Title: Tale of A Badly Drawn Willow Vamp
Author: psimetis
E-mail: psimetis@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Season 4
Rating: R, Mature Audiences
Pairing: a vampire Willow/Tara
Characters: a vampire Willow (not canon Vamp Willow), Tara, Buffy, Spike, Giles, Xander, Anya, Riley Finn, the Initiative, Maggie Walsh
Disclaimer: All characters of BtVS and its universe are all rights and owned by Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon. This is a fan to fan appreciative effort made for absolutely no profit.

Summary: Alt Season 4: Spike was not chipped when he bit Willow in the dorm room. This is a series of vignettes of a badly drawn Willow-pire. Profanity, Violence, Character Deaths, A very strange Romance

Warnings: Language. Violence. Willow-Death. Spike-Dust. Pothead Vamps. Eye goo. Willow-Stalker.

Author’s Note: I like writing variations on a Wishverse Vamp Willow very much, but this time the idea of writing a failed, non-canon Willow-vamp really appealed to me. Not a satire or spoof, that would be too easy. Done as a series of vignettes to kick it out faster. Probably makes it a so-so read, too. ;) Enjoy! (fin.: 09.30.05)


Tale Of a Badly Drawn Willow Vamp

‘My Death Was Not Pretty’

She was a freshman. She had just lost her boyfriend. She was in her dorm room crying when Spike got in.

He ripped her throat. He forced his blood into her mouth. He would have raped her too, if there had been enough time. It wasn’t pretty.

The lights went out, there was confusion, smoke, gun sounds. Spike was suddenly replaced with Buffy. Willow’s life seeped into the bed covers like spilt coffee.

Sorry...she wanted to say. Buffy’s embrace had no anchor. Willow was a willow-wisp now. Sorry I made a mess.


‘I’m Dead, Give Me A Break’

Buffy found Spike hiding from the mystery paramilitary men. Her new jacket was soaked with Willow. Rage made her impotent fists beat the vampire down and down and down until she decided to finally dust him.

She dragged Spike to Willie’s so that every demon could see; his execution wasn’t pretty.

Back at Buffy’s dorm room the mystery paramilitary men known as the Initiative came and stole Willow’s peacefully dead body.

“Enter this one as Hostile 17 and a Half,” Maggie Walsh joked to her soldiers when they brought the little girl’s body into the secret complex. That night, she observed Hostile 17’s ‘progeny’ rise from the dead. She signed off on the paperwork that would put a behavior-modifier in the newly made vampire’s head.

Willow woke up in a lab cell with Maggie Walsh staring at her through glass, and decided that Jewish Hell meant one had to spend it with one’s Psych 101 teacher, because to her, that situation surely wasn’t heaven.


‘Hey! It’s The New Me!’

Willow wanted blood blood blood blood blood.

She found she could make a vamp-face. She accidentally bit her own finger. She nearly fed off her own self when she realized that would be like cannibalizing, which was very, very gross. She determined that she was in a concentration camp. She found out that the soldiers could make a smarty-mouthed vampire hurt--a lot. She knew the blood packets were tainted. She did complex mathematics and outlined escape routes in her head so that she wouldn’t succumb to being a vampire beast. She’d seen what that was like when she was alive, so no no, not that for her. At least not right then. Especially when she needed to kill Maggie Walsh.

Scientific curiosity (and maybe Walsh’s inner dyke pervert) finally got the ol’ professor to slip up. Punching Maggie Walsh at the first opportunity made Willow’s head explode, and she didn’t know why. That unexpected variable nearly put a crimp in her escape plan, but thankfully she was a slim girl, able to slip into spaces the soldiers couldn’t reach. They tried to flush her out of the secret complex’s air vents. The alarms klaxoned. Willow made a desperate scramble to the surface like a little gopher and then was gone.


‘Hostile 17 And A Half’

The first thing that Willow the escapee needed to do once she was on the streets of Sunnydale, was to find Giles and eat him.

Why she wanted to do that, she wasn’t sure. Willow would suspect later that it had to do with a vampire’s psychological instinct to kill their father figures. Maggie Walsh would probably have a thing or two to say about that but Willow had broken her jaw, so she couldn’t, so ha ha.

Unfortunately, trying to bite the Watcher nearly imploded the young woman’s head again. While Willow cried from the pain, the Watcher easily overpowered her, wrapped her in chains, and dropped her like a child into his bathtub. It was very humiliating.

“Xander,” Willow wept when her very yummy, yet upset, former childhood friend came into the bathroom to see her. She made her lower lip tremble and her big, green eyes dew up with tears. No joy, Xander still pulled a stake on her when he came within biting distance. Willow was very disappointed in herself. Xander didn’t even drool at the sight of her in bondage. Shouldn’t she have some of that notorious vamp sex appeal? Her twin from that Wishverse had it in spades. Maybe it had been the leather outfit.

Anya was too smart to fall for any sweet talk. Xander’s icky girlfriend threatened to gag her. The former demon reluctantly fed her cow’s blood with a straw and outright told Willow that as a vampire, she plain sucked.

Willow moped in the Watcher’s bathtub while the Scoobies watched TV, waiting for the Slayer to come. She stared at her blood splattered, smily faced, yellow sneakers--splattered with her own blood. Her first night out as a free vampire and she hadn’t murdered anyone, much less hurt anything, yet.

