The Soulmate Series

The Child of an Arsonist (Chapter Twenty-Six of Soulmates)


Is she burning? Willow still feels the heat from the flames, even though a part of her senses that she’s somewhere else and not tied to a stake anymore. It’s overwhelming, one more terrible betrayal after so many in such a short time.

Or maybe it’s two betrayals. Because Buffy’s voice is getting to her through the smoke that seems to have choked all her senses and she’s hearing her best friend crying and begging her forgiveness. Forgiveness...because Willow wound up nearly burned alive thanks to Buffy’s insistence on sharing the news of Willow’s performance of the soul restoration spell with her mom.

That spell. Will Willow ever stop paying for it? It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. All she was trying to do was save the world and give Buffy a chance with the love of her life. Why has that been deemed a crime somehow? Why does she have to suffer over and over and over again? Why has that spell somehow caused her friends and now even her parents to betray her? And why - why does it seem that the only person she can count on to save her from the death penalty the universe seems determined to invoke is Angel?

She doesn’t understand and she’s pretty sure she never will. But at least she’s coming back to herself now. She’s in Giles’ living room. How did she get here? Oh right: Oz. Oz, whose arm is around her and whose tears she can feel against her face. Oz: who she misses so much and who she still loves with all her heart. Oz: who isn’t hers anymore and who never will be again.

Buffy and Xander are right in front of her, sitting at her feet. Buffy is babbling and taking all the blame until suddenly she stops talking. She catches Oz glaring at her friend out of the corner of her eye and she wonders why. Right now, though, she really isn’t in any condition to try to unravel that particular mystery. It’s too taxing just to get her bearings and put together the events of the past few hours.

Her mother tried to burn her at the stake. To be fair, Buffy’s mother led the charge, but for Willow, what matters most is that, after everything she’s endured in the last few months, her own mother wanted her dead. She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again in terror. Behind her eyelids, all she could see was flames...searing, agonizing flames. They still call out, wanting to consume her, to burn the flesh from her bones and leave her as naught but ashes.

Again, what rescues her is Angel. Damn him to the Hell he should never have escaped. And damn her for finding a twisted comfort in his presence and for being grateful that he found her. But it’s true, she is comforted by his reassurance, the sense of safety she can feel from him, and yes, she is grateful that he was there to rescue her. She can still feel the knots loosening as his hands worked them. He braved fire and death for her and he has saved her life for the second time in as many weeks.

She still hates what he did to her, but what does she feel about Angel? She still hates him, too...right? Of course she does. But it’s all so complicated now, and that is one more thing that isn’t fair. She’s about science and computers and things that make sense; even when it comes to demons, she’s always been logic girl. How can her life have turned so completely into something she can’t begin to understand?

“It’s okay, Willow. I’m here.” Angel...no, Oz - Oz is talking to her.

“Oz?”

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s me.” He’s hugging her as if she’s been gone or something and it takes her a few seconds to understand. All this time, the only one who’s known that she’s not still completely in shock has been Angel, and he’s given nothing away, not so much as hinted that he has a special awareness of her. That’s a good thing, a very good thing. Because she will never stop feeling that there’s something very wrong with this bond. She is revolted that she shares something so profound with the man who raped her, something she can never have with the boy she loves.

At least, though, she can bear Oz’s touch. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Maybe. Or maybe it isn’t. Sitting here, feeling the warmth of his body, the tenderness of his arms around her - it all serves to remind her of what she’s lost forever.

Now the tears come and there’s nothing she can do to stop them. What is she crying about: Oz, Angel, losing trust in another friend, nearly being murdered by her own mother...or all of the above? She doesn’t know and it really doesn’t matter when all is said and done. They’re just tears and tears have no country.

Soon she hears the whistle of a kettle. Tea, Giles must be making her tea. It doesn’t cure everything, or even anything - at least not anything she needs cured - but it’s hot and distracting and that will prove palliative at least.

The others move away from her as Giles enters the room with her tea. Angel is following behind him. Is it a trick of the light or of her imagination that keeps him in the shadows?

“There, Willow. This should be just the thing.” Poor Giles, even he knows his words are ridiculous, but what else can he say? He seems, more than any of them, to understand the magnitude of what she’s been through.

“The demon...it’s dead, right?” Willow’s pretty sure it must be, but it never hurts to ask. Why she didn’t ask Buffy, she doesn’t know, but for some reason it never occurred to her to ask anyone but Giles.

“Yes. I cast a spell to return it to its true form and then Buffy dispatched it. Rather creatively, I must say.”

