Willows petite body trembled with the full force of her solitude. The
rampant tears that she had been shedding marred the perfect creaminess of
her complexion and left her with the flushed and puffy glow that was
bestowed upon those who knew what it was to lose. She had spent her nights
like this, in quiet solitude, in this small corner of the UC Sunnydale
campus. For one month she had brought herself to the dark clearing in the
campus where she could hide from all the anonymous stares of pity that had
plagued her since Oz had left. This was her secret place. This was her
garden of revelry, where she would allow herself solace in her tears. Away
from the ever more impatient concern of her friends. No one knew that she
came here, no one knew where to find her in the grassy knoll where she now
sat curled up in a ball, shutting herself off from the excessive stimuli
that the night provided.

So she sat there beneath the fathomless night sky and playful twinkling of
the mocking stars and just cried. Cried because she had been betrayed. Cried
because no one cared. Cried because that was all that she knew to do. But
mostly she cried because she was tired. She was tired of being alone. Tired
of being without him. Tired of knowing that somewhere out there in the world
he was surviving just fine without her. That while the past month had only
become more painful and more torturous to her with every passing day, he was
slowly allowing the memory of her slip from his mind, like some bad dream.
That was the hardest part of all of it for her to take.

She allowed songs that rang with the memory of him to buzz through her mind
day after day. Anything and everything that she heard, smelled, felt made
her think of some aspect of Oz. His gentle and knowing smile, the surprising
soothing effect of his voice and the rare and wondrous presence of his
laughter. She could not erase them from her mind and the harder she tried
the more present they became to her. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her
subconscious mind she knew that people got over heartbreak. They did it
everyday, she had seen them do it. She had stood by as Buffy had braved her
own loss and as it had finally subsided with the help of Riley.

Maybe that was what she needed. A distraction, something that would help her
to be free of the memory of Oz, if only for some small part of her day. But
she could not see herself in anyone else's arms and she was almost positive
that guys did not go for her brand of bland womanliness. That she would be
at a loss in the weird and wacky world that was dating. She didn't stand a
chance with the countless ample bosomed, full lipped, pouty, puppy dog eyed
Cordelia-ettes that were bountiful on campus. She was no Buffy, she was well
aware of that, no way could she walk into a room and straight into some frat
boy's wildest fantasies. She was Willow, plain and simple, nothing much to
the exterior, far from eye candy Willow, and she was doomed to mourn the one
guy that had ever seen her as something more. Something different.

With Oz she had been beautiful. She had been desirable, sexy even, but most
of all she had been wanted. For the first time in all her life of countless
rejections and crush disasters she had been the center of someone's world.
And she had liked it. Now she was old, predictable nothing-special Willow
all over again and she feared more than anything in the world that she would
never feel the rush of someone else's desire for her.

The moon rose high into the night sky until it was nothing but a sliver of
white impaled on the leafless branches of a nearby tree. Since she had
discovered Oz's wolf half she had never seen the moon the same. She had once
seen it as just another astral sphere, just another part of the
ever-mysterious abyss that was the heavens. But now she knew better, now she
knew the power that the moon held over everyone. Not only the creatures that
preferred to call the night their home but also to all of the people that
walked obliviously through it. The mystical hold that it had over
everything, the seasons, the tide, even the basest of human emotions was
enough to make it worthy of worship. So she shared her secret pilgrimages
with the moon and the moon only, knowing that it would watch over her as she
wept.

He stood in the shadows just beyond her view, as he did every night, to keep
vigil over her aching heart. He watched her and felt in his own hollow soul
the pain that she had been determined not to share. His eyes traced the
tender curves of her cheeks as tears soaked them yet one more time. His own
were a mask of red streaks as the sorrow he felt to see her in this state
had become enough to overwhelm him.

Trickles of rain began to drizzle over the both of them but neither was
moved from their position by the intrusion. They remained there each wrapped
in misery neither knowing that within the other lay the key to lifetimes of
joys and love insurmountable. Both crying for loves come and gone blinded by
the curtain of their tears.