And punching Maggie Walsh didn’t count. Even a wimpy, human Willow could have taken that old broad on.


‘I’m a Fiend!! Hear Me Roar!’

Buffy stared at Willow with a poker face as solid as a shut door.

“Hi Buff. Think I look better since the last time you saw me?” Willow sneered.

The Slayer said nothing.

“I missed you,” Willow whispered with wide eyed solemnity.

The Slayer didn’t move.

“While you were out...not doing your job, I got to kill lots of stuff,” Willow shared conspiratorially. “Mommies, and grannies, and little children, and babies. Well...at least one baby. A nice fat one. You know, in the park? It was in a stroller being pushed by two mommies. And oh! Puppies! I killed a basket full of puppies too.”

A slow, strange grin broke on the Slayer’s face. Willow shifted nervously in the bath, the chains clinking. Maybe the puppies had been a bit much.

“You....goof,” Buffy practically sobbed, and then enveloped Willow in a bone crushing hug.

Willow realized that all the Slayer intended to do was hug her. Hard. Like they were still friends. And never let go.

Willow screamed in horror.


‘Da Nile Ain’t a River’

The Scoobies performed a spell on her, to determine what was going on with the head implosions. The spell revealed that the secret soldiers had put a microchip in their former friend’s head.

Willow sat in chains on the Watcher’s couch. She gingerly held a ‘Kiss The Librarian’ mug full of blood from the butcher’s. Anya had over-nuked it, it looked curdled.

“Well, we’ve already found out that I can’t hurt anything,” Willow concluded, sarcasm brimming just like her curdled blood. “So how about one of you falling on a fork so I can eat you?”

Slayer and Watcher ignored her and continued with a secret conversation. Xander stared, silent as stone. His bank account of funny quips seemed to have run out.

“Or you can slit your wrists and I’ll lick that up,” Willow suggested. “If I don’t hurt you first, that doesn’t count, right?”

The Slayer bounced on to the couch next to Willow, making the chained up vampire spill blood--and not ‘spill blood’ in the cool ‘I gave you a really bad hurtie’ kind of way but in the stupid ‘my coffee cup went oopsie’ kind of way.

“We’re keeping you,” Buffy declared with perky cheerfulness.

“You dusted my Maker!” Willow snarled incredulously.

“And I’d dust him again,” Buffy agreed. “And you too, never doubt that. But you can help us, for now. You need blood, we can give it to you. In return, you work for us.”

Xander looked at Willow, then Buffy. Then Buffy, then Willow. He wanted to scream. This was like Angel all over again. Except sicker.


‘Recommended Daily Dose of Violence’

“Why did you bring me out here?” Willow demanded, reluctantly following the Slayer on one of her stupid patrols through a Sunnydale cemetery. “Don’t tell me you’re reminiscing about our ‘good ol’ times’.”

“You’re driving Giles nutty. I have to get you out of his hair. What’s left of it.”

“I am hiding from the you know who’s, you know.”

“Yeah. Still don’t know who those soldiers are. Maybe they’ll come out for you and I can ask ‘em questions.”

“You’re just stupid bored, aren’t you.”

They came upon a group of vampires having a bong party.

“Well if it isn’t the Grateful Dead,” Buffy quipped. “You guys have taken your last toke.”

Willow tried to run away while not-so-mellow vamps set upon the Slayer.

“You dumb pothead!! I’m a vampire too, stop chasing me!” Willow protested as she scrambled among the tombstones. The pothead vamp in question grabbed her ankle, took her down, and proceeded to throw her ragdoll self against a very hard crypt wall.

“You’re the Slayer’s pet bitch,” the vampire sneered, effortlessly picking Willow up by the throat and pinning her to the wall. “Everyone knows about you. We’re gonna have some fun and then show you what we think of traitors.”

Willow had enough. Microchip be damned, she saw eyeballs and stuck her thumbs into them.

There was screaming and flailing and a lot of Willow having to avoid the blinded vampire. Willow had only a moment to stare at the eye goo on her thumbs and bask in a revelation.

Then more vamps jumped her.

“Fucking Slayer’s whore!” one shouted, connecting with Willow’s face. More fists would have found her if she hadn’t dodged among the tombstones. Fighting was something she hadn’t learned yet and Willow cursed her inexperience.

“Oh fine, call me the whore!” Willow shouted back. “But see how you like it when she’s got you under her--under her Slayer’s thrall! That’s right, Slayer’s thrall! She and her Watcher, working on insidious mojo to enslave vampires! Why do you think she’s out here right now? She’s here to make bitches out of all of you!!”

The vamps ceased the Willow-chase. They stared at each other uncertainly.

“You don’t believe me?! Well look at me! I am so ready for the dust bin! She’s insatiable! Which one of you is going to be her next slut? Huh? She’s here for more than one! She’ll take you all again and again and again!! And you’ll think you’ll like it until you’re doing each other in a big slave orgy and then she gets all the Watchers to come watch, and they’re WATCHING YOU!!”

Willow screamed, pointing. “And here she comes!! She’s coming to GET YOU!!!”

Reefer madness had addled their susceptible dead brains. The vamps ran faster than Willow could blink. The Slayer stood by the crypt, arms thoughtfully folded with Mr. Pointy in hand.