“Yeah, I kinda used the stake I was tied to. Cool how things like that can come in handy, huh?” Buffy’s bounced back quite well and is already seeing this as just another notch on her slaying belt, another wacky adventure. It’s easier for her. After all, she knows her mother would never hurt her if she wasn’t possessed. Willow has none of that comfort. Much as she would give anything not to be aware of this, she’s realized tonight that she’s not the least bit sure her parents wouldn’t be just as glad to see her dead, or at least gone...like Marcie Ross or even Amy. She’s a burden to them. Was her mother really under the influence of the demon when she put the torch to the tinder that surrounded her only child? Or did she just see a heaven sent opportunity to get rid of the millstone that has hung about her neck for sixteen years?

She has to distract herself from her thoughts. Angel’s awareness of her feelings has engendered a fresh wave of his oppressive and hatefully soothing concern. Luckily, buried within her reverie is the perfect solution.

“Guys? What happened to Amy?”

“She’s okay, Will. She’s in a box here somewhere. Giles scooped her up right before we left...you know. Anyway, all she’ll need is for you to make with the mojo and...”

Angel senses her panic and is about to say something. But Giles, bless him, senses it as well and gets there first. “Xander, I really don’t think Willow is in any condition to be performing powerful magicks. Transformation spells require strength and focus and are quite risky. I cannot believe you would ask that of her.”

There was a time when Willow would have found Giles’ words insulting. That time is not tonight. Tonight she is well past grateful that he’s so concerned about her and about keeping her safe. If the events of today have done anything, they have reinforced her conviction that magick is a bad, evil, horrible thing - something she will never, ever have anything to do with again. Her one significant foray into the arts, after all, has laid waste to her entire life. She looks back on the girl who once though casting spells and floating pencils would be “neat” and she would give anything to be able to talk her out of it, to make her see the truth.

Giles is not finished. He’s far more emotional than Willow expected him to be and it stuns her. “We all know what Willow’s been through in these past months. I am shocked that you expect this of her. She hasn’t done any magick at all, since...and for you to make such a cavalier request, without thinking for one moment about the actual gravity of...”

Xander, of course, immediately seizes on the most irrelevant part of Giles’ tirade and cuts him off. “Angel knows?” The vampire in question nods reluctantly. “So Buffy gets to tell Angel? What makes him special?” Too late he seems to realize what he said and tries to take it back. “Oh God, Will...I didn’t mean it like that...I’m sorry, I...”

That’s it. That’s the last thing she can take. She’s off the couch in a flash, face crimsoned with fury. “So what is this about? You wanna tell Cordelia? Fine! Go ahead! Tell Cordelia! Tell everyone! Take out an ad in the newspaper, stand on the street corner with a bullhorn, why don’t you? Let’s all just shout it at the top of our lungs, shall we? Extra, extra, read all about it! Willow Rosenberg was raped! Raped! Raped! Raped!”

As the last scream leaves her mouth, she runs for Giles’ bathroom, barely making it there in time. She should be used to this, but she isn’t. It’s still a horrible feeling, the uncontrollable vomiting, the way her body just keeps trying in the vain hope that it can somehow expel the filth and degradation inside her.

She is done sooner than usual, possibly because she hasn’t eaten today, though more likely it’s because of her awareness that she has an audience. Her friends (and Angel) seem to all have followed her and here they are, some in the bathroom with her, the rest standing just outside the door.

“Will, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Xander is the first to speak and his voice is choked with tears. ‘Good’ is the first thought Willow has and though she knows she should, she just can’t hate herself for it. He is the one who should hate himself, if there’s any justice to it all.

“As you should be, Xander.” Giles sounds more sad than angry and Willow looks over at him. He’s gazing at her like the father she would give anything for him to be and the tears well up in her eyes again.

Her mouth tastes of bile and despair and so she says the only thing she can think of: “Water? Please?”

Oz heads back in the direction of the kitchen. Willow’s touched that he’s thinking in terms of a clean glass and something better than tap water. He’s always been considerate like that.

Angel is furious - Willow can feel his rage whipping through him (and through her). She is actually worried for Xander now and hopes that he stays here tonight. He’s not safe on the street if Angel is about. Her emotions are becoming less turbulent now and she is starting to feel that perhaps she overreacted a bit to Xander’s typical knee-jerk, foot-in-mouth remark. She’d hate to see her old friend die simply because he’s careless with words.

She watches as Xander and Buffy part to let Oz through. He’s back with her water.

“Thank you.” She’s still sitting on the floor and Oz kneels down next to her.

