, he took care of the bad guys and here I sit.”  It was a fly by the seat of your pants excuse, but it was all he could come up with at the time.  It seemed to do the trick.  “God, you look like hell, Buff.”

 She laughed.  “Thanks Xand.  I can always count on you to pull the punches.”

Giles watched the entire exchange with a stoic expression.  How could he tell them now?  The love between the three of them spoke clearly, as did the guilt hidden behind Xander’s eyes.  “I have some information that may be troublesome.”

Xander’s head shot up to Giles.  Now?  It was too soon. . .he didn’t have enough time to enjoy this.  Now it was going to be taken away so quickly.

Willow looked up at him.  “You said something about Quentin.  I thought he was dead.  We left him in the sewers.”

”Quite right.  By all accounts, there is nothing that leads me to believe that he’s alive.  I’ve consulted my books and there is some odd activity coming up.  I want to look into it just to be sure Quentin and Ethan aren’t involved.”

”That’s it?  Giles, we can research tomorrow, and I just got home.”  Willow protested a little annoyed.

“He didn’t tell me he called you guys.”  Xander interrupted.  “I think he wanted to surprise you.”

”Oh.”  Willow immediately regretted her words.  “I’m sorry Giles, I didn’t mean.. . .”

“It’s quite alright.”  He smiled at her.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m beat.  Two hours tied up in the back of a van with Spike will do that to a person.”  Xander shot him a glance.

“Well you weren’t exactly willing you bloke.  It took me almost a year to find your pathetic hide.”

”What’s going on?”  Buffy cut in slightly amused.  “Spike tying Xander up.  Now that’s gotta be. . “

”Not high on my list of explanations I’d like to make.”  Xander cut in.

Giles cleared his throat.  “That may be best saved for tomorrow when we’re all wide awake.”

“Good.  I think I’m wiped out too.  The jet lag is starting to kick in.”  She looked over at Buffy.

She nodded.   “Yeah.  Patrol was a little rough.  I’ll be going too if you don’t mind.”

Giles led them to the door.  “Indeed.  We’ll see you around noon then?”

Both girls nodded and headed back for home.

Giles closed the door and stood there for a moment.

“You didn’t tell them.”  Xander stated.

“No.  No I didn’t.”

”Thank you.”

He turned.  “And I won’t.  That’s your job.”

They’d been sitting facing each other for the past ten minutes now.  Buffy on the couch and Willow in the armchair.  Neither one of them was budging.  Willow finally broke through the silence.  “It was good to see Xander again.  I can’t believe his hair.”

Buffy nodded.  “Yeah..  He looks like a cheap knock off of. . .”

”Spike, yeah, and I never thought I’d say this but it was nice to see Spike, I mean after all he was so involved in everything in England, he saved our lives and still he never changes I can’t believe he still watches MTV and Giles looked the same too although I saw him a few months ago before I. . .”

”Will.”  Buffy looked up at her.

She blushed and looked at her hands in her lap.  “Sorry.  Babble mode.”

“It’s okay.  I kinda missed it.”  She whispered.

Willow looked up.  “Really?”

“Kinda.”

“Is there anything else. . .you know. . .you kinda missed?”

“Well. . .”

Willow got up and sat down next to her on the couch.  “I missed. . .some stuff too.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmm.  I missed the ice cream parlor down the block, and I missed the patrols and Giles, and going to the Grotto and.”  Willow looked over at her.  Her expression was unreadable, like a blank wall.  “Buffy, I missed you.”

“Yeah?”

“Every day.  But I had to do it, I had to finish my studies and I knew it wouldn’t be fair of me to ask you to come because you had to stay here.”

“But I would have.”

”I know and I didn’t ask because you would have.”

“So you didn’t want me around, is that it?  Would I have just been an embarrassment to you and your big Oxford friends?”  The anger flared up a little.

“No!  That’s not it.  I wanted you there, you don’t know how much.  But I couldn’t ask you to go because it would have been selfish of me.  You have to know that I want you all to myself and you would have been a distraction. . . but in a good way.”   She reached for her hand and was met with no resistance.  “It was really crappy of me to leave like that and not tell you about the spell.  We were just starting out here and all of a sudden I found it and then I got the admissions packet in the mail. . .I forgot I’d even sent for it.”

“I wish you had talked to me about it.”

”I’m so sorry Buffy.  There are other reasons I went back too.”  She took a deep breath before continuing.  “I needed. . .I needed to go back there to where it happened.  I remember what happened, you know that. . .but I never came to terms with it, never faced it.  I had to go back to that alley, and I had to do it alone.  I needed to show myself that. . .that it didn’t own me. . .that I owned it and I could make it as big or as little as I wanted to. . .so I went there and I looked around and I cried and I shook and I remembered and I shrunk it down to a tiny little insignificant piece of dust that’s never gonna haunt me again.”  She sniffled a little and wiped a fresh tear from her eye.  “And I had to do it alone. . .for me. . .so it wouldn’t consume or affect us.”  She whispered.

Buffy sat quietly taking it all in.  She never wanted to realize that there were some things Willow had to do on her own, had to face herself.  And here she was feeling angry and hurt and resentful when in the end, she’d done it for her, for them.  “Will, I never realized. . .I thought it was over.  I didn’t even see that you were still hurting from it.”

”Because I didn’t want you to.”  She reached into her pocket and pulled out something they both knew very well.  “I changed the potency of the ring.  It didn’t make me super detached girl, but it didn’t allow my emotions to take over either.”  She placed it on the table.  “When I left England I took it off. . .and I never want to wear it again.”  She touched Buffy’s face lightly.  “I never want to not feel anything around you ever.  I want you to know it all. . .the good, bad and ugly Willow.”  She attempted a lighthearted smile

Buffy leaned into her touch.  She closed her eyes and concentrated on the feeling. . .this feeling she’d yearned for over the past few months. . .Willow had returned home to her, to their home.  She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. . .all she could do is feel.

“There’s an ugly Willow?”

“Buffy.”  She smiled more sincerely now.

“Cuz if there was I must have skipped that chapter.”

Willow leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.  It was warm, friendly. . .sort of a ‘let’s get used to this again’ kiss.  She leaned back and was met with a pair of glistening hazel eyes.  She couldn’t help but smile.  “Hey.”  She whispered.

“Hey yourself.”  She leaned over and placed her head in Willow’s lap.  For that second, in that one moment, she felt like everything would maybe be okay.

“I’m in.”  He whispered into the receiver.

“Your just toying with me again.”  The voice couldn’t hide some astonishment.  “You know how I hate that.”

“It was too easy.”  A self satisfactory grin crossed his face.  “I felt cheap.”

”Remember the plan, darling.  Even now I can hear the stars begin to weep.  They’re afraid. . .very afraid.”

”Don’t worry, baby.  I’ve got it covered.”  He hung up the phone and smiled to himself.  He walked over to the window, took out a cigarette and lit it.  Inhaling deeply, then exhaling, he couldn’t help but chuckle.  <Too easy.>