“Just so you can stop ruining my reputation,” Buffy concluded slowly. “I’m going to teach you how to fight.”


‘Hide & Seek’

Willow could kill stuff now, yippee-doo.

Her kills could only be other demons. This cemented her reputation as an outcast and Slayer’s bitch. Willow had risen in a lab with a Dr. Frankenstein wanna-be to watch over her. The Slayer was presently her only mentor. Willow realized that she would never get to know others like her.

She didn’t like the humans, and the humans definitely despised her. If Xander had ignored her before, he devalued her presence even more now. But that had been the same when she was alive, so what was new?

Willow wanted to go back to campus and get away from the watchful eye of the Watcher. But those soldiers roamed the school at night, and the Slayer had no new intel on them and their movements. Willow recalled what little she’d observed of their weapons and devices and drew her own conclusions.

She found a spell in the Watcher’s locked up books which gave her dead body a kind of ‘heat’ signature.

For the first time since her death, Willow went back to UC Sunnydale. The spell took lots of concentration--she couldn’t maintain it and a glamour for her appearance. In case there were soldiers who could recognize her, Willow played hide and seek in the dark. She was still just an animal, but she was free.


‘My Will Be Done, Suckas’

Magic made good revenge. At least Willow thought it would. Certainly the chip wouldn’t fire for indirect acts of mayhem and destruction, would it? She decided to chance it.

First, destroy the Scoobies. Then, get Maggie and the soldier boys.

Willow performed the spell for ‘My Will Be Done’ and ended up snogging Buffy with ecstatic plans for matching wedding dresses and a civil ceremony--in Massachusetts.

When it was all over, Willow wanted to kill herself.


‘Then I Met You’

The corridor was busy with students going to their classes, but Willow knew who she wanted. She slipped a note into the shy girl’s sweater pocket.

She had the pleasure of hiding in the hallway and watching the girl’s expression when she found it.

Meet me. Stevenson’s Hall, room 217. Willow

They’d just had a Wicca group meeting. Willow thought she could learn more magic this way now that she was banned from the Watcher’s books, but the meeting was a total dud. She had no idea who this girl was, but they’d made eye contact and for the first time Willow saw an opportunity.

She hadn’t tried the seduction method before. Duh, isn’t that what vampires usually do? Besides murder? She didn’t mind getting to know this girl a little better. And then maybe later? Later after ‘later’ and mmm, ‘later’...

The sun on campus made stalking difficult but Willow was very good at sticking to shadows. She watched the shy, soft girl go to three different classes and then watched which dorm building she entered. Willow practiced lines. She wished she could see how she did in a mirror, but her geeky speeches would have to do. She still looked as well as sounded innocent, right? Right.

And then that night--

They all lost their voices.


‘Killing You Was The First Thing On My Mind’

Willow had a problem with knowledge; she liked it, she liked knowing stuff, she liked studying, she liked books.

She tried to run away from the Scoobies and their whole ‘let’s solve this stupid no voices’ crisis, but then Giles picked up a stack of books and looked at her pointedly.

Willow took the books back to campus. None of them were magic books, but maybe if she found out who or what was stealing their voices, those responsible might have magic books and she could steal theirs.

The latest crisis nearly made her forget about her ‘date’. Realizing the sun had set, she eagerly tidied up the dorm room she still shared with the Slayer. She kicked Buffy’s weapons under the bed. She checked the waste basket and the bathroom to see if she’d left any empty blood packets lying around.

She couldn’t practice lines so she practiced looking sweet and making cute pantomime instead.

The night was silent, even to a vampire’s ears. The lost of voices made the humans stay indoors rather than travel. When she heard the abrupt, frantic knocking on doors, the sound was like a thunder storm to Willow’s enhanced hearing. She left her room to see what the racket was all about.

Luck would have it that someone would collide with her. Willow’s ankle went OWIE, the girl she’d invited was on the floor with her, and in the dorm hall were the UGLIEST creatures Willow had ever seen--

--Tonight, anyway. It was time to run away!

They ended up in the laundry room, one step ahead of the creatures. Willow tried blocking the door with the soda machine. She couldn’t do it on one leg. She tried magic.

Willow knew she wasn’t strong, which seemed to be the shitty story of her very sucky second life. The machine shuddered, and that was about it. When the girl next to her offered her hand, Willow almost didn’t understand. She was surprised to realize that the girl too, had real power. She was also surprised that anyone would still want to touch--

Oh that’s right, the girl didn’t know. Willow locked hands with hers.

And the soda machine slammed into the door--perfectly.

It was a rush like Willow had never known. When she turned to the girl, she saw stark fear blossom and take alarmed hold of those blue eyes.

Willow had made a vamp face. Oh well. So much for the harmless geek act. She lunged for the girl’s throat. Her behavior modifier fired and Willow screamed, making no sound.

When she could see clearly, she attacked the girl again. Then again. The girl no longer bothered to keep out of the way--she was as soft inside as she was outside. She held Willow, collapsed as she was on the floor, even as the vampire tried to bite her neck one more time.

Food, food, sex, girl, flesh, food, whatever, Willow just wanted her. She wanted the bite, she wanted a bite, she just wanted a suck, a something, some gratification. Her head felt full of fluid; Willow realized she was bleeding from her ears. Instinct was making her kill herself--with effective, vengeful agony. But what a way to go, right? Just like before, with someone holding her in desperate, protective arms again.