He watched her every night. Feeling relief that another shared the same
emotions as he. That he was not the only one that had loved and lost and
crept inside himself for closure and not found any. The wolf's betrayal of
the fragile witch brought back the rush of memories of his dark goddess. How
he had given her the world to play in and she had chosen another to play the
game with. Always another. Never him. Since he had discovered the capacity
to love in her need of him she had always turned to another. Leaving him
with the stars that he had plucked from the heavens for her burning in his
blistered hands. She had never appreciated how he loved her. She never
appreciated love.

He knew that he should not be surprised. She was, after all, a vampire and
they were not exactly known for their capacity to love. But he had loved
her, still did and he was one of her kind. Was he a lone odd specimen? Could
it be possible that he shared more in common with his sire than he cared to
acknowledge? He had yet to meet another vampire that had ever loved anything
but reeking havoc and misery with the intensity which he loved Drusilla. Or
as Angel had loved Buffy, once.
Did this make him weak? That he followed the oblivious redhead on her
nightly pilgrimages? That he wallowed in her sorrow and found solace in her
pain? Because he was just like her. They had both lost more than either had
ever thought they possibly even had. And there they were, on opposite ends
of the small clearing but on the same side of solitude.
How he longed to take the trembling creature into his arms and pass his
fingers through the fiery silk of her hair. To show her that there was no
need for her to cry alone, that she was not alone. That he cried with her.
How he ached to take her childlike face into the palm of his hands and kiss
the salty wetness from her face and wait for her to do the same for him. But
he could not. He could not take that leap. Both for the sake of his heart
and hers.

They could never be on the same sides of the fight, no matter what present
circumstances may indicate. Eventually the world that they would build
around themselves would crumble and they would be enemies again. And neither
one of them was prepared to take that kind of beating to their hearts. So
for now he satisfied himself in sharing her world in silence. Until he no
longer needed the company of her tears to soothe him.

The rain hurt. It pounded against her small form as if it were trying to
pierce through her. But she had long ago stopped feeling anything but the
burning pain in her chest. She wanted to drown in the onslaught of rain.
She wanted to let it wrap her in its frigid embrace and flood her until
there was nothing left of her. The rain mingled with the salt of her tears
and she imagined them becoming an ocean that would carry her away. Away
from all that she had lost, to free her and take her into a journey ?through
the looking glass? the likes of which Alice could never have dreamed.

But it wouldn?t. So she would have to.

She would have to bring herself to escape. To run from that which she had
once sought out as comfort. She needed to run from the monotony that was
her life.

And so she did.

She ran under the cloak of the rain filled night. She ran from the safety
of her hideaway. She ran from the campus that she called home for the past
months. She ran until her lungs burned and her legs ached and still she
continued to run. Not caring that nothing was chasing her and not knowing
what she was running to. Eventually she would reach it and she would stop
but not now, now she would just run.

----------------------------------------
He was taken by surprise when he saw Willow lift herself up from her slumped
position on the wet ground and take to a run. He stopped and watched her
wondering if it was wise for him to follow. His heart cried out for him to
go after her, to make sure that she would be all right, to continue his
secret vigil over her, but his demon held him back. His demon fought with
him not allowing him to succumb to the weakness of his human heart. And as
the struggle raged within him she disappeared over a hill just beyond where
he stood.

Then he could not see her.

For a moment, she was gone to him. For just a moment, that to him, a
creature for whom time was simply a burden to bare, felt like an eternity.
And in that moment the stronger of the two entities won and he was after her
in a lithe sprint. She was fast, but he was faster and in the blink of an
eye he was running so close behind her that he was afraid she would tilt her
head and spot him.

But she didn?t, she was caught in her own world. So he continued behind
her, watching as the smooth muscles of her back and legs flexed with each
step she took.
---------------------------------------

Around her the world stood still, she was running in another time, another
place, where she was all that existed. Her legs were pleading with her to
stop but the pain only spurned her to continue. She would not stop until
she was lost to everything that was causing her the anguish she felt within
her. She was oblivious to the fact that it was something that was not so
easily hidden from.

