She was still shaking. Head to foot, even her fingers and toes. Her breath is still a bad song sung off-key. She’s soaked with sweat like someone with yellow fever or tuberculosis or one of those other long diseases that kill the girl in the middle of stories. It’s like that. She’s got this disease that nobody can make better, and every second she’s just a little closer to gone. If it’s a story form a nice author she gets to recover at the last minute, the person she belongs to swoops in to kiss her and say that everything is okay even though they don’t think it will, and just like that her fever’s broken. She’s got some stupid blush or whatever it is they used to know if you were better back in olden days. If it’s a story from a mean author then she’s gone. Maybe people care and maybe they don’t. Maybe the person she belongs to finds out, and maybe they don’t. Maybe they just—no. She has to stop now. Stop. Stop it. Stop. Breathe. Remember to breathe.
Except like a normal person. Normal person breathing. There’s not a Giles to hold her upright until the world stops getting fuzzy. There’s not a Xander to hug her. There’s not a—
Buffy.
There was still a Buffy. Willow’s torso almost crashed to the ground fishing out her phone and her eyes and fingers kept going funny as she tried to get the letters out. One at a time. First this one, then the next one. One at a time. Baby steps. It was simple. It was the only complete sentence she could think of. Even come back felt wrong. There was a week. One week. Sunday. 10 pm. Hanuakah will have already started. Could she mail her a latke on Saturday? Would that be bad? Would she even have a mailbox where she was? Maybe she’ll give her the necklace instead. Hang it up somewhere with a little note or have some kind of gadget where Faith’s the only one who can take it. She’ll be the only one. She is. Only. It didn’t start out that way. Who the hell starts out that way anyways? But she is now. This is the end of the cliff and it’s either back down it or over the edge of it. But which one was it? Which story was she in?
Willow leaned back, feeling dizzy. The moon was out. It made the trees all shiny and sad looking. Or maybe that was just her. She remembered reading an article about this somewhere. It was okay, one of those ‘fun’ experiments that proved what everyone else already knows. Maybe it was just her. Was she already slipping? Had she failed that test yet? Or maybe she was falling into a trance, turning into stone, going to sleep for a hundred years. Maybe it was like that. She rolled her eyes back and sighed, unsurprised when she felt the veins on her head and hands twisting and pulsing. She wasn’t going under. Even the thing inside her was too sad to gobble her up. And she had the ring. One ring. Only. Always. But she wasn’t okay. At least if Buffy didn’t make it in time, she’d know she still belonged to someone.
Those texts. They were disturbing and familiar. Were they familiarly disturbing or disturbingly familiar. Both, they were both. And it was wrong. It was all wrong. Willow was falling apart at the seams. Faith made her better, made her strong. Buffy remembered her telling her that. But then they were breaking up, and Willow was in ruins from what Buffy could tell. Her text messages hardly made sense. She needed to be there, be there before something really bad happened. She couldn’t lose Willow. She was her best friend, and despite whatever the magic portal people said, she was good. She was too good to be able to fall so far from something so small. Buffy had to help her, it was the only thing she could do. She had to be there, to see her. To tell her in person that even though her world was ending, it would all be okay. She didn’t know if it was true, but she had to say it. She had to try.
She hopped in her car and hoped to all that was holy Willow wouldn’t do something permanent in the time it took her to drive there. She drove way above the speed limit the whole way there. She’d been afraid for a moment, when Spike said Faith was taking shelter at his house, that Willow had gone all black eyed and veiny. But she could tell now that she hadn’t. Willow wasn’t like this when she gave over to the magic within. She was vengeful, strong, and incredibly mean. All Buffy could see that Willow was right now was weak. So so weak. Buffy had to be strong, had to snuff back the tears that were blurring her vision as she drove. She had to be strong for Willow. She had to be a strong swimmer if she wanted to hold Willow’s head above water. She drove faster.
When she got to their house Willow was on the porch. She didn’t look hurt, but Buffy got out of the car and ran as fast as she could anyways. She made it to the porch in two seconds max. Willow was there, barely there. She sat down next to her crumpled form. She wanted to attack her with a hug so hard that she’d have to know she was safe, maybe not from her internal organs being crushed, but she was safe. Safe from going over the edge. Safe from all of it. But instead she took Willow’s slumped over form and guided her head toward her lap, it didn’t take much force. She fell at the slightest urging and Buffy felt tears begin to form again in her eyes. She was so broken, broken in a way Buffy wasn’t sure she knew how to fix. She swallowed and spoke, taking extra effort to make sure the fact that she was crying wouldn’t be heard in her voice. Her stomach was turning but she ignored it. “I’m here now, Will. It’s gonna be okay I promise. I’m here.” She stroked Willow’s red hair hoping it would somehow massage life or color back into her friend’s shallowly breathing body.
This Is A Test 