Willow couldn’t muster another scream when the girl sliced her bared arm on her fanged mouth.

Life giver, Willow thought, sucking precious sustenance. Once upon a time a very vicious vampire forced blood into her throat and cursed her with new life. Here was someone now who also wouldn’t let her die. Again.

Willow stared up into pained, blue eyes. Eyes concerned, it seemed, for her currently very fragile well-being.

I’m not some little hurt birdy, Willow wanted to say. I’m not some lost kitty cat. Stop looking at me like that.

Nestled and nurtured as she was in foolishly trusting, comforting arms, Willow also couldn’t help but notice that, helpless as she was, this was very...

Very nice.


‘You Bring Out the Stalker in Me’

“Need help?” she heard the vampire say suddenly to her. Tara almost dropped her shopping basket. The red haired vampire was just there--when before, she wasn’t--and it nearly gave the young woman a heart attack.

The vampire stood before her looking nothing but benign and friendly...especially in the cute clothes. Tara spotted a scrubbed out stain on the sweater collar that might not be ketchup.

“I...” Tara said very slowly. Somehow she’d gained a demon for an admirer.

When last night had finally ended, their voices had returned. The red haired girl managed to help remove the soda machine but otherwise seemed too weak to continue. Besides the strangely self-inflicted injuries, Tara had also thought, perhaps it was the dawn, perhaps the vampire needed sleep. She found herself helping the vampire up the flights of stairs to Rm 217. Tara had noticed the other bed (unslept in), and realized there was a roommate. Could there be two vampires? She had removed the other girl’s sneakers, tucked her in, and then fled.

“I...” Tara said again. “Wait. It’s day. How can you be out?” she blurted.

The vampire pointed out the store’s window. “It’s overcast, see? I have an umbrella. It kind of hurts, but not so much, so I have to be quick, and very sneaky.”

The vampire held out her hands. “You can get more stuff. I can help carry. You shouldn’t have to pick over your groceries. I noticed you put the detergent box back. I can help carry that.”

“But. That’s because,” Tara started to say, and then abruptly stopped. There was only so much money in her pocket.

“Then let me help buy. I got money. For real, see?” the vampire explained, fishing in her pocket for some folded cash. “At least as a thank you. Thank you? For last night, you know? For the, uh, blood donation, and everything?”

Tara wanted to be firm. She didn’t want to encourage more of those ‘donations’. She was about to say ‘no’ but it was very hard to do, especially when faced with big, green, pleading, puppy eyes.

The vampire walked her all the way to her dorm door, chatting about practically everything. Tara realized that the red haired female was very talkative, and seemed reasonably recovered from what had happened last night. But unfortunately the young woman couldn’t listen very well to the chatter, her mind preoccupied on how to handle this situation. Tara finally removed the groceries from the vampire’s arms and handed back the umbrella with a polite thank you. She took a deep breath.

“L-Look,” she began. “I’m n-not really--”

“I think we got off on a bad start,” the vampire interrupted. “I didn’t mean to attack you. You just smelled really good and all I could think was, ‘Yummy!’, and next thing you know, bitey-bitey grr grr! But I can’t hurt you!” the female added, pointing to her head. “I’ve been fixed. I’m totally harmless. So,” she continued almost shyly, twisting her fingers. “Wanna go out?”

“Um,” Tara hedged. “.....No. But thanks for walking me home.”

And she quickly shut the door.

“Ok!” she heard cheerfully spoken through her door.

That night, Tara darkened her room so she could gaze out her window. She noticed the red haired vampire standing outside, watching her. The vampire waved. Tara shut her curtains.


‘Motives’

“I bet you think I just want your blood,” Tara heard whispered across the library table. Tara jumped in her seat and dropped her book. “And yes, I like your blood too, but mostly I like you.”

Tara looked around the very quiet--and empty--campus library, not wanting to focus on the earnest, pale face before her.

“And well...you were coming to see me that night, right? Wasn’t that why you were in my building?” the vampire asked in a whisper.

Tara looked down. “You...you were unlike the other girls,” she admitted softly.

The vampire did a little dance in her seat.

“Won’t you go out with me?” the vampire pleaded. “I promise to be good. I want you to have a good time. And I’m totally harmless, you’ve seen it.”

“What happened to you?” Tara blurted. “Why can’t you bite?”

The vampire shifted nervously before her. When she finally explained it all--in her roundabout, run-on, several subjects at once, fashion, Tara could only stare at the vampire a little dumbly.

“I know it sounds really, really weird.” The vampire admitted. “But seriously,” she added in hushed solemnity. “Maggie Walsh.”

“My god,” was all Tara could whisper back.

Tara had to believe her. It just sounded too...weird. And she couldn’t help that yes, she was attracted to Willow--this very appealing, but dangerous vampire. Tara had wanted, more than anyone she’d been attracted to before, to get to know the girl she’d seen at the meeting. But that was before, um, the repeated biting thing.

“We can talk about magic,” Willow suggested eagerly.

Tara moved back. “Why are you so interested in magic?” she asked warily.

“I...I dunno. It helps protect me. Because humans can beat me up, you know, I can’t do anything,” Willow confessed haltingly. “And...and I was learning it already before. Before the whole dying thing.”

