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Title: Rose in the Moonlight 1/?
Author: Ash (The lurking one)
E-Mail: ash_j88@hotmail.com
Distribution: See, want, mention it, take.
Disclaimer: So not mine. None of it. Well, some of it. But just the plot,
I swear. *g*
Feedback: Makes my day, my week, my month... you get the idea.
Rating: Darned if I know.

Author's Notes: Well, I've snapped. It had to happen eventually. This is
what happens when I want to write a story to thank Charibob for being
nice... strange, strange results. :)

Part One

They say that opposites attract. This doesn't really relate to the story,
other than the fact that there are many nagging questions brought up by that
statement- namely, who the hell are They, and how exactly do They know that?
Not to mention the side question that, since nobody has ever actually
spoken to a They, who exactly are They saying this *to*?

These are the kind of questions you should never ask on a Hellmouth, a place
that thinks every statement should be foreshadowing some kind of great evil,
up to and including the statement, "Hey! Let's get some ice cream!". (Not
to mention its determination to never let lines like "Well, at least things
can't get any worse!" pass by. Demonic power is a bad thing in itself, but
demonic power with a weakness for straight lines is worse.)

All of which goes to explain why everyone on the Hellmouth was basically
doomed. Maybe not capital d Doomed, with the whole hellfire and monsters
feasting on their entrails and everything that goes along with that
particular brand of unpleasantness. Buffy had proved herself adept at
warding off that sort of thing. But little d doomed, that was another
story.

So, when Willow told Tara that she wanted to try a magical spell to make two
minds mesh and work in harmony, she should have known. Not exactly what
would happen, because come on. Who would have guessed that? But she should
have known *something* would happen. If nothing else, her track record
should have clued her in. Willow's experiences with the dark arts could
have been marketed under the title "Bewitched: the lost episodes"

But no. She was very hopeful about it. She felt sure that it would be a
turning point in her magical education. She just knew that after this,
everything would be different. (Hint: this is the part in the movie when
the audience should start screaming "Noooooo! Don't do it, Willow!")

Alas. There was no audience, and it probably wouldn't have helped anyway if
there had been. (It would have been very amusing, and Willow would probably
had a panic attack, but that's not helpful.) So they set up for the spell,
two cutely naïve university students, ready to cheerfully shrug aside years
of superstition and dive headlong into the realm of Things Mortal Man Should
Not Know.

Because hey! That's just a suggestion, right? Sure, it's been carved by
demon talons into the skulls of a thousand wizards, sure, the barrier
between the worlds is there for a reason, and sure, we *are* directly over a
Hellmouth. But never mind all that.

And so Willow and Tara watched with wide eyes as the rose began to float.
That might have been a good place to leave off. After all, there are
children in third world countries who never get to float any roses *at all*,
so let's not get greedy! (And eat all your vegetables.)

But noooo... that'd have been too easy. Willow had to mesh with someone,
had to send her mind out questing for another one like it, looking for the
right kind of power.

Witches aren't like Energizer batteries. They don't have little buttons on
the side that you press to see how much power they have. Willow had always
thought of herself as a weak member of the magical profession. (There will
be a brief intermission for everyone to break into hysterical laughter. All
done now? Good.)

Given that belief, it isn't surprising that when she sent her mind out to
mesh with Tara's, she sent it out with every bit of power she had, fearful
that it wouldn't reach her friend. And it isn't surprising that she was
looking for a mind like her own, a mind of similar power and abilities.

None of this is very surprising, but it surprised the hell out of Willow
when she felt her extended energy seized in a grip like iron and was drawn
into a meshing of minds that was nothing at all like what she had expected.
She had expected to feel a slight swell of power as two trickling streams
merged into a river.

What she got was a feeling like her blood was boiling in her veins, a raw
surge of power that liquefied her bones and hummed in her chest like a
second heart beating next to her own.

Which is when the rose decided to do its kamikaze Corsage Of Death
impersonation, zooming around the room like a heat-seeking missile. When
it landed, sans head, this might have been a clear indication that Willow
had wandered down a side trail, off the Path of Enlightenment.

After all, a headless rose is one of the most traditional signs that Bad
Things are afoot. Whether delivered to your door by stalkers, left on your
pillow by... well, stalkers again, or found in the midnight garden of the
Adams family, a headless rose just screams... okay, it doesn't scream
anything. What it does, to those of us who understand the concept of
foreshadowing, is say that the people involved may be screaming. Very, very
soon.

Willow and Tara packed up their various occult instruments for piercing the
veil between this world and the ones outside, and left. They were both
wondering about different things, though neither voiced their thoughts.
Tara was wondering why the rose moved, since she'd never been able to feel
the touch of Willow's mind.

Willow was wondering why she still had lightning darting through her veins,
and why her hands were trembling. And why, just before they left, she
picked up the headless rose and held it to her cheek, feeling the brush of
spirit petals against her cold skin.