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s just...it’s been kind of a rough day, you know?” She’s trying for a bit of Buffy-style breeziness. It doesn’t come off. No one is buying that she’s bouncing back.

“I’m really sorry, Will.” Xander again.

“It’s okay, Xan, really. I think I might have gone a bit overboard. It’s just...”

“No. You were absolutely right. I was a jerk and I can’t believe I even said that.”

She can see this descending into a protracted “it’s not you, it’s me” routine and she doesn’t have the energy. Uncharacteristically, she decides to let Xander have the last word and take the blame. Call it revenge for his lying to Buffy the night Willow restored Angel’s soul. Or just call it fatigue and a distraught mind. Whatever the reason, Willow just hopes the universe, for once, sees it her way. She can’t take being punished anymore.

“Are you gonna be okay going home tonight, Will. I mean, you can stay at my house if you want. I know my mom won’t mind.” Without meaning to, Buffy manages to make Willow’s wounds bleed just a little more. Reminding her of the certainty she has that her mother loves her, a certainty Willow has never had, will never have. The last person in the world that Willow wants to see tonight is Joyce Summers.

“It’s okay, Buffy. I kinda need to get back to my house. My mom’s probably worried about me.” Is there anyone in the room who believes that? Willow hopes not, even as she wishes they did (because maybe belief would make it true).

“I’ll drive you home.” Oz to the rescue again. She smiles at him and he tenderly brushes her hair back away from her face. She hates the fact that Angel can feel the love she has for Oz. It makes her feel dirty all over again, this intrusion on something private and profound.

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Oz smiles slightly at Willow as he gets up, then helps her do likewise. Everyone finally leaves the bathroom, walking to the living room with Willow.

Giles, much to her surprise, hugs her as she’s about to leave. “Call,” he says softly. “Call me if there’s anything you need. Promise me?”

Xander’s next, holding her so tightly she can scarcely breathe. “I’m sorry, Will.”

“It’s okay, Xan.” And it is. Maybe it wouldn’t be if it was anyone else, but yeah, Xander will always be forgiven. She’s known him for too long, she understands him too well.

“You sure you don’t want to come back to my house? Polish off some Ben and Jerry’s with me?” Buffy’s trying and it’s not that Willow doesn’t appreciate it...except that right now, no, she doesn’t. Ice cream and watching Buffy’s mother look at her daughter with soft eyes full of affection will do nothing but sharpen the edges of Willow’s anguish. She doesn’t have the strength to let Buffy pretend to help her. Not tonight. Maybe never. A part of her wishes she did. Buffy looks lost and helpless right now, her inability to do anything right hurting her more than tonight’s near-death did by a long way. But there’s nothing Willow can do.

“Thanks anyway, Buffy. But I really gotta go home.”

“Okay.” Buffy hugs her, even tighter than Xander did thanks to Slayer strength and an even greater feeling of impotence. Willow lets her.

“Be careful.” Angel’s words are a bit of a surprise, but then again, maybe not. Because Oz and Giles and Buffy seem to take them in stride. Xander looks annoyed, but that’s normal for him when it comes to Angel. Willow takes a last opportunity to register Angel’s feelings before distance weakens the bond, and everything seems okay. The feelings she loathes are still there, but there doesn’t seem to be anything immediately threatening. Good.

Willow and Oz walk out to the van and Oz opens the door for her. She gets in silently. Now that they’re alone, she has no idea what to say to him. She’s too overcome by all the events of the night crashing down on her all at once.

Oz drives, seeming more uncomfortable with the absence of conversation than might be expected. Willow knows him better than anyone, though, and she understands that one of the things he always liked about her was the way she filled up the quiet spaces. One more thing she can’t do; one more thing she wishes desperately that she could.

It’s not long before they’re in front of her house. She has to say something. “Thanks. For everything.”

“I love you.”

“Oz.” Her voice is pleading. As much as those words bring joy, they also bring pain and guilt and she can’t bear them right now.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know.” And with that she gets out of the van and trudges up the pathway to her house. Oz stays, the van idling, ‘til she reaches the front door, then, once she’s opened it and stepped inside, he slowly drives away,

The house is dark; her mother and father are already asleep. They went happily to bed without knowing whether Willow had made it safely out of the building, without knowing whether Willow was alive or dead. She doesn’t even bother to take off her shoes before throwing herself onto her bed and sobbing into her pillow, the good little girl in her even now afraid of waking her parents, of bothering them with her pain. After awhile, she falls asleep. The nightmares seem little worse than her waking day.


Tbc...