Tara was silent. She now understood that Willow had not been dead long.

“So,” Willow then asked hopefully. “A movie maybe? Or just coffee? With kisses?” The vampire immediately clapped a hand over her mouth.

Tara could not help a smile. She looked at Willow in all the vampire’s acute embarrassment and thought, against her better judgment, well......

well......


‘Scooby Interruptus’

“Where are you going?” Buffy asked, staring at the huge mess Willow had made of their dorm room. Clothes--including Buffy’s--were everywhere. Fetchingly attired in red with dark pants and Buffy’s newest black jacket, Willow tried passing the small blonde blocking the doorway.

“None of your business,” Willow answered. “And shouldn’t you be out there, somewhere? Fighting baddies? You should go do that.”

Buffy merely pushed Willow back into the room.

“We got a meeting,” she stated.

“Didn’t hear you. Leaving now,” Willow answered, once more pushing past the Slayer. Buffy merely pushed her back again. Willow fell on the bed. Buffy grabbed the mini cooler bag the vampire was carrying and pulled out fresh blood packets.

“What are doing?!” Willow yelled. She’d intended to eat her fill before seeing Tara. “Those are mine!!”

“Didn’t Buffy say, no human blood?” The Slayer wiggled the bags around in emphasis. “And yeah, you made your point by leaving the empties lying around where I can see them.” She tossed all but one out the window.

Willow screamed in rage and attacked the Slayer. She ended up on the floor curled up and clutching her head.

“Will.” The Slayer knelt over the vampire. “I need you at the meeting. You go, you can get this. Num, num, Scooby snack.”

“Fuck you. I’m not your puppy,” Willow snarled. She stumbled to her feet and snatched the blood packet. She tossed it out the window.

Buffy looked at her in bemusement. “We got something new on the Initiative,” she finally volunteered.

Willow stared, excitement, anger, and fear roiling within her. If the Scoobies knew more, then Willow would know more, and knowing more meant several steps closer to getting the behavior chip out.

Buffy stood at the doorway. “I knew you’d come around,” she simply said.


‘Farm Boy Interruptus’

Willow sat on the Watcher’s couch and thought about Tara. There was a knock on the door.

“That’s him,” Buffy stated, and opened the door. It was Riley Finn.

“Hostile 17 and a Half!” he exclaimed.

Willow took hold of the couch and hurled it as hard as she could against the wall. The bookcase next to the wall rocked and immediately fell on Riley. Willow screamed and clutched her head.

“Interesting use of secondary action,” Giles observed. Buffy helped Riley lift, then push the bookcase back onto the wall again.

“Secondary action with intent to harm also activates the behavior modifier,” Riley puffed, leaning over from his exertion. “So...not only are you this ‘Slayer’, but you keep hostiles alive too?”

“You,” Buffy said quietly. “You knew my best friend was dead.”

Riley looked at Buffy, unable to say anything. Xander and Anya held each other, uncharacteristically silent. Buffy suddenly shoved the bigger man.

“Did you help steal her body out of my room too?!” she yelled.

Willow sat on the floor and wondered if she’ll get to learn anything more about her chip, tonight. She’d told Buffy it was Maggie Walsh who ran the Initiative, so why didn’t she believe that Walsh’s T.A., Riley Finn, was involved as well? Willow had never seen him in the underground complex, but she easily suspected.

Yet another boyfriend to betray Buffy, Willow mentally dismissed. She wanted out of this drama.

Willow quietly slipped out of the meeting and ran eagerly back to Sunnydale campus. She’d called Tara earlier, to cancel their date, but perhaps there was still time left to make it up to her. Maybe she should stop and pick something up? Flowers? A few blood packets for herself? She hadn’t wanted to come on too strong before, but apologies were a good excuse for flowers. And she did need to eat. Willow didn’t notice the soldier boys until they ambushed her.

They didn’t use the darts, they went in with tazers. Willow knew it was just their way to send a painful message to their prey. Her fake heat signature was still in effect--this time her luck had just run out. They must have recognized her.

“Hostile 17 and a Half,” spoke a muffled soldier’s voice. “Bag it.”

Willow had contained a spell in a piece of paper, hidden in her sleeve. Before they could cuff her she pulled it out and tore it in half.

“I r-release,” she managed to sputter. Mists of confusion manifested, thickening around the soldiers’s heads. Willow forced herself to crawl away while the men shouted and collided into each other.

Willow wanted to puke. Getting electrocuted a few times did that to her. But her stomach was empty, so nothing came up. Willow staggered through campus for the only real refuge she had ever known.


‘For Real’

Tara opened her door.

“Oh my god, what happened to you?!” she exclaimed and tried to pull a beat up Willow into her room. Instead Willow encountered the ‘uninvited’ barrier with a resounding thud.

Tara stepped back, a surprised, almost fearful look on her face. Willow realized that the invisible barrier had reinforced her monster vampire status to the other girl again.

“Oh, I just walked into a bunch of Initiatives,” Willow said cheerily, as Tara approached her cautiously.

“What did you do?” Tara asked, and Willow was surprised to see her reach out and trace the air around the vampire. It was like she was seeing something that wasn’t there.