She faintly made out the sound of someone behind her. She heard the heavy
footsteps as they pounded the pavement in time with her own. But she
ignored it, she put the intrusion of the un-welcomed stranger to the back of
her mind and pressed on.

She was deaf even to the rain now. All she could hear was the beating of
her own heart. And she was content in the delusion that for the moment
heartache was far behind her. She would run so fast and so far that it
would never find her again.

She was so hypnotized by her beating heart that she did not here the scream
that came from behind her.

She didn?t here it until it was too late.

?Willow!!!!? She heard the warning yell come from behind her and she was snapped out of her revelry.

Suddenly, she saw the lights. Heard the screeching of the tires. Smelled the burning rubber from the friction of the road. Felt cold strong arms grab her in a blur of black and platinum blond. Finally, she felt the force with which her and her savior had been thrown across the road by the impact of the oncoming truck. Their intertwined bodies flew through the air and landed in a heap of blood and broken bone yards away from where they had made impact with the oversized vehicle.

Willow became strangely hyperaware of time. Where moments before it did not exist to her she now found herself slow and out of place in the rapid movement of it. It sped about her in confusing swirls of voices and movement leaving her paralyzed only to watch it run its course. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was vaguely tuned in to the fact that she had just been hit by a car, a truck, and that someone had saved her from what would have been, for all intents and purposes should have been, a deadly crash. That someone had taken the full force of the crash to shield her from it.

It stopped raining as she lay on the cold ground with the weight of her guardian angel on her and the world buzzing around her. She felt the movement as he regained consciousness, heard the soft pleadings of her name as she looked at the blurred image of him before her. She closed her eyes trying to focus them and as she opened them she still could not make out the form that stood over her, cradling her gently in his arms, crying softly into her hair.

She was so tired now, so cold.


<Sleep. I?ll just sleep for a little while. That's all just some sleep>.

So she closed her eyes and did not open them again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------


?Willow?, he whispered into her unhearing ears. ?Willow.? The sobs were beyond his control now. They had become a part of him that he did not want to let go, just as she had slowly become. He saw her close her eyes, he felt the tremble of her last breath overtake her, but he would not believe it, he would not allow himself to believe it.

He caressed the silky curve of her cheek and traced his finger along her cheekbone until it met with the warmth of her slightly parted lips. They were still warm to his icy touch. He brought his face down to hers and lightly brushed her lips with his, he closed his eyes and took a deep unneeded breath so that his senses could fully experience every aspect of her. Her smell, like soft vanilla, her skin, like rare fine satin and the sweet taste of her lips, the earthly manifestation of the ambrosia of the gods.

He reluctantly pulled himself away from her as he felt her lips go cold beneath him.

?This wasn?t supposed to be this way.? He whispered beneath his breath. ?This was not how our first kiss was meant to be.? He stared at her unmoving body, waiting for response but knowing that he would not get one.

He stood up from his crouched position on the floor and scooped her of the floor and into his arms.

?Hey buddy, maybe you should wait for the ambulance to get here.? He vaguely heard the truck driver say after he broke the awestricken spell that he had been under as he watched the tender display before him.

The blond vampire turned his attention to the man, noticing him for the first time. Spike walked calmly over to the burly man and stretched his arms out so that he could get a better look at the battered body in them.

?An ambulance can?t help her now.? He said quietly. He lowered Willow?s body onto the ground and turned back to the truck driver. ?And it can?t help you either.?

With one swift motion he took the man?s head and twisted his neck until he fell lifeless to the floor.

The pain that wracked his head as he did so was not as overwhelming as it usually was and in no way prevented him from getting his revenge on the oblivious driver.

He stepped over the dead man and once again took Willow into his arms.

He left the chaos behind him and walked with the woman that he loved into the refuse of the dark night.




The End