Part Two

When Willow and Tara left their little Attic O' Fun, neither of them felt
any kind of grim foreboding. That's perfectly understandable, really.
After all, they lived in an area where 'End of the World' roughly translated
to 'Thursday Night' and 'Significant Other' was usually synonymous with
'Creature of Evil.' (Which came in really handy for those little lover's
spats. "You- you- you're just *evil*!" "No! Oh, wait..." "See? SEE?
That's why you forgot our anniversary! Because you're an unnatural creature
of darkness!" "Now, honey... well, yeah.")

So, it was natural that Willow and Tara didn't feel the dark shadow of some
hellish future spreading across their souls with chilling menace. But
that's okay, because we can feel it for them! After all, you all knew
something was going to go wrong, right? If nothing else, the fact that I
used the words 'grim foreboding' in a sentence should have tipped you off.
(I may do it more often. Try it, it's fun! All the cool kids are doing
it...)

After Willow left she meant to go straight back to her dorm room. After
all, there was always the chance that some great evil had manifested, or
some vampire had taken one of the Scooby Gang hostage, or - god forbid-
Buffy was trying to use her laptop again.

But for some reason she found herself sitting out on the well-manicured lawn
of the campus, staring up into the sunlit sky. The clouds were very
beautiful, as clouds always are. (Really hard to go wrong with clouds. If
I was in charge of any aspect of the universe, I think I'd want it to be
Cloud Design. Talk about a low-pressure job.)

They were very beautiful, and the sky was a lovely blue, and Willow had *no*
idea why she was out there, staring into the heavens as if they contained
some hidden message. (Besides "Eat at Joe's", which some enterprising
skywriter had just scrawled across the vault of heaven.)

It took a surprising amount of effort for Willow to make herself get up off
the soft ground and go inside. It was as if a thin gauze veil had dropped
between her and the rest of the world, a flowing curtain that distorted the
shapes around her and made her feel like she was walking in a dream.
(Remember that time when you fell out of the tree and into the rosebushes
and it felt like you could feel every individual cell in your body and they
were all *screaming*? This was nothing like that.)

The news of Giles' disappearance reached her from a great distance, but the
others didn't appear to notice anything strange about the way she reacted.
But then, the Scooby Gang didn't have the best track record in the field of
"Noticing other people's secrets" At one point or another, every single
member had been hiding something, be it possession, demonic ex-boyfriends,
or a tendency towards long hair every full moon. (Get a haircut, ya hippie!
You look like a girl! A very, very angry girl with long, pointy teeth....
YAAAAA! )

And every single time, this group of people who spend their lives eye-deep
in the Swamp of Weirdness had taken ages to figure it out. Frankly, if I
was on the Watcher's Council, I'd spend all of my money keeping the Scooby
Gang under surveillance. If anything weird is going to happen in
Sunnydale, it's going to happen to, with, or around one of five people.

Even so, Willow felt surprised that they didn't notice anything. As much as
she felt anything, that is. Even her emotions were filtered through the
haze cutting her off from the rest of the world, coming through as pale
versions of themselves. Her terror for Giles' safety arrived as a vague
stirring of worry, and even the constant throb of Oz-missage was muted into
a shadowy ache of loss.

Perhaps that was why Willow wasn't as worried as she should be.

When she found out that Giles was not folded, spindled, mutilated or dead,
she almost felt like saying 'Yay.' But not quite.

Willow's usual travelling route to get from Giles’ house back to campus
involved many turns and twists, all aimed at keeping her in the light and
surrounded by people. It wasn't all that effective, considering that most
of the vampires in the area were idiots, and not all that averse to causing
a scene, but it was prudent.

Sort of like the way New Yorkers curl their hands around their key rings to
form makeshift brass knuckles. (I do this. I don't know why. I'm sure
that, if I'm ever mugged, my attacker isn't going to be scared off by me
hitting them on the nose with a plastic happy face key ring.)

Tonight she took the shortest possible path. It was also a path that
involved a lot of empty streets, cemeteries and dark alleys. (Here's a
hint: If you ever see a dark, ominous alley, walk straight in without fear.
If there's a fog machine, run like hell.) Willow walked slowly through all
of it. She should have been killed, she should have been vamped, she should
have been that week's winner on "Stupid Mortal Tricks". None of that
happened. Willow strolled down dark alleys and emerged unscathed from the
other end.

It wasn't for lack of demons.

Eyes gleamed from almost every shadow she passed, following the slender
figure as she walked by. That was all. They didn't attack her, they didn't
pester her, they didn't even attempt to give her informational brochures.

But they watched.

Demon eyes are sharper than mortal eyes... and they have the great advantage
of not being blinded by the cotton-wool we call reality. They saw the way
Willow's feet moved in a silent dance across the pavement, saw the way her
body swayed as she walked, and saw the smile that tilted those cherub's lips
into something far from angelic.

And they drew further back into the shadows, and hoped that she wouldn't see
them as she passed by.