“I did a confusion mist spell,” Willow gave eagerly. “It was very subtle, my chip didn’t fire at all! So I ran away, but I need to hide. Can I hide here?”

Tara ceased looking at the air around Willow and gazed at her directly. She looked very much like she was going to say no.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry about pushing. I just can’t go back to my room. Not now.” Willow made her puppy eyes. Tara was wearing stay-at-home clothes, but her face was made up. She was scented attractively too. Willow bet that the clothes the other girl had meant to wear for tonight were now hung up. “And I’m sorry about the canceling. It was stupid. Something came up, and I shouldn’t have gone. I want to make it up to you.”

“Will,” Tara said, and Willow’s dead heart practically swelled. Tara had never called her ‘Will’ before! “I can see your aura. I w-wanted to ask you about it, tonight, b-but....you’re stealing someone’s life energy, aren’t you,” the young woman ended miserably.

Willow’s jaw drop. Not so much at the revelation but that Tara should look so upset.

“No, no, I’m--” Bump! Willow hit the barrier. “No, it’s not like that!”

“Will. Don’t lie. Please.”

“My fake aura? It’s--it’s a photocopy! I re-wrote the spell myself, I can show it to you! The Initiative uses some tracking device that can pinpoint the moving undead, so I thought, okay, I need to look human! To their tracking stuff! So I copied the strongest, human heat signature I could find. It’s the Slayer’s, that’s why it looks almost real!”

“The Slayer?” Tara asked uncertainly.

“Yes! And no way could I directly steal that--I’d be tied to her forever, it would be horrible!! But it’s a pretty good copy, you think? To fool you? ‘Cept,” Willow hastily corrected. “I--I don’t want to go out of my way to fool you, like ‘ha ha, meanie me, look how I’m pulling the wool over Tara’s eyes’, sort of thing--”

“It’s,” Tara interrupted, a look of relief finally allowing a smile to her face. “It’s good. R-really good. I have a hard time seeing you for real.”

Willow fell silent, and stared at Tara. She pulled a ring from her hand, and held it out.

“Here,” the vampire said. “The spell is woven into the ring.” Tara accepted the ring through the barrier. She looked at Willow questioningly. “Now you can look at me.” Willow smiled. “Look at me for real.”

The lights in the dorm building suddenly went out. The fire alarm rang.

“Fuck!!” Willow yelled. Quickly, she spoke words. Her chip fired from using magic to shove Tara back into her room, but Willow didn’t care. Need and adrenaline helped her recover enough to shut Tara’s door with another command spell. Willow fled desperately down the hall.

When Tara could finally unlock her door, she nearly ran into a man dressed like a soldier.

“Ma’am, please remain in your room,” the soldier ordered, firmly placing Tara within, even as she weakly protested. “There’s nothing to see here.”

And her door was shut to her face again.


‘Willow: Deconstructed’

Ho hum, deja vu, strapped to a gurney again, thought Willow.

The vampire was back in the secret underground facility. If she’d known she was going to visit, she’d have rigged bombs inside her shoes.

Maggie Walsh came into her view, smiling despite the wired shut jaw.

“Nice dental work, Maggie,” Willow complimented. “What’s that you’re doing? Showing me a monitor? You’re going to type me stuff? Why don’t we just do one blink for yes, two blinks for no.”

You are quite a study in stupidity, Maggie Walsh typed.

“I learned from the very best,” Willow replied sarcastically.

We’ve been watching you, Maggie typed.

“Will you just stop it with the flirting and just go to the evil ha ha punchline already!” Willow yelled.

Of the vampires we’ve captured, you are unique because we raised you, Maggie Walsh typed. We weakened you with pre-treated plasma. We effectively inhibited your natural need to kill with a brain modifier. In observing your behavior once you returned to UC Sunnydale, you appeared to embrace your previous existence out of a necessity to survive.

“Yawn!! Bored now!” Willow announced.

Dr. Walsh regarded her thoughtfully. She continued typing.

You’ve adapted by seeking an advantageous relationship with a possible blood donor, Tara Maclay.

Willow immediately fought against her bonds, causing the gurney to jump and thump. Over and over. Maggie Walsh waved off the soldiers who responded to the disturbance.

You display emotions like affection, but I don’t believe you truly feel such emotion. If we had not given you a modifier you would have killed Tara Maclay in a heartbeat.

In a heartbeat, echoed in Willow’s head as she ceased struggling. She stared at Maggie Walsh. Spike’s voice reverberated in her head: In a heartbeat.

You’d kill her even now. I am not inclined to wait and observe the ingenious way you may find to kill her later. As a vampire, we intended for you to fail. As a human pretender, I intend that you do not succeed.

Maggie Walsh pressed a button. Willow heard someone enter.

“Ma’am,” a voice addressed. It was Riley Finn.

Dr. Walsh merely wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to Riley.

“Yes ma’am,” Riley responded. He motioned for two soldiers to take hold of Willow’s gurney.

“YOU FUCKIN’ BI--” Willow screamed. She vamped out. Duct tape applied right over her fanged mouth by Finn effectively shut her up.

Farm Boy made no eye contact with the vampire, and Maggie Walsh returned to her computer monitor. She did not bother to type good bye.


‘What’s Left Of A Life’

Willow ran with all the other demons. It was bedlam.

Buffy had attacked the complex--whether to rescue her (Willow doubted it), or have a Slayer showdown with the Initiative, Willow didn’t care. Nor did she care if Riley had really intended to set her free. She just wished she hadn’t gotten herself shot, because it had made it harder to remain in the complex and do what she had to do.

She had needed to wipe away the data on Tara Maclay. Old girl Maggie shot her before she could do anything. Willow had thrown a chair at prof Walsh in retaliation. Her chip had fired. Willow saw zillions of data flash on the terminal screens, none of which had been about Tara. The information about her chip then came to the fore. She also spotted Maggie Walsh rising again behind her.

“Ever...the beast,” Walsh had pronounced through her wired shut teeth. She fired at Willow again. This time she nearly nailed Willow in the head.

With the complex falling apart around their ears, Willow did the only thing she could think to do. It had made her howl with rage, but hey, shit was the core of her existence, right? She initiated massive deletion, threw another chair at Maggie Walsh, and ran away.

She found the surface. It was night and she was free. Despite the gunshot wound she knew that if she didn’t think about it she could run all the way to UC Sunnydale. Maybe without collapsing.

Dawn found her where she’d always wanted to be. She had to fall to her knees but that was all the collapsing she was going to allow for herself. She hoped she didn’t look too crappy. She knocked on the door.

Tara opened the door to find Willow kneeling like a dead person against the invisible barrier.

“I have to tell you something,” Willow said quickly. Her mouth and her brain could still work, but her body had given up at Tara’s door, it seemed. “They know about you. That bitch Maggie Walsh. I’m afraid they’re going to do something to you too. They might start taking witches, I wouldn’t put it pass them. I wanted to tell you, so, you could, you have to...um.” Willow stopped. Or did she just black out? “Hey, did I just black out?”

“Will,” Tara said as she tried to hold her. “Co--”

“No!! Don’t invite me in!” Willow nearly shrieked. “I have to tell you--I have to--I would have killed you. That night, I wanted to so much. And maybe it was a kind of love--a vampire love, I dunno. Maybe I would have tried to make you like me. Maybe I still would. Like right now. I want so much to bite you.”

She felt Tara move away. Willow could only slump against the barrier. She watched Tara pick something up on her table and then return.

“And Maggie knows. That fucking psych bitch. I couldn’t wipe the computers. I tried, but I don’t know. I couldn’t...”

Willow stared up at Tara as she neared and felt nothing but sorrow.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry I endangered you. I had to tell you...right away. And then I--and then I.....I gotta go...”

On this side of the barrier was nothing but pain and death, Willow realized. She was death and shittiness, darkness and failure. But on the other side was Life.

What vampire wouldn’t want to eat that? To inhale it, fuck it, make it theirs? There was a sucking, empty space within that needed filling. She wanted Tara safe, but for all her wants, Willow was still this empty, voracious shell, meant to make other empties, like Spike had made her.

I want to drain you dry, Willow told Tara in her mind.

Tara knelt and cut her arm swiftly with an athame, right before Willow’s eyes. She pressed the wound to Willow’s mouth and fed her right there, at the doorway.

“No more tears,” Tara softly soothed, holding Willow to her, and the vampire hadn’t realized that all this time she’d been crying.

Dawn’s light entered the room, but Tara’s body blocked the sun. Willow gave herself up to Tara’s arms and felt that she’d somehow come home. Death, emptiness, and shittiness, she was still all those things, but maybe Maggie Walsh was wrong. Tara was more Life than Willow could ever try to suck away.

Failed vampire, remember? Willow reminded the phantom Walsh in her mind. She tried to find comfort in that.

“Come in, Willow,” Tara whispered to her.


‘Living’

Willow moved very delicately around the dorm room she shared with Buffy. She had an entry and exit wound, no bullet inside her. Tara only had to patch up the holes. The vampire had cleaned up, and now needed fresh clothes. She had a heat signature again. Tara had put the ring back on her finger last night, charged with her own magic. The witch even went to Willie’s and bought her human blood, even though Willow did not want her to. Tara had been very firm. She said she could handle going to a demon bar.

“I think I can protect you here, while I’m gone,” Tara had assured her, while Willow lay recuperating in her bed. “I know a spell...that can misplace my room, for just the day. If the Initiative come, they’ll have to knock on every door. A-And there’s this.”

And Tara cast a spell on the bed that made Willow disappear.

When Willow was not sleeping, she lay awake admiring the glamour that surrounded her. Tara knew a lot, Willow realized, and what she knew, she knew well.

I can learn from you, Willow had thought happily. She stared at the shelved books she hoped to read when she wasn’t ailing.

“You’re alive,” Willow heard said from the doorway. The Slayer stood there, looking perfectly fine from last night.

“No thanks to you,” Willow replied. “And I was referring to my first life. By the way, thanks for lending me your jacket.” She picked it up and tossed it to the Slayer. It was soaked stiff with Willow’s blood.

Buffy’s face turned into that inscrutable mask she often had. She handled the jacket like it were a child. Willow snorted.

“It’s over for the Initiative,” Buffy finally shared. “I wanted Maggie Walsh to go down, so we destroyed as much research data as we could. It turned out she died last night.”

Willow stiffened. “A chair didn’t kill her, did it?” she eventually asked.

“Uh......no. She got skewered by one of those demons with the.” Buffy made some motion with her arms. “Pointy thingie. At least the wound was consistent with that. So it’s over.”

“Really? No more bagging hostiles? No more lab experiments?”

“They’re shut down. As of last night, Riley says he and the other guys have no jobs.”

“My heart cries for them.”

Buffy gently put the ruined jacket away. “You’re safe now,” she said.

Willow thought for a moment, as she slowly finished dressing. “Yeah. Maybe. But I’m not safe from you.”

“You could have gone away. You could have gone to another school,” Buffy whispered, her eyes watching something remembered.

“Yeah. But she loved you. And you said you kinda loved her too. End of happy story,” Willow said simply. She finished dressing. “Bye. Going to have a life now.”

It was daylight, but Willow knew how to walk to Tara’s dorm building in safety. It was a slow and gingerly walk but Willow was healing faster--faster than she’d ever had since Rising. Tara was her first taste of living blood.

“So maybe I’m bound to you,” Willow mused to herself. “You’re a witch, that makes your blood special. And let’s face it, I’m the weakest kind of vampire to come out of the ground. Or off a gurney, actually. If I’m your puppy because I’m in thrall to your blood, and boobies, and beautiful mouth, who cares? Even if I had gotten the chip out I doubt I would’ve had a great demon life. Buffy would have seen to that.

“And besides,” Willow added to herself. She stopped to set aside her backpack and pull out her set of differently colored pens. On a piece of paper she wrote:

“I Like You,” Willow read aloud.

She liberated a cake slice from the commissary so it could accompany the note. She was glad that she picked the cake over the sundae because as it turned out, Tara’s room was still bespelled and Willow couldn’t find it. But now that she was free--really safe and free--Willow didn’t mind the wait for Tara to return from classes. The vampire had all the time in the world.

To live.

So ha ha, Maggie Walsh.


‘Is’

It had been a few weeks already, and Willow did not try to kill Tara even once.

She was on a Tara-only diet, and what a wonderful diet it was. She still entertained fantasies of sticking forks in the campus lawns and hoping students would fall on them. She wondered if she really would scavenge, if she came across any fresh corpses when the Slayer wasn’t looking. But the thought of drinking of other humans didn’t seem like such an insatiable need anymore. Maybe she was getting snobby. Or maybe she was becoming a willing slave to the behavior chip at last.

Proof one: She didn’t even try to kill her parents when she finally went to say hi to them. She still needed their money after all, and an attempted murder would have meant having to flee town, leaving Tara. If Walsh could watch her now, she doubt the prof could say the vampire was still being stupid.

“Can we move in together? Next fall?” Willow hopefully asked. It was too soon for such a question, but....

“Yes,” Tara agreed.

And the sex was Wow and Wheee. Plus Whoopee. Sure she had to be careful because she was stronger and the chip could fire, but it also meant she could encourage Tara to be, y’know...naughty. Willow did research on techniques of inventive naughtiness. If she couldn’t be a natural born serial killer, she could at least be one heck of a sex offender.

“Like that?” Willow often asked after trying a ‘new thing’. “Or...that? How about...that?”

“Ug--w-wa--Will--ah!!” Tara would reply. Willow considered that to be excellent feedback.

Slayer’s whore, her ass. The rumors even reached Tara’s ears, via gossip at Willie’s. For a while there, Tara had thought she was sharing Willow with Buffy, and that had made her really upset. Willow then had to reassure her with lots of smoochies and sex; the vampire was 24/7, Tara’s slut. Still dressed in nauseatingly geeky clothes, but at least she and Tara matched. Willow knew that if she started dressing like her vamp doppelganger from high school Buffy would stake her butt, but fast.

So there was Tara, school, Tara-blood, magic, Tara-sex, some demon-killing, and then Tara again.

This is your honeymoon stage, phantom Maggie would wryly point out in Willow’s head. When your so called ‘relationship’ is finally tested you will slip up.

Shut up, Willow would reply. She could do this, she knew she could. It was only the beginning of something, nascent yet true. For the first time she could see her life beyond just months. Willow intended to have the last laugh.

One night, she and Tara had coffee at the Expresso Pump. In actuality, Tara had coffee. Willow had blood disguised as coffee.

“Do you think we’re like the other couples?” Willow asked.

“Yes,” Tara answered.

Willow felt the empty in her resound with a pretend heartbeat’s pounding. Was this what vampire’s forgot, once they’d killed, and killed? This was connection, a grounding. Willow gave it all or nothing.

“Do you think we’re...in love?” Willow whispered.

Tara’s eyes were the most beautiful thing Willow could see.

“Yes,” Tara simply acknowledged.

When they returned to Tara’s dorm room, Willow believed that she learned how to really make love that night.

You are what you are, phantom Walsh easily dismissed.

“And what is, is,” Willow sarcastically replied, not really certain what she was saying exactly.

They were in Tara’s dorm room, working on assignments. The witch put down her pencil.

“Are you talking to Maggie Walsh again?” Tara asked with a frown. Willow quickly hugged a pillow to herself, feeling silly.

“Yes,” she admitted. Tara smiled and sat down on the bed beside the vampire. Willow’s dead heart always felt ten times bigger with Tara near.

“Tell her that, for now, our love? This is all there is,” Tara stated.

And Willow did.

